Custom Fields

Custom fields capture the details your business needs that Journeybee does not collect as standard. You can add them to partners, leads, deals and contacts, choose who sees them, and decide which ones must be filled in.

On the same page you also control the standard fields Journeybee ships with, so you can hide the ones you do not use and require the ones you do.

Where to find it: Go to Settings, then Custom Fields (under Partner Program).

Who can use this: Admins and Partnership Team members.

The four tabs

The page has one tab for each record type you can extend:

Partners
Leads
Deals
Contacts

If you have more than one partner type enabled, a second row of tabs lets you configure each type separately. A field created for Referral partners does not appear on Reseller partners unless you duplicate it across.

Standard fields

Each tab starts with the fields Journeybee provides as standard. You cannot rename or delete these, but you can set Required and Hidden on each one:

Partners: Company Name, Website, Country.
Leads: First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone Number, Company Name.
Deals: Deal Name, Deal Value, Currency, Commission, Expiration.
Contacts: First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone Number, Position.

Two fields are locked on and their toggles are greyed out, because a partnership cannot be created without them: Company Name on Partners, and Email on Contacts.

Position on Contacts is hidden by default. Turn Hidden off if you want to collect job titles.

These settings apply everywhere the record is created or edited, including partner-facing forms and the partner portal, so hiding a field removes it from those surfaces too.

Field types

There are eleven field types. Journeybee validates the value when the record is saved, so choosing the right type keeps your data clean without you having to police it.

Text: a single line of text, up to 5,000 characters.
Long text: a multi-line box, up to 10,000 characters. Use it for notes, descriptions and anything that runs past a line.
Email: must be a valid email address. Stored in lower case so the same address always matches.
Website: must be a valid web address, up to 2,048 characters. Journeybee tidies the format for you.
Phone: must be a valid phone number. Journeybee normalises it to a consistent format.
Number: numbers only.
Date: a date picker.
Boolean: a true or false choice.
Checkbox: a single tick box. Behaves like Boolean, but shows as a tick box rather than a toggle.
Select: a dropdown where one option can be chosen from a list you define.
Multi select: the same, but several options can be chosen.

If someone enters a value that does not fit the type, the record will not save and Journeybee names the field in the error, for example "Renewal date" must be a valid email address. The same validation runs on CSV imports, so bad rows are reported instead of silently stored.

Choosing a type

You cannot change a field's type after it is created, so it is worth a moment's thought. You can always rename the field and edit its options later.

Prefer a Select over free Text whenever the answers come from a known list. Select values can be filtered, reported on, used in field rules, and used to drive scaling commissions. Free text cannot.

Creating a custom field

Open the tab for the record type you want (Partners, Leads, Deals or Contacts).
Click Add Field.
Enter a Field name. This is the label people see, so write it as a question or a plain noun.
Choose a Field type from the list above.
Choose which Partner Types the field applies to.
For Select and Multi select, add your options one at a time.
Optionally add Help text, a Link URL and a Link label (see below).
Tick Shared if partners should see the field too.
Click Create.

Help text and links

Every field can carry guidance so people know what to enter without asking you:

Help text: a short explanation shown with the field. Use it for the rule behind the field, for example "Use the customer's legal entity name, not their trading name".
Link URL and Link label: an optional link shown alongside the field. Point it at a policy page, a pricing sheet, or an internal wiki article, and give it a short label such as "See pricing tiers".

These are the cheapest way to cut down on incorrectly filled fields, especially on fields partners complete themselves.

Required, Hidden and Shared

Each field row has toggles that control how it behaves:

Required: the record cannot be saved until the field has a value. Applies to your team and to partners.
Hidden: the field is not shown when creating or editing the record. Existing values are kept.
Shared: partners can see the field in their portal and on forms. Leave it off for internal-only information.

Use Required sparingly. Every required field is another thing standing between a partner and a submitted lead, and required fields apply to partner-facing forms as well as your own screens.

A field that is both hidden and required cannot be satisfied on a form, so Journeybee skips hidden fields when checking what is required. Field rules that hide a field work the same way.

Reordering, editing and duplicating

Reorder: drag a field by its handle. The order here is the order people see.
Edit: click the pencil to change the name, options, help text or link.
Duplicate: click the duplicate icon, choose the partner types to copy the field to, and click Duplicate. This saves rebuilding the same field for each partner type by hand.
Delete: click the bin icon.

Changes to names, Required, Shared and the standard field settings are kept when you click Save at the top. Editing a single field's options saves that field on its own.

Field rules

Below your fields, Field Rules let one field change another automatically: show a field only when a certain option is chosen, set a value for someone, or map each value of one field to a value in another.

Rules are covered in full in Custom Field Rules.

Troubleshooting

I cannot change a field's type

Field types are fixed once created, because existing values are already stored in that shape. Create a new field with the correct type, then delete the old one when you have moved the data across.

A record will not save

The error names the field and the reason. The usual causes are a required field left empty, or a value that does not match the field type, such as text in a Number field or an incomplete email address.

I cannot delete a field

A field used by a commission cannot be deleted. Remove it from the commission first, then delete the field.

A partner cannot see a field

Check that Shared is on and Hidden is off, and that the field applies to that partner's type. Also check whether a field rule is hiding it.

The field is missing on one partner type

Fields are per partner type. Use Duplicate to copy the field to the other types.

Good to know

Deleting a field deletes the values stored in it for every record. This cannot be undone, so export anything you need first.
Custom fields are available through the public API and on embeddable forms, so a field you add here can be filled in from your website or another system.
Select fields on deals are what make scaling commission rates possible, for example a different rate per product tier. See Commissions.
Keep names short and unambiguous. The field name is what your team, your partners and your reports all see.