Add custom fields to your customer records

Every contact already has a name, phone number, and email. Customer fields let you keep your own details on top of that, such as a membership number, a preferred branch, a birthday, or whether the customer is a returning client. Once a field exists, your agent can read and fill it in during a chat, and you can use it to personalize campaign messages.

Note

Only the account Owner can add, edit, or delete customer fields, because they change the shape of every contact. Other teammates can still see and fill in the values on each contact.

Add a field

1. In Settings, open Customer fields.

2. Click Add field.

3. Enter the Label (English) and Label (Arabic). Your team sees the label in their portal language.

4. Choose the Type:

   • Text: free text, up to 500 characters.
   • Number: a number only.
   • Date: a calendar date.
   • Select (one): one choice from a list you define. Add each choice with + option.
   • Yes or no: a simple yes/no answer.

5. Choose the settings you need (explained below), then click Save field. You see Field added.

Caution

The type cannot change after the field is created. If you picked the wrong type, delete the field and create a new one.

Field settings

Setting	What it does
Fallback in messages	The text used in a campaign or automated message when a contact has no value for this field. You can set it in English and Arabic. If you leave it empty, contacts without a value are skipped when the message needs this field.
Show in contacts list	Shows the field as a column in the CRM contacts list, up to three fields. When three fields already show, turn one off to show another. The Shown in list column on this page tells you which fields have it on.
Required	The field must have a value when your team edits a contact.
Agent can read	Your agent can see the value during a conversation and use it in its reply.
Agent can write	Your agent can save a value it learns in the chat, for example the branch the customer prefers.
Staff only (never in a customer message)	Keeps the value internal. It can never be placed in a message to a customer.

Agent can read and Agent can write are on for every new field. Switch either off if you do not want your agent to see or change that detail.

Tip

Each field gets a fixed Key taken from its English label the first time you save it. The key never changes, so you can rename the label later without breaking templates or automations that use it.

See and edit the values on a contact

Open a contact in CRM. The Customer fields card shows every field and its value, or Not set when it is empty. Click the edit button on the card to fill in or change values.

When your agent wrote a value during a conversation, it is marked with AI and the date, so you know it came from a chat rather than from your team.

Filter contacts by a field

You can list contacts by a field’s value, for example “everyone whose branch is Jeddah”, instead of a tag someone keeps up by hand.

1. Open CRM and go to the Contacts tab.

2. Click Field filter and pick the field.

3. Choose the Condition, then a value if the condition needs one, and click Apply.

The conditions depend on the field’s type:

Type	Conditions
Text	is, is not, contains, has any value, is empty
Number	is, is not, greater than, less than, has any value, is empty
Date	is, after, before, has any value, is empty
Select (one)	is, is not, has any value, is empty
Yes or no	is, has any value, is empty

Each applied filter shows as a chip above the list. You can add more than one and remove any of them from its chip. The filter also applies to select-all and to the export. To keep it as a campaign audience, click Save as Smart Group. See Organize customers with tags and groups.

Where your fields are used

• Your agent: fields with Agent can read give your agent more context about the customer. Fields with Agent can write let it record what it learns.
• Filters and smart groups: filter contacts by the field’s value, and use the same condition in a smart group.
• Import: map a column in your file to the field to fill it for many contacts at once. See Import and export contacts.
• Campaigns: when a template has a variable, you can fill it with a customer field, so each customer gets their own value. The field’s fallback is used when a customer has no value.
• Automations: automations can use your fields too. When you delete a field, tkana warns you about any automation that still uses it.

Note

When you change a field’s value on a contact, or delete a field or one of its options, tkana updates the smart groups that use it. If that fails, a message asks you to open each group that uses the field and save it again, so a campaign does not go to the old list.

Edit or delete a field

Click a field in the list to open it. You can change its labels, options, fallback, and settings, then click Save field.

To delete it, open the field and click Delete. Before anything is removed, tkana tells you how many contacts have a value for it and lists any campaigns or automations that use it. Click Delete field to confirm.

Caution

Deleting a field removes its value from every contact, and it cannot be undone.

Related

• Understand customer records
• Manage your contacts
• Send a WhatsApp campaign