Fields

Ortto’s fields feature allows you view all people and organizations (including those added from data source integrations) in your Ortto account’s customer data platform (CDP), as well as define new custom data fields for across all people or organizations in the CDP, where each of these records are available from the People and Organizations pages, respectively.

The Fields page allows you to create new custom fields, as well as edit or delete existing custom fields.

A new field’s custom data could be one of many supported data types ranging from simple types, such as text or numerical fields, through to more complex data types such as JSON objects or data aggregates.

Should you need to include a field in an API call, you can find the field’s ID (such as str::first for First name) in the field list, on the far right of the field’s name (or by clicking on the field’s name).

  • Ortto supports the following maximum custom fields (of any data type) per Ortto account:

    • 100 person custom fields, and

    • 25 organization custom fields.

  • Custom fields are only associated with person and organization records, and are independent of activities and their attribute fields.

  • New custom fields can also be created from views of an individual person’s or organization’s record, through the People and Organizations pages, respectively.

Field activity tracking

Ortto allows field activity tracking for system, custom and data source fields (except organization fields and mutli select and aggregate type fields). Enabling activity tracking for fields will create a custom activity for changes to that field. For example, a custom field called Plan tier with tracking enabled will have an associated custom activity called Custom: Plan tier changed.

This means that when a person updates a field with activity tracking enabled (such as changing their phone number), you will see an activity for the change in the person’s view, under Activities. You can also filter people using that activity as a condition.

The custom activities created as a result of field activity tracking count towards your Ortto plan limits.

The custom activity created from field activity tracking can be used as journey entry criteria or in a report by capturing changes from the previous activity value to the new value, such as if you wanted to track a customer’s subscription plan upgrade.

Custom field change activities have a default 90-day data retention limit. Customers on selected Ortto plans who wish to keep the data beyond 90 days will need to configure the activity’s data retention limit.

If you disable field activity tracking after enabling it, the custom activity associated with the field will remain in your CDP but will not be tracking changes (until you re-enable it).

Access the fields page

To access the Fields page, navigate to Settings  Customer data  Fields.

On this page, you can:

Create a new person custom field

  1. On the Fields page, click Add custom field  Create person field.

  2. In the Create field dialog, specify the Field name and choose from one of the appropriate Field types (below).

  3. If you choose any of the following Field types, you will need to specify additional values:

  4. Under Field activity, select the checkbox if you wish to track changes to the field. Selecting this feature will create a custom activity based on the field, which you can use in Reports.

    If your field type is Multi select or Aggregate, you will not be able to track changes to the field.

  5. Click OK to create the custom field.

Your new custom field becomes available to people records, which are viewable through the People page.

Create a new organization custom field

  1. On the Fields page, click Add custom field  Create organization field.

  2. In the Create field dialog, specify the Field name and choose from one of the appropriate Field types (below).

  3. If you choose any of the following Field types, you will need to specify additional values:

  4. Click OK to create the custom field.

Your new custom field becomes available to organization records, which are viewable through the Organization page.

Supported data types

A custom field can be created based on one of the following data types, although some are specific to people or organizations.

The Availability column indicates whether the custom field’s data type is available for person or organization records only, or both.

Data type Availability Description

Text

Both

Any combination of letters and numbers whose length is 500 characters or fewer, irrespective of the language used.

Long text

Both

A text field type whose length is 500 characters or more, irrespective of the language used.

Email

Organization

A valid email address, consisting of the format:
local-part@domain.address

Number

Both

A whole (integer) number.

Decimal number

Both

A decimal (floating point) number.

Currency

Both

A decimal number displayed as currency.

The currency symbol used to represent this field’s values in person and organization record data is based on the Default currency settings (accessible through the General settings page).

Date

Both

A specific day, month and year.

Time and date

Both

A specific time and date.

Boolean

Both

A true (on) or false (off) value.

Phone number

Both

A local or international phone number.

Single select

Both

A list of values you define from which a single item can be selected.

When choosing this field type, the Values section appears in the Create field dialog, allowing you to specify each value from which a single item can be selected:

  • Click Add value (or + icon) to add a new value field.

  • Use the re order re-order and move any existing value to its new location amongst the list of other values.

  • Use the trash trash icon to delete a newly added value from the list.

When creating this type of custom field:

  • you can switch between a making this custom field a multi select or single select field type. Any values you have already specified will remain and apply to whichever field type you set.

  • ensure each value is spelled correctly. It is not possible to edit any value’s text once this custom field has been created.

Multi select

Both

A list of values you define from which multiple items can be selected.

When choosing this field type, the Values section appears in the Create field dialog, allowing you to specify each value from which multiple items can be selected:

  • Click Add value (or + icon) to add a new value field.

  • Use the re order re-order and move any existing value to its new location amongst the list of other values.

  • Use the trash trash icon to delete a newly added value from the list.

When creating this type of custom field:

  • you can switch between a making this custom field a multi select or single select field type. Any values you have already specified will remain and apply to whichever field type you set.

  • ensure each value is spelled correctly. It is not possible to edit any value’s text once this custom field has been created.

Autocomplete

Both

A single value created or selected from existing values.

Link

Both

The URL of a webpage or file.

Aggregate

Person

An aggregated total from a specified activity.

When choosing this field type, the following fields appear, from which you need to choose a value for each:

  • Activity - the type of activity whose number of occurrences will be aggregated.

  • Aggregate by - the type of aggregate calculation to use. The values in this field depend on the type of Activity you chose above.

  • Aggregate time period - the period of time (from the current time) over which to aggregate the number of occurrences of the activity above.

Object

Both

A JSON object containing custom data.

Edit an existing custom field

You can edit custom fields only to select or deselect the Field activity feature. Once a custom activity is created, you cannot edit the values.

  1. On the Fields page, locate the relevant field and click on its name or the …​ more icon > Edit option.

  2. Select or deselect Field activity as required, then click Save.

Field activity tracking is not available for Organization fields, or Multi select and Aggregate field types.

Only single and multi select custom field types can be edited to add new selectable values. It is not possible to delete existing values configured on existing custom fields.

To add these new values to a single or multi select field:

  1. On the Fields page, locate the relevant Single select or Multi select field type and click its name or the more more icon > Edit option.

  2. In the Edit custom field dialog, specify any new selectable Values:

    • Click Add value (or + icon) to add a new value field.

    • Use the re order re-order and move any existing value to its new location amongst the list of other values.

    • Use the trash trash icon to delete a newly added value from the list.

  3. Click Save, and your new values are added to your single or multi select field.

Edit a data source field

You can edit most data source fields only to select or deselect the Field activity feature. The field values cannot be edited.

  1. On the Fields page, locate the relevant field and click on its name or the …​ more icon > Edit option.

  2. Select or deselect Field activity as required, then click Save.

Field activity tracking is not available for Organization fields, or Multi select and Aggregate field types.

Delete an existing custom field

Deleting a custom field removes that field from the relevant people’s or organizations' records, accessible through the People and Organizations pages, respectively, along with all its data.

Once deleted, a custom field and any data values stored as part of your CDP are not removed, and can later be restored.

To delete an existing custom field:

  1. On the Fields page, locate the relevant custom field and click its more more icon > Permanently delete option.

  2. In the confirmation dialog box, type PERMANENTLY DELETE in capital letters, and click OK to delete your custom field.

A deleted custom field (along with their data values for each CDP record) can be restored by re-creating the person's or organization's custom field again with the same Field name.
Upon clicking the OK button, a Restore link is provided, which can be used to recreate the custom field and restore its existing data.
(If such a field is recreated without the Restore link, then no CDP data was associated with that custom field.)