Ch. 026b Custom Profile Fields

Overview

In this article you'll learn:

There are also Related Articles linked at the end for information on other parts of Pressero that can affect how Custom Profile Fields work.

Creating a Custom Profile Field
Preferences > Custom Profile Fields

Creating a Custom Profile Field is a 2-step process:

  • First, go to Preferences > Custom Profile Fields to create the field for your entire Pressero instance.
  • Second, go to Site > (Your Site) > User Management > Profile Fields to enable the custom profile field for individual sites.

Let's look at the first step in more detail.

Go to Preferences > Custom Profile Fields and take a look at the page, which should look something like this:

On this page, notice the following:

  • At the top, the green Add New button. You'll use this to create a new Custom Profile Field.
  • There are search boxes at the top of two columns. These allow you to type in part of the prompt or the attribute to quickly find an existing Custom Profile Field.
  • The pencil icon , which allows you to edit an existing field.
  • There is an Include Deleted checkbox in the upper right, which allows you to view deleted fields in case you need to restore them.

To create a new Custom Profile Field, click the green Add New Profile Field button.

You will be brought to the following screen:

Fill out the fields with asterisks, then be sure to hit the blue save at the bottom to save your changes and create the field.

Let's take a closer look at the fields and their purposes.

Required Fields

  • Prompt: Name your field, or give your customer instructions here. You might say, "Enter your referral number", or "Enter your favorite color" for the prompt.
  • Attribute: This is used for integrations with eDocBuilder and other tools. Keep it descriptive, short, and simple so you can recognize it later. "Referral" or "favcolor", for example, might be good choices to go along with the previous prompts.
  • Field Type: This will allow you to define how your customers interact with your custom field. It affects what defaults you can set with the Options field.

The Field Type

In the image above, it shows the Type field and its options.

  • Text Box: Can hold up to 120 characters.
  • Drop-Down List: Allows you to set a selection of options that a customer is forced to pick from. Prevents users from entering typos.
  • Small Text Box: Can hold up to 60 characters.
  • Text Area: This allows up to 1024 characters, and the customer can resize the field visually if they need it to be bigger while typing information in.
  • Radio Buttons: Appropriate for Yes/No questions, or cases when you don't want to use a drop-down list.
  • Calendar: Allows users to select a date from a calendar.

Field Type Affects What a New Customer Sees

All Custom Profile Fields are tucked under the "Additional Information" header when you are viewing them on your site or storefront.

Above is an example from a storefront/customer point-of-view of four field types. Top-left is a drop-down list, top right is the text area. Bottom-left is a field using radio buttons, and bottom-right is a field using calendar.

Optional Fields

These fields may or may not be optional depending on your needs:

  • Include in Order Details: Checking this will make your custom profile field (and any data in it) show up on a customer's Order Details for several reports.
  • Options: This area will change depending on what type you select, and it will allow you to specify defaults create a list of choices for Drop-Down and Radio Button fields, if needed. (Enter one list or radio button item per line.)

Below is an example of how Options look when you've selected Drop-Down List as your Field Type.

Save Your Changes!
Once you have filled out the form, remember to save before navigating to another page! Your Custom Profile Field won't be created or updated unless you save.

Enabling Custom Profile Fields
On a Site-by-Site Basis

Once you have created a Custom Profile Field to begin with, enabling it for a specific site is the same as editing default profile fields and adding/removing them from a site.

You can use the same field on multiple sites.

Enable on Your Sites

Go to Site > (Your Site) > User Management > Profile Fields. You'll see something like the following:

Note that if you've created several Custom Profile Fields, there may be too many fields to display on one page. Use the pager at the bottom of the page until you can see your Custom Profile Field.

Next, click on the pencil icon  to edit a Custom Profile Field you created earlier. The row will change to look like this:

Then set the following:

  • Make sure "Active on Form" is checked. If left unchecked, the custom field will not appear on the sign up form, or in the site user area of admin, or in the customer's profile located in the storefront when they log in. 

Note: If you have Custom Profile Fields set up on your site, those can be included when doing site user imports or exports to your site. But only Custom Profile Fields set to "Show on Form" on User Management > Profile Fields will be included in those reports. Refer to Ch.045 Adding / Editing Site Users or Are Custom Profile Fields supported when doing Site User Imports or Experts? for more information. 

  • If desired, also set "Required". Required means your customers will not be able to complete signup, or (if existing) won't be able to complete checkout, until that field is filled in.
  • SAVE! Make sure to click the green check  to save your changes.

Disabling a Custom Profile Field

Disabling a Custom Profile Field is just like enabling, except you uncheck the Active on Form instead of checking it.

Make sure to hit the green check to save your change!

Warnings!

Marking a field as required on a site when it wasn't previously will prevent existing customers from checking out until they fill out the field in their profile.

They also can't edit the information in their profiles unless they have the correct permissions.

See this page on editing default Profile Fields to make sure your permissions are set up correctly.

Integrating Custom Profile Fields with eDocBuilder

To integrate Custom Profile Fields in Pressero with eDocBuilder, you must create an admin account in Pressero. This account will then be used to link your Pressero account to eDocBuilder, so eDocBuilder knows which Custom Profile Fields to give you access to when you are designing a template.

We recommend you create a unique admin account that's reserved solely for Custom Profile Field integration.

For example, you might have a username of cpf@example.com that isn't linked to any specific user, so that even if your employees come and go, the integration linked to eDocBuilder won't be affected if a specific user's admin account is removed.

After you have created the admin account in Pressero, log into your eDocBuilder account and go to Admin > Pressero credentials. That brings you to a page that looks like the below image:

Fill in the fields on the left side using the Pressero credentials you just set up. Then, click on the blue Authenticate and Save Credentials button on the bottom, and after that, on the right, click the Reload button under Pressero Custom Profile Types. You should see the attributes for the custom profile fields you created populate underneath.

Once this part is complete, you can edit a template at any time to use data from Pressero.

To tell eDocBuilder to use data from Pressero for a particular field, log into eDocBuilder and edit one of your templates. 

Then, go to the Field Setup tab, and expand the field you want to populate with data from Pressero. For that field, click on the Data Capture tab, and look for Profile Field Type, which is a drop-down box.

All of your custom profile fields from Pressero should populate at the end of that drop-down list, and you will be able to select whichever one you need to use. It should resemble the image below:

 

Remember to click the Commit Changes button in eDocBuilder after selecting your custom field to save your changes to the template!

If you'd rather use the Field Designer instead of Field Setup, click on the Field Designer tab, and then select your text field from the left side of the screen. When you click on a text field, on the far right side of the screen you'll see a new area appear. In it is a General tab.

If you scroll down from there, you'll be able to select your custom field using the Profile Field Type drop-down list. See the image below. 

As before, remember to Save and Publish!

Refreshing The Field List

After the initial setup on the Admin page, you don't have to keep going back to that page whenever you add new custom profile fields in Pressero. 

On both the Field Setup page and the Field Designer page there is a Refresh Custom Profiles or Refresh Profile Types button you can use to get eDocBuilder to pull the most recent list of custom fields from Pressero.

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