Custom profile field settings
- 28 Mar 2024
- 3 minutes to read
Custom profile field settings
- Updated on 28 Mar 2024
- 3 minutes to read
Article Summary
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When setting up custom profile fields, you can configure common settings (available in all field types) and specific settings for certain fields.
Common settings
All new fields must be given a unique Short name and a Name (this is displayed on the profile page). You can also enter a description for the field.
There are several common configuration options that apply to all custom profile field types.
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Is this field required? | This option specifies whether this is a mandatory or optional field for user accounts. | Required fields are not required during account creation. Instead, users are asked to provide missing information for required fields after their first login. Note that this setting cannot be changed for Decimal input and Integer input custom fields, as it’s important that empty strings are not stored for these field types. |
Is this field locked? | This option determines the user's editing rights. | - |
Should the data be unique? | If you require the data in the field to be unique across the system (such as an ID number), select Yes for this option and the profile page update will perform a validation check on the data. | - |
Display on signup page? | Depending on the authentication method(s) in use on your site, some users may create their own accounts. If you would like this custom field to appear on the signup page, select Yes. | - |
Who is this field visible to? | Each custom field can be given one of three visibility settings:
The Not visible setting would typically be set by an administrator who wants to hold private data on the users. The Restricted visibility setting would normally be selected for a field that holds sensitive information that should only be visible to the user themselves and the Site Administrator. The Visible to everyone setting would be used for any type of information. | Fields set to use Restricted visibility may also be visible on a user's profile. This is restricted to users with the View user full information (user:viewalldetails) capability. By default, the capability to view this information is restricted to the Site Administrator and Site Manager roles. |
Category | This option allows you to choose the profile category in which you want your custom field to appear. | - |
Specific settings
There are also a few field type-specific settings that will require configuration.
Checkbox
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Checked by default | Choose whether this field is checked by default. | - |
Date (no timezone)
There are no specific settings for this field type, only the common settings.
Use this field type if you do not want this value to change if the time zone is changed. For example, use this for recording the user's birth date, as this shouldn't change if the user's time zone changes.
Date/Time
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Start year | Choose the start year between '1900' and '2050'. | - |
End year | Choose the end year between '1900' and '2050'. | - |
Include time? | Choose whether to include the time for this field in the user's profile:
| - |
Decimal input
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Default value | The number that will appear in the field by default. | - |
| Minimum value | The lowest value that will be accepted. | - |
| Maximum value | The highest value that will be accepted. | - |
| Step | The accepted increments for values in this field. For example, if this is set to 0.5 then the field will accept values such as -1.0, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, etc. | - |
| Decimal points | The number of decimal points that the field will accept. | - |
Dropdown menu
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Menu options (one per line) | Specify the menu options, with each option on a new line, e.g.: Prefer not to say | - |
Default value | Enter a default value for the menu, e.g. 'Prefer not to say'. This will be displayed as the default on a user's profile page. | - |
Integer input
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Default value | The number that will appear in the field by default. | - |
| Minimum value | The lowest value that will be accepted. | - |
| Maximum value | The highest value that will be accepted. | - |
| Step | The accepted increments for values in this field. For example, if this is set to 5 then the field will accept values such as -5, 0, 5, 10, 15, etc. | - |
Text area
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Default value | Enter a default value. This will be displayed as the default on a user's profile page. | - |
Text input
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Default value | Enter a default value. This will be displayed as the default on a user's profile page. | - |
Display size | Specify the width of the text input in characters. The default is 30. | - |
Maximum length | Specify the maximum number of characters this field will allow. The default is 2048. | - |
Is this a password field? | Choose from:
If Yes is selected, all of the characters will be masked. | - |
Link | To transform text into a link, enter a URL containing '$$', where '$$' will be replaced with the text. For example, to transform a Twitter ID to a link, enter 'http://twitter.com/$$'. | - |
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