Create Custom Contact Fields

Article author
Paige York
Updated

Overview

Custom fields allow you to capture individualized research about a contact, account, or user and leverage them in Apollo sequences for personalization. Custom contact fields allow you to capture information about individual people so you can easily re-use it in a sequence template.

Check out the following sections to learn how to create and edit contact fields.

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Create a Custom Contact Field

To create a contact field:

  1. Launch Apollo and click Settings.
  2. Go to Data management > Objects > Contacts.
  3. Click Fields.

Contacts button highlighted in Settings navigation bar

  1. Click Create Field.

Create Field button highlighted

  1. Select a field type for your custom contact field. Available field types include:
Field Type Description
Single-line text Allows you to include a single line of text for the contact field. You must specify the maximum number of characters for the field.
Multi-line text Allows you to include a string of text that spans multiple lines. You must specify the maximum number of characters for the field. Line breaks count against the total character count.
Number Allows you to include a number with or without decimals. You cannot use non-numeric characters.
Single-select picklist Allows you to include an existing picklist or create a new picklist with defined values. You can only select one value from the picklist. For additional information about creating picklists, please see Create Global Picklists.
Multi picklist Allows you to include an existing picklist or create a new picklist with defined values. You can only select multiple values from the picklist. For additional information about creating picklists, please see Create Global Picklists.
Date Allows you to type a date in the format of Day/Month/Year or select a date with the calendar widget.
Date/time Allows you to type a date in the format of Day/Month/Year or select a date with the calendar widget. Allows you to select a time in half-hour increments from the drop-down.
Checkbox Allows you to specify either True or False within the field's drop-down.
User lookup Allows you to specify a user from your account via a drop-down.
 
Choose Wisely

You can't change the field type after creating a custom contact field.

Field type selection for new custom field creation

  1. Enter a field name.
  2. If you selected a single-line text or multi-line text field, define the field's maximum character count.

Field name and maximum character count for new custom field

  1. If you selected a single-select or multi picklist, choose whether to use a global picklist value set or create custom picklist options. Global picklist options are shared between you and your teammates to use for any picklist fields.
    • To create custom picklist options, click Add option then enter text for each added option. Click Save as global picklist to save this list for later use and make it available to your team when they create picklist fields.

Picklist options and custom picklist option creation

  1. Save your new custom contact field as a global custom field or a private field. Global fields are visible to everyone on your team.

Global custom field and private field options highlighted for custom field creation

  1. For private fields, select a search view to display your new custom field. You need to select at least 1 view to use your private field.

Private field search view selection highlighted

  1. (Optional) If your new field is a global custom field and you've integrated your Salesforce CRM with Apollo, select a Salesforce contact field or Salesforce lead field to map to your new custom contact field. Click the checkbox to make this custom field read-only. This means that Apollo will only pull data directly from the mapped Salesforce fields but will not push data back to Salesforce.
  2. Click Save.

Map to Salesforce settings highlighted for new custom field creation

Your new field will appear under Custom fields or My private fields, depending on the options you selected when configuring the field.

Custom and private fields sections highlighted on Fields page

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Edit a Custom Contact Field

To edit a custom contact field:

  1. Navigate back to Fields.
  2. Locate your custom contact field in Custom fields or My private fields, then click ... > Edit field.

Custom contact field with edit field option highlighted

  1. Make any desired changes to your custom contact field. Note that you can't change the field type when editing an existing custom field.

Edit custom contact field

  1. If you edit a custom field with a global picklist, click Go to global picklists to edit your global picklist options.

Go to global picklists button highlighted for editing global picklist field

  1. Click Save when you're done.

You've now edited your custom contact field.

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