Managing custom employee fields
Add, edit, and remove your own custom fields on an employee, and understand the "in use" and duplicate-field warnings.
Custom fields let you store extra information on an employee that the built-in fields do not cover, such as a cost center, a pension policy, or a reporting manager. You manage them from the Employee Data section of an employee, alongside the standard details, and they save as you go. This article explains how to add, edit, and remove them, and what the warnings you may see along the way mean.
Open the Employee Data section
From the Employees page, select an employee to open their card. The Employee Data section lists the standard fields (name, email, role, salary, and more).
Below those you will find the fields CLVR knows about, grouped by what uses them, plus any of your own. Fields appear even when this employee has no value yet, so you can see what is available without having to know it exists. An empty field simply shows an empty control.
Edit an existing field
Each field gives you the right control for what it holds, so you do not have to remember the format:
| Field holds | You get | | --- | --- | | Yes or no (for example Work Permit) | A checkbox | | A fixed set of choices (for example Pension Policy) | A dropdown | | A number (for example Vacation Entitlement) | A number box | | A date | A date picker | | Another employee (for example Manager) | A searchable name picker | | Anything else | A text box |
Your changes save as you go, and you will see a short confirmation. Fields of your own that came in from a file upload stay as plain text boxes, because CLVR does not know what they are meant to hold.
If a value does not fit the field, it is refused with a note saying what the field accepts, rather than being saved incorrectly.
Add a custom field
Select Add Custom Field at the bottom of the Employee Data section.
Open Field. You will see three groups:
- Already used in this company, with how many of your employees have a value for each. Picking from here keeps your data consistent.
- Available but not used yet, which are fields CLVR features can use but nobody at your company has filled in, each showing what uses it.
- Something else, which appears once you type a name of your own.
In Value, enter the information for this employee.
Select Add. The field appears immediately in the Employee Data section.
Remove a custom field
A field with a value has a red trash icon next to it. Select it to remove that field from this employee. It is removed for this employee only and does not affect anyone else. A field that has never been filled in has nothing to remove, so it has no icon.
Warnings you may see
A couple of small markers can appear next to a custom field, and both are there to keep your data clean:
- (in use) next to a field name means a CLVR feature relies on that field. Hover over it to see which feature and why. For example, Manager is used by approval flows, and a cost center field can feed payroll reporting. Editing these is fine; just be aware that changing or removing them can affect that feature.
- A yellow warning triangle means the field name overlaps a built-in field (for example a custom field called Email when there is already a built-in email field). Hover for the details. To avoid two versions of the same information, prefer the built-in field and remove the custom one.
Reuse an existing field name from the suggestions rather than inventing a new spelling. "Cost center" and "Cost Center" become two separate columns, which makes filtering and reporting harder.
Where custom fields show up
A custom field is not limited to one employee. Once any employee has it, it becomes available across the Employees area:
- As a column in the employee table, which you can show, hide, and reorder like any other column.
- As an optional field when you add a single employee, under Custom Fields.
- During bulk upload, where any extra columns in your file beyond the standard ones are saved as custom fields automatically. If a column matches a field CLVR knows about, its values are checked as the file is read, and any row that does not fit is reported before anything is saved.
Troubleshooting
- A field I expected is not there. Fields CLVR features use are always listed, even when empty. A field of your own only appears once at least one employee has a value for it, so add it on an employee first.
- My value was refused. The note tells you what the field accepts. A yes or no field stores only "true" or "false", which is why it is a checkbox rather than something to type into; a dropