Can I keep my own details on a contact, like a membership level or a renewal date?
Say you run a climbing club and want to know each member’s renewal date, or a shop that wants a “VIP” level on its best customers. Contact fields are the extra columns you add to your own people, in your own words, on top of what Bernard already keeps for you.
The prompt
“Add a contact field called [field name], type [text/date/number/choice/web address], to [my site]. Then set it to [value] on [one person or a list of people].”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
Ask Bernard to add one
There is no form for this. You ask, for example:
Add a contact field called “Renewal date”, a date.
Bernard makes the field with a name (the label you gave it) and a key made from that name, and tells you it is ready. You can have up to 50 fields in use on a site at once.
A field has one of five kinds of value:
- Text - a short line, such as a membership level.
- Date - written as YYYY-MM-DD or DD/MM/YYYY. A date that does not exist, such as 31 February, is refused and Bernard names the value it could not use.
- Number - for anything you count or measure.
- Choice - a fixed list you set up first, such as “Bronze, Silver, Gold”. A value must be one of the choices.
- Web address - a link, such as a member’s own portfolio page.
Renaming, and why the kind never changes
You can ask Bernard to rename a field at any time; the name changes and the values stay exactly as they were. The kind of value a field holds never changes once it is made. If a date field turns out to be the wrong shape for what you need, ask Bernard to make a new field rather than change this one.
Setting a value
Ask Bernard to set the field on one person by name or email, or on up to 200 people at once. For one person, Bernard just does it and tells you. For more than one person, Bernard first says exactly what it is about to do, for example “set Membership level to Gold on 40 people”, and only goes ahead once you say yes.
Clearing a value is allowed: ask Bernard to clear the field on somebody, and it goes back to empty.
Where you see it
Open a person’s own page in Where do the people who buy, join or ask end up? and their Details card lists every field and its current value. A field with nothing set shows “Not filled in” rather than a blank space, so you always know whether a value is missing or genuinely empty.
Archiving a field you no longer use
Ask Bernard to archive a field rather than deleting it. Archiving keeps every value already recorded, hides the field from new edits, and can be reversed at any time by asking Bernard to bring it back. An archived field does not count towards the 50 you have in use.
What fields are for
Once a field exists, you can use it to send to a narrower group of people and to build automatic course emails that follow a date you set, such as an attendance date. Can I send only to people with a certain field, or who opened recently? covers building an audience from a field, and How do automatic emails work? covers the automatic side.
Questions people ask
- Do I build the field in a form somewhere?
- No. There is no form to create a field in the app. You ask Bernard, in plain words, and Bernard makes it.
- Can I set a field on more than one person at once?
- Yes, up to 200 people in one go. For more than one person, Bernard tells you what it is about to do, for example “set Membership level to Gold on 40 people”, and waits for your approval before it changes anything.
- What happens if I ask for a bad date or a choice that does not exist?
- Bernard refuses and names the value that is wrong. A date has to be a real date, written as YYYY-MM-DD or DD/MM/YYYY, and a choice field only accepts one of its own choices.