Custom Profile Fields

 

About This Feature

Custom profile fields are an incredibly powerful feature that expands what community operators can know about each member. During onboarding, custom profile fields can be included as a set of prompts to ensure a comprehensive understanding of every new member joining.

 

How It Works

Each member profile contains two elements: 

  • Standard Profile Fields: Capture and display essential information on every profile. For example, email fields. However, standard profile fields can be toggled on or off to customize visibility.
  • Custom Profile Fields: Available in various formats, including Single Select, Multiple Select, Written Answer, or Link.

 For each profile field, admins can choose to manage:

  • Visibility: Choose to make the field:
    • Visible to Everyone in the “Public” tab, OR
    • Visible to Admins only in the private “Details” tab.
  • Capturing or Not Capturing: 
    • Capturing: Members can submit answers/responses to the fields.
    • Not capturing: New members will no longer see the question during onboarding flow or on their profile. Existing responses captured in the past won’t be deleted.

 

How To Manage Custom Profile Fields

  1. Navigate to Admin > Members > Profile Fields
  2. Manage the standard profile fields by toggling on/off the visibility settings and whether a field should be captured.
  3. Manage the custom profile fields by editing/removing the default fields. 
  4. To add new custom fields, click on the “+” icon, select the format (Single Select, Multiple Select, Written Answer, or Link), then fill in the questions and answer options if applicable.
  5. Click “Save Changes”.

 

Important Considerations

  • Email addresses are always private, only visible to admin
  • Only public groups (visible to everyone) are shown on the member profile 
  • If you decide to delete a field, existing data associated with the field, including responses from members, will also be deleted.

FAQs

  1. What type of information can be captured in the Member profile?

Standard information such as full name, avatar, bio and timezone. In addition, admins can create custom fields to capture additional information relevant to the community, such as links, locations, short answers, and more.

  1. Who can see the information provided by members?

The admin can select the visibility of a profile field, either “Everyone” or “Admin only”.

  • If "Everyone" is selected, all members can see the information other members provided on the public Profile tab.
  • If "Admin only" is selected, then only the admins can see the information provided by members on the private Detail tab.
  1. Is filling out information mandatory for members?

For this version, members are optionally required to fill out the fields during the onboarding. If a field is skipped during this flow, members can fill out the fields later on their Member Profile.

  1. What should I do if a field is no longer relevant?

We suggest stopping capturing the information if a field is irrelevant instead of deleting the question. By toggling the field off, new members joining the community will not be asked to provide information for that question, and it will also be hidden on existing members' profiles.