Custom Fields help you gather important information about members to create better experiences and more connections in the community.
Today, Custom Fields offers a dropdown selection and short and long text options.
Network Hosts can create Custom Fields by navigating to Admin > Members > Custom Fields and selecting “Create Field”.
Then follow these steps:
Response Type: Decide how many options a member can select from the dropdown, one (single select) or multiple (multi-select), short text, or long text. The response type cannot be edited later.
Name the Custom field, which will appear on the member’s profile if you set the field to be visible to members.
Create a description that will appear next to the input field.
Create a placeholder response that will appear in the input field when empty.
Click “Next: Configure” to configure.
Configuring Dropdown options
If you chose single or multi-select, then you will see these configure options:
For multi-select, you can set a response limit between 2 and 40 for the number of options a member can select.
For both types, choose whether you will allow members to type a response that doesn’t appear in the dropdown. Custom responses added by members will appear as an option in the dropdown for all members in the future.
Then enter up to 20 dropdown options. You can edit them and add more later.
Configuring Text Options
There are no additional configuration options for Short Text and Long Text options.
Here are the character limits for each of the options
Short text 1-255 max characters for response
Long text 1-2000 max characters for response
Privacy Options
For all field options, you will configure the privacy settings for the responses. This cannot be edited once the field is created. Requests for sensitive information must comply with Mighty Networks' Terms and Conditions.
The Field Privacy options are
Public: everyone in the Network can see the responses
Private: Only Hosts, moderators, and the responding member can see the responses
Creating the Field
After a field is created, it will be hidden until you make it visible.
To make it visible, toggle on visible in the upper right corner.
After you do, you will have the option to notify all members of the new field.
If you do, members will receive an email and in-app notification.
Managing Custom Fields
Custom Fields List
After you create a field, it will show on your Custom field list. You can click the three dot menu next to each field for more management options including editing the field, changing the Display field, making a field hidden or visible, or deleting the field.
Additionally, you can filter this list by the following:
Type
Visibility
Privacy
And you can sort by the following:
Field Name (A to Z)
Field Name (Z to A)
Newest
Oldest
# of Respondents (Most)
# of Respondents (Least)
Display Order
Display Fields
The Display Field will be the primary one that shows on member's profiles and under the Explore filter within the Global and Space Members features.
A star appears next to your Display Field.
If you want to change the Display Field, first remove the current one by going to the three dot menu next to it and choose "Remove as Display Field." Then choose another field to be the Display Field. Only public single select fields can be set as the Display Field.
Merging Fields
If you allow custom responses for your Dropdown options and want to merge responses, select “Edit Custom Field” and “Merge Option into…”
This may be useful for typos or when a response is similar to another response.
Reordering Custom Fields
You can reorder how fields appear on the Member Profile or Member Detail Page by going to Members > Reorder Custom Fields.
The field’s privacy setting controls whether or not it appears on a profile.
Viewing Responses
You can view your member’s responses on the Member List by going to Admin > Members > Member List.
You can filter the list by Custom Field responses. To learn more about viewing your member list, check out this article.
Member Experience
When editing their profile a member will see Custom Fields above the location field.
After they select their response and click “Save”, they will see the response on their profile.
If they click on their response > See Members, they will see a list of the members who selected the same response.
Automations
Custom Fields can be added to Automation Workflows (Workflows consist of a Trigger and an Action). ‘Responded to Custom Field’ and ‘Removed Response to Custom Field’ are just two of many available Triggers you can create and define resulting Actions.
Learn more about creating and configuring automations: FAQ: How Can I Set Up Automations?
Search
Responses to Custom Fields are also pulled into your network’s global search. If members want to view others who’ve selected the same dropdown Custom Field, they can leverage the global search bar to pull up those members.
Mighty Insights™
View the Custom Fields dashboard in your MightyInsights™ to see data about your network’s usage of Custom Fields. You can filter by field type, visibility, and privacy. Clicking the three dot menu next to the Custom Fields shows the Detail Dashboard, which displays Total Respondents and deeper insights about respondents. Learn more in our FAQ of MightyInsights™.
Looking for ideas? Check out our Guide to Custom Fields 101.