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Custom fields

In this article, you’ll learn how to set up and use custom fields, including adding them to your event, reusing them with templates, filling in values, and using them in your assets, share links and integrations. 

Custom fields let you store extra details about your speakers, sessions and exhibitors, such as a discount code, a booth number, a sponsor logo or a personal registration link. 

How custom fields work
Custom field settings
Adding a custom field to your event
Changing and deleting a custom field
Custom field templates
Filling in custom field values
Importing custom field values from a spreadsheet
Checking every value in a field
Using custom fields in your assets
Sending each person’s shared link to their own address
Mapping custom fields in an integration

How custom fields work

Gleanin already holds your speakers’ names, job titles, companies and headshots. Custom fields let you add anything else your campaign needs, and then use it on artwork, in links and in your integrations.

  • One field, one kind of record - each field applies to speakers, sessions or exhibitors.
  • Event fields and templates - fields live on each event, where the values are stored. Every new field is also saved as a template for your account, so you can reuse it on your next event.
  • Public or private - a public field’s values can appear on the artwork your speakers and exhibitors share. Private values, and every Email field, never do.

Custom fields are a good fit when you want to:

  • Show something on each speaker’s or exhibitor’s artwork that Gleanin doesn’t hold, such as a booth number or a discount code
  • Give each speaker or exhibitor their own finished image, for example made by an agency
  • Send each person’s audience to their own link, such as a personal registration page
  • Bring extra details from your event platform into Gleanin

Note: Custom fields are part of the Gleanin Pro and Personalisation Plus add-on. If your plan doesn’t include them, the Custom Fields page shows what the add-on does instead of your fields.

Custom field settings

There are four field types:

  • Text: any text, such as a discount code or a track name
  • Image: an image file, such as a logo or a personal graphic, under 5 MB: PNG, JPG, GIF, TIFF, WebP or SVG
  • Email: an email address. Email fields are always private
  • URL: a web address, which can be used as the place each person’s shared link goes to

And each field has these settings:

  • Applies to: Speaker, Session or Exhibitor
  • Field Type: one of the four types above. It starts as Text
  • Label: the name you and your team see, for example "Discount Code"
  • API Name: the field’s fixed name used by Gleanin and integrations. It always starts with cf_ and is filled in from the label, for example cf_discount_code. It uses lowercase letters, numbers and underscores only
  • Publicly visible: must be on for the field to be used in generated images. It starts on
  • Required: every record of that type must have a value before it can be saved. It starts off

Note: No other field for the same Applies to can have the same label or API name. You can still use the same name once for each record type, for example a cf_discount_code field for speakers and another for exhibitors.

Adding a custom field to your event

  1. Go to the Event
  2. Under Event settings on the left-hand side menu, click Custom Fields
  3. Click Add custom field (or Add a custom field if the event has no fields yet)
  4. Choose a tab:
    1. From a template: choose a template from Select a template…, then check the summary underneath
    2. Create new: choose Applies to and the Field Type, enter the Label, check the API Name, and switch Publicly visible and Required on or off
  5. Click Add field

Use a template when you’ve used the field on an earlier event. Every event then uses the same API name, which keeps imports and integrations consistent.

A new field is also saved as a template at your account level, so you can reuse it on other events. Once you edit the API Name yourself, it stops following the label.

Please keep in mind that Applies to, Field Type and API Name can’t be changed later. To change them, please create a new field.

Changing and deleting a custom field

Changing a field

  1. On the Custom Fields page, click the menu button (⋮) on the field’s row
  2. Click Edit
  3. Change the Label, Publicly visible or Required
  4. Click Save changes

Changing a field on an event doesn’t change its template.

Please keep in mind that if you switch Required on, any speaker, session or exhibitor without a value can’t be saved until one is added, even if you’re changing something else.

Deleting a field

You can only delete a field that has no values. If it has values, Delete is greyed out, so please remove the values first.

  1. On the Custom Fields page, click the menu button (⋮) on the field’s row
  2. Click Delete
  3. Click Delete again to confirm

The account-level template is not affected.

Please keep in mind that deleting a field is a permanent action. If an asset took each person’s image from this field, the asset loses that link to the field.

Custom field templates

Templates are reusable presets. You can use them to prepare a standard set of fields before your events are set up.

  1. Open your account menu and click Custom Field Templates
  2. Click Add template (or Add a template when there are none yet)
  3. Fill in the same settings as for a new field
  4. Click Create template

To change or delete a template, click the menu button (⋮) on its row, then Edit or Delete. When editing, you can change the Label, Publicly visible and Required, then click Save changes.

Note: Changing or deleting a template does not affect custom fields already added to events. Please change those on each event’s Custom Fields page.

Filling in custom field values

Custom fields appear in a Custom fields section at the bottom of the form when you add or edit a speaker, session or exhibitor. A required field has a red * next to its label.

