Member Custom Fields

Member Custom Fields lets you collect information that matters to your club beyond the standard member fields — things like breed interests, certifications, dietary preferences, or anything else specific to your organization. You create the fields here, then decide where they should appear: applications, member profiles, imports, reports, or the roster.

Who can use this area

This page is typically managed by Administrators or the staff who set up your club's membership workflow. In most clubs, only a small number of people should create or change custom fields. You'll find it under Membership Tools in the Club Management Portal.

Planning before you create

Before adding a field, think through these questions:

Will members understand the question without extra explanation?
Should the answer be free text, or would a dropdown or checkbox list keep answers consistent?
Where should this field appear — applications, profiles, imports, reports, roster, or some combination?
If you'll use it in reports or roster columns, would a shorter label help?

Creating a custom field

Open Member Custom Fields under Membership Tools.
Click Create.
Enter the Question — this is what members and staff will see.
Review the automatically generated Key (Clubistry prefixes it with cf_ when saved).
Add a Short Label if you need a compact heading for roster columns or reports.
Add Additional Information if the question needs context without making the label itself too long.
Choose the Field Type.
Complete any field-specific settings (placeholder text, options, defaults, limits).
Turn on the usage settings for where the field should appear.
Leave Active on unless you're preparing the field for later use.
Save.

Field types

Type	Best for
Text, Single Line	Short answers — preferred name, title, certification number
Text, Multiple Lines	Longer answers — notes, background, comments
Dropdown with Single Choice	Picking one option from a list
Checkboxes with Multiple Choices	Selecting more than one option
Checkbox, Yes or No	Simple acknowledgements or preferences
Date	Specific dates — birthday, expiration date
Number	Counts or other numeric answers

Single-line and multi-line text fields support placeholder text, default values, and character limits. Dropdown and checkbox fields use one option per line. Number fields support value limits.

Where a field can appear

Setting	What it does
Available for Applications	Adds the field to application forms. Data carries into the member record on approval.
Use on Profiles	Shows the field on the member profile page for self-service updates.
Available for Import	Makes the field available during member imports.
Available for Reports	Makes the field available in reporting tools.
Include on Roster	Allows the field to be used as a roster column.
Active	Controls whether the field is currently in use anywhere.

After you create a field, it appears automatically in the areas matching your selections.

Required fields

Marking a field as Required means it must be completed wherever it appears. For Yes/No checkboxes, "required" means the box must be checked.

Administrators and Member Managers can save a member record in the portal even when some required custom fields are still missing — this is intentional, so they can work on records in stages.

Reordering and retiring fields

Fields can be reordered from the index list. Be cautious about changing the Field Type after data has been collected — if you need a similar field with a different setup, it's usually safer to create a new field and make the old one inactive.

If a field has collected data, set it to inactive rather than deleting it. This preserves the existing data in member records.

Safe to delete indicator

Click the Detail [] button on a field row to open its detail view, which shows a Safe To Delete indicator. If the field is marked safe, no data has been collected for it. If it's not safe, deleting it will remove collected member data. When in doubt, make the field inactive instead.