Custom fields on contacts

Marketli already has fields for a contact's name, email, phone, birthday, address, notes, status, source, tags and key dates. When your business keeps something else on every client, an owner or admin can add a custom field for it.

Adding a field

Open Contacts and choose the Settings tab (owners and admins only). Under Custom contact fields, type a name, pick a type and press Add field.

There are seven types:

Short text: up to 500 characters on one line, like a lender reference.
Long text: up to 2,000 characters. You can have at most three long text fields.
Number: any number up to two decimal places, like a deposit.
Date: a calendar date.
Choose one: one option from a list you set, like Purchase or Refinance.
Choose several: pick up to ten from a list you set.
Yes or no. "No" is an answer, so it is kept, not treated as blank.

You can have 25 fields in use at once, and 50 in total counting archived ones. A field can't share a name with a standard contact field (like Email or Settlement date) or with another field in use.

Avoid storing tax file numbers, Medicare numbers or health information in custom fields. Keep identity documents in the workspace's document store.

Changing a field

Rename a field at any time. Nothing stored on your contacts changes.
Reorder fields with the arrows. Contacts show them in this order.
Options of a choice field can be added, renamed and archived. An archived option still shows on contacts that already have it, but can't be picked again.
Archive a field to hide it from contacts, imports and exports. Every value is kept, and Restore brings it back.
Delete a field for good only once it is archived and no contact has a value in it.
The type of a field can only change while no contact has a value in it.

Filling them in

Open a contact. The Details card lists your fields. Tap one, enter the value and press Save, or Clear to remove it. Anyone in your team who can see a contact can fill in its fields. When your company uses branches, people only see, and change, the fields of contacts in their branches.

A field that has since been archived still shows its value, marked Archived, but it can't be changed.

Importing

When you import contacts with Add new contacts, each of your fields appears in the column list as Field: name. A column whose heading matches a field's name is matched for you.

New contacts get every value from the file.
For people already in your contacts, only empty fields are filled. A value someone already entered is never replaced.
A cell that doesn't fit its field (for example, words in a number field, or an option that isn't on the list) is skipped. The preview shows which ones, the rest of the row still imports, and the finished screen says how many were skipped.

Dates are read as day/month/year or year-month-day. For a Choose one or Choose several field, the cell must hold the option's name (any capitals). Separate several options with a semicolon.

Exporting and merging

The contacts export adds one column per field in use, headed with the field's name. Several options are joined with a semicolon, yes or no is written as Yes or No, and dates as year-month-day. Archived fields are left out.

When you merge two contacts, the contact you keep keeps its own values, and any field it has empty is filled from the other one.

Using fields in messages

A Contacts template can include a contact's own custom fields, so a text or email to that person can say, for example, which lender they are with. Open Contacts, choose Templates, start or edit a template and use Insert field. Your fields are listed under Custom fields, after the contact's name, your business and their key dates. The field goes in where your cursor was, written like {{field_lender}}.

When the message sends, each person gets their own value:

Short text and long text as written.
Number as the number.
Date written out, like 14 November 2026.
Choose one as the option's name, and Choose several as the names joined with commas.
Yes or no as Yes or No.

If a person has no value, that part is left blank. To say something instead, add a fallback: {{field_lender,fallback=your bank}}.

A few rules keep messages right:

Long text fields can go in emails but not in texts.
Only fields in use can be added. A template that names an archived field, or a field that doesn't exist, can't be saved.
A field used by an automation, directly or through a template the automation sends, can't be archived, deleted or change type until you change that automation.
A field's value changes the length of a text, so the character count beside the message is a guide. A text that would be more than three parts once filled in isn't sent.

Inserting a Contacts template into a conversation fills in that contact's fields straight away, so you can read the message before you send it.

Custom fields are for your team. Clients never see them on any screen. A message you send a contact only includes that contact's own fields, and only the ones you put in it.