Add your own fields

Schedulinq knows about names, addresses and phone numbers. What it cannot know is what your trade needs on top of that: a licence plate, a VAT number, the make of the boiler, a photo of the situation before you arrive. That is what custom fields are for.

You define them yourself, decide per field where they appear, and from then on they show up in your admin forms, on your booking page, and as columns in your overviews.

Customer field or appointment field

The first choice is also the one you cannot undo: does this belong to the customer or to the appointment?

The test is whether the value changes from visit to visit:

• Customer — belongs to the person or company and stays the same across appointments. A VAT number, an account number with your supplier, a pass number.
• Appointment — belongs to this one visit. A photo of the situation, a preferred delivery time, a description of the fault.

Step by step

1. Open Custom fields

   Go to Settings → Custom fields. You see the fields you already have, each row showing its key, type, properties and who it applies to.

   

2. Pick the Customer or Appointment tab

   The list and the New field button both follow the active tab. On Customer, you are creating a customer field.

3. Fill in the basics

   Click New field. On the left you describe what the field is: its key, its type and the label people will read.

   

4. Set the behaviour

   Top right, under Behaviour, you decide where the field appears and whether it is mandatory. This is the block that makes the most difference — each checkbox is explained below.

5. Narrow it where it helps

   Under Applies to you can limit the field to business customers, or to certain appointment types. Leave it open and it applies everywhere.

6. Click Create

   The field is live immediately. Existing customers and appointments simply gain an empty field — nothing is filled in retroactively.

The Basics block

Key

RequiredCannot be changed later

The field's fixed identifier: lowercase letters, digits and underscores.

Why

Your customers never see the key. It is the reference that stays the same when you rewrite or translate the label later, and the one exports and columns use to recognise this field. It is locked once the field exists — to rename, archive it and create a new one.

Field type

RequiredLimited changes later

What kind of value this is. There are thirteen types: text, long text, number, whole number, yes/no, date, date & time, select, multi-select, email, phone, URL and attachments.

Why

The type decides more than how the input looks — it decides what Schedulinq validates. Choose Email rather than Text and an address without an @ is rejected rather than stored.

Label

RequiredPer language

The text above the input — this is what your team and your customer read. If your company supports more than one language, a language bar appears above the label and you fill it in per language.

Why

The label is the only part of this field a customer ever sees, so write it the way you would say it on the phone. If a language is missing, Schedulinq falls back to one you did fill in — the field never disappears, but it will not be in your customer's language.

Options

Select and multi-select only

A select or multi-select adds a block where you list the choices. Each option has a value (which is stored) and a label per language (which is shown).

Why

Keeping those separate means you can rewrite or translate the label later without changing answers already recorded. So keep the value short and permanent — diesel, not Diesel (with particulate filter).

File count and accepted kinds

Attachments only

For the Attachments type you set how many files are allowed and which kinds: images, PDF, documents or spreadsheets. Each kind lists the extensions it covers. One file is the default, five is the maximum.

Why

The kinds you tick decide what the file picker offers, but the server checks the contents of the file rather than its name. Renaming an .exe to .pdf will not get it through.

The Behaviour block

Three checkboxes, and between them they decide where the field turns up.

Required when a staff member creates the appointment

Your team cannot save while this field is empty.

Why

Use it for data your administration stalls without — a VAT number on a business customer. Do not use it for something you only learn on site: you would be blocking your own team at the moment they are trying to schedule.

Show on the online booking page

Without this tick the field is internal only. With it, the customer sees it while booking.

Why

This is the switch between "something we record" and "something we ask the customer". Every field you turn on here makes the booking form longer, so ask only for what you need in order to do the job properly.

Required for the customer when booking online

Only appears once Show on the online booking page above is on. With that on, the customer cannot complete the booking without filling this in.

Why

This is deliberately separate from Required when a staff member creates the appointment. You always want a licence plate from a customer booking online, while your colleague on the phone needs to be able to schedule for someone who does not have it to hand. Two checkboxes, two situations.

Where the field then appears

All three checkboxes, in one table:

The column is independent: any field can be switched on as a column in the customer or appointment overview, via Configure columns on that overview. It does not depend on any of these ticks.

The Applies to block

Customer type

Customer fields only

All customers, Personal customers only or Business customers only.

Why

Asking a private customer for a VAT number produces an empty field everyone has to skip past. Narrowing it here removes the field for half your customers, rather than making it optional for all of them.

Appointment types

Appointment fields only

Pick the appointment types this field applies to. Leave everything unticked and it applies to every appointment type.

Why

This is how "which make of boiler?" appears on a maintenance visit but not on an intake meeting. Mind the logic of the empty state: ticking nothing means everywhere, not nowhere.

The Advanced block

Default value

Optional

A value the field starts out with.

Why

It pre-fills new entries only. Existing customers and appointments are never updated retroactively, so a default is a time-saver rather than a way to backfill missing data.

Order

Drag the rows in the overview to set the order. It applies to your admin forms and to the booking page alike, so you are also deciding the order your customer answers the questions in.

Archive rather than delete

A field is never thrown away, it is archived. Click the bin icon on the row and confirm.

What happens then:

• The field disappears from every form and table.
• Existing values are kept. They reappear if you restore the field.
• You can restore it as long as no other active field uses the same key.

Archived fields are behind View archived in the toolbar.

Frequently asked questions

I named a field badly. Can I change the key? No. You can always rewrite the label — that is what people see. The key is fixed; to change it, archive the field and create a new one.

What happens to an answer if I remove an option from a select? The stored value stays, but is shown marked outdated. The next time the record is edited, a new choice has to be made.

Do existing customers get the new field too? They gain it empty. Nothing is filled in retroactively, not even a default value.

Can I make a field mandatory without asking customers for it? Yes — that is exactly what Required when a staff member creates the appointment does, with Show on the online booking page left off.