Add Custom Fields with Extra User Data
Contents
What are Custom Fields?
Custom fields are extra data fields you add to your user data beyond the default user fields used by Dado. These can then be used in different ways to customize dynamic content in experience tasks or messages.
For example, you could create a custom field called "Greeting", and fill it with different words for every user to ensure each employee is greeted in their favorite way.
When you create a new Custom Field, it's set as a new field in every employee's Dado Profile. Saving the data in the Profile allows you to reuse it in Target Audiences or as Text Replacement Variables in Tasks, Messages and Automations. Find instructions for how to do this below, under the heading Use a Custom Field as a Variable.
How to add a Custom Field
1. Create the Custom Field in your Settings
Go to Settings > Custom Fields and click “Data Field” to define a new custom field.
Custom fields are applied to all your users, even if you only plan to use the field in one experience or for a few users.
A custom field consists of
- Data type: specify what kind of data the field is. See below for descriptions.
- Name: The name of the field used within the Dado application
- Data key: The identifier of the custom field used in e.g. the Google sheets integration
- Description (optional): Use to add notes visible to you and your co-admins, e.g. to document the intended use of a field.
Custom Fields also have a type that is used to identify what kind of data this is:
- Text: use this to store text that varies per user in tasks or messages e.g. greetings or pronouns
- Number: for quantities, positions, etc. In the future, you'll be able to filter users by this type of field.
- Boolean (yes/no): use when answering a question e.g. is this person an external consultant. In the future, you'll be able to filter users by this type of field.
- Date: for extra dates not supported out of the box by Dado, e.g. Birthday or Promotion date. In the future, you'll be able to filter users by this type of field.
- User relationship: define user relationships not supported by Dado out of the box. For example, if you create a Buddy role in an experience, you should add a User Relationship named Buddy to your user data so Dado can know who is who's buddy. For detailed information, please see the related article "Supporting Actors"
2. Populate the new Custom Field with data
You have several choices of how to populate a new field.
Import data to a Custom Field from an Integration
If you are importing users through CSV, Google Sheet, or Airtable you can link a custom field to a column in your data source. To do so, simply add a column with a name matching the Data Key of a custom field. When you run an import, Dado will bring the data in that column to the appropriate field in each user's profile in Dado.
After adding the column and the data to your CSV/Google Sheet/Airtable table, run a user import to bring the custom data into Dado.
Add data to a Custom Field using a Sub-task
See full instructions in this article: Sending data from a sub-task to a Dado field or other data destination
Use a Custom Field as a Variable
Once you've created a custom field and imported the user data into, it can be used as a Variable. It can be added to the text in Tasks, Automations and Messages using the format {{role.dataKey}}. Note that variables are case sensitive so {{participant.HasPet}} is different than {{participant.haspet}}.
In the the Greeting example above, you could write a message like this:
{{participant.greeting}}, {{participant.firstName}}!
We're happy to have you here! Your manager is {{manager.firstName}}.
If you've added the greeting data "Hello" for a participant called Anna whose manager is Bob, she would see
Aloha, Anna! We're happy to have you here! Your manager is Bob.
While a participant called Harry, who reports to Ingrid and who has the greeting "Hello" would see
Hello, Harry! <br>We're happy to have you here! Your manager is Ingrid.