Note: Custom fields are only available to customers subscribed to the Muster CRM. If you wish to add the CRM to your subscription, please reach out to our team via intercom or email.

One of the more powerful features of the Muster CRM (aka "Lists") is custom fields. Custom fields are user defined and allow you to store, and then filter on, additional fields beyond Muster's core contact fields.

To create or edit your custom fields, navigate to "Lists" in your organization's navigation bar, and then select "Custom Fields".

Here you'll see your list of defined custom fields. It will empty if you've not defined any. To create your first, click the "New Field" button.

The first thing you'll need to consider is what type of field you want to create. There are three options:

A "Text" field is used for holding arbitrary text. Examples might include additional custom identifiers, job titles, or short notes.

A "Choice" field consists of a single selection from one or more choice values. This can be useful as a substitute for boolean values (e.g. "yes" or "no") or anywhere there is a single selection from a known and restricted set of potential values (e.g. membership status). Adding the choices in your "Choice" custom field is as simple as typing in the "Options" field of the custom field form and hitting "Enter" after each option.

A "Multiple choice" field is similar to a "Choice" field except that it allows more than one option to be selected!

The next thing you'll need to consider is the name or label for your field. The label should be descriptive and if you'll be allowing people to fill this out themselves (see below) you'll want to make it something obvious to your audience.

You can of course edit custom field values on contact cards, the real value is in importing your custom field data.

Importing custom fields is little different from importing any other field, with the primary exception that for multiple choice fields you'll need to ensure that data is included in one column, with an "intra-field" delimiter. E.g. if you are working with a CSV, a row as shown with only the first name, last name, and interests (the custom field) should look something like this:

You can use a comma or a semi-colon, the important thing is that whether in a CSV file or a spreadsheet that the multiple choice values are obviously not spanning multiple columns or fields.

In the CRM import wizard you can also create custom fields on the fly however it's worth noting that you can only do this by creating "Text" fields, so if you want to use a "Choice" field or "Multiple Choice" field you should create the custom field first, then run your import.

Note: Imported custom field values are not validated against the defined options.

While many customers find value in simply keeping data together with contacts, the real benefit of custom fields comes from list filtering.

When creating your filter list, scroll down to see the "Custom Field" section at the bottom of the option list (shown below). Each type of custom field presents different ways of filtering.

"Text" fields let you perform simple matches and comparisons against the values in your contact's custom field. You can match the exact text or part of the text. (Note: that this is not a complete search feature.)

"Choice" fields also let you match against the exact value, but also includes the option of matching against one of a set of options (or excluding based on the selected set).

In both cases your filter value is based on the options you have defined in the custom field.

For "Multiple choice" fields you have the option of matching contacts where their choices include ALL of your filter options or ANY of them (i.e. at least one).

This includes the logical exclusions. The filter below will filter for only contacts who have NOT specified their interest in donating.

Last but certainly not least, you add custom fields to your signup forms, and Advocacy customer can do the same to action centers.

Adding custom fields to these forms allows you to gather additional information from your members, audience, and advocates.

That being said, we recommend including as few fields as possible, as they risk adding friction to the submission process.