  • Text: enter the text
  • Email: enter the address, for example name@example.com. It’s saved in lower case
  • URL: enter the address after the fixed https://, for example example.com
  • Image: click Upload photo and choose a PNG, JPG, GIF, TIFF, WebP or SVG file under 5 MB

To fill in values, follow the steps below:

  1. Go to the Event
  2. Open Speakers, Sessions or Exhibitors
  3. Open the record and click Edit (the pencil button)
  4. Scroll to Custom fields and fill in each field
  5. Save the record:
    1. Speakers and exhibitors: click Update, or Create for a new one
    2. Sessions: click Save changes, or Create session for a new one

The save button stays greyed out until every required field has a value. To remove a value, clear the text, or remove the image, then save.

Note: Images are saved just after the rest of the record. If an image doesn’t save, you will see a message such as Speaker updated, but an image could not be saved: …

Showing custom fields in your lists

Each custom field has its own column in the Speakers, Sessions and Exhibitors lists, hidden at first. To show one, click the columns button (the sliders icon) next to the search box and tick the field.

Importing custom field values from a spreadsheet

Custom fields work in the speaker, session and exhibitor imports, and in the combined speakers-and-sessions import. Please add the field to your event first, as you can’t create one during an import.

Please have your columns ready:

  • Text: the text
  • Email: the address
  • URL: the full address, starting with https://
  • Image: a public link to the image, starting with http:// or https://. Gleanin downloads the image from the link

To import values, follow the steps below:

  1. Add a column to your spreadsheet for each custom field, named exactly like the field’s Label
  2. Start the import as usual
  3. When you match columns, choose the field for each column, or Ignore this column. Custom fields have (custom) after their label
  4. Check the review step and finish the import

Columns named like the field’s label are matched for you. Capitals, spaces, punctuation and underscores don’t matter.

Note: Empty cells are skipped, so they never clear a value that’s already saved. To remove a value, please clear it on the record’s page.

Note: If Gleanin can’t download an image, the row is still imported, but the field keeps the link as text instead of the image. The row is marked Imported, with a warning.

Checking every value in a field

  1. Go to the Event
  2. Under Event settings on the left-hand side menu, click Custom Fields
  3. In the Used in column, click the number for the field

For an Image field, you see the images as a grid. For other fields, you see each record’s Name and Value. Use Show to pick Everyone, Has a value or No value.

This is a quick way to find who still has no value before you publish an asset that needs one.

Using custom fields in your assets

There are two ways to use custom fields in an asset:

  • Dynamic field: a public Text or Image field’s value is placed on each person’s image
  • A different file for each speaker (or exhibitor): each person shares the image in their own Image field. The field doesn’t need to be public

Putting a custom field on an asset’s images

  1. Open the asset’s images and switch on Advanced mode
  2. Add text or an image, and click Fixed
  3. Click Dynamic field
  4. From Select a field…, choose your custom field
  5. Save your changes

A speaker or exhibitor design offers that record’s own public fields. A session design offers the session’s public fields, and those of each of its speakers. For the full steps, please see Editing your asset’s images.

Note: Private fields are listed, but can’t be chosen. To use one, please edit the field and switch Publicly visible on.

Giving each speaker their own uploaded image

When you upload a file as an asset, choose A different file for each speaker and pick an Image custom field from Select a custom field, or click Create new field. For the full steps, please see Uploading your own image or GIF.

Note: A speaker with no image in the field isn’t offered the asset.

Sending each person’s shared link to their own address

Under Where shared links go, an asset has three options:

  • Their landing page: each participant’s own landing page
  • A URL field: read from a custom field on each participant
  • One link: everyone shares the same link

To use a URL field, follow the steps below:

  1. Go to the Event
  2. Open the asset in your Speaker or Exhibitor Asset hub
  3. Click the Share settings tab
  4. Choose Custom instead of Default
  5. Under Where shared links go, choose A URL field
  6. Under URL field, choose the field
  7. Click Save changes

Each person’s link then goes to the address in their own field. If someone has no value in it, their link goes to the link set for the hub instead, and if there isn’t one, to the event’s landing page.

Mapping custom fields in an integration

If your event platform already holds the values, an integration can fill in your custom fields for you.

  1. Go to the Event
  2. Click Integrations on the left-hand side menu
  3. On the integration’s card, click Settings (the cog button)
  4. Open Custom field mapping
  5. For each Gleanin field, choose the matching Provider field, or Enter selector manually… to enter the field path yourself
  6. Click Save changes

Leave a field on Not mapped to keep its values as they are.

Note: Custom field mapping only appears when the event has custom fields for the records that integration imports. It isn’t available for Lineup Ninja, Session Board or one of the Personify A2Z Events setups.