Glossary: Custom Fields
Elisa Dinsmore avatar
Written by Elisa Dinsmore
Updated over a week ago

This article is for Flatfile's Portal 2.0, Portal 3.0, and Workspaces. If you'd like to check out the latest version of the Flatfile Data Exchange Platform, click here!

The custom fields feature allows users to add new fields during the matching step that were not accounted for in the data template they are uploading to.

Custom fields are temporary, and allow a more flexible uploading and matching experience. We know your data isn’t going to look the same every time. And sometimes the information contained in certain datasets is only going to show up once—you still need it, but you shouldn’t have to make a new data template for every unique case. Custom fields grant you that flexibility.

If you find yourself regularly adding the same custom fields to your data, however, you should consider creating a new data template. Custom fields are designed for temporary, one-off use cases. Adding them every time to an upload would be an unnecessarily tedious process.

Additionally, because custom fields are added after all your Data Hooks® are written, Data Hooks cannot interact with any of the data in the custom fields. This is just one of the advantages of having a dedicated data template: if you know what to expect, you can programmatically transform your data as it comes in.

With custom fields, we feel like we have given you the best of both worlds. You can maintain the flexibility of uploading data that’s not quite what you expected, while allowing you to create powerful data templates and Data Hooks that can automatically clean and process your data.

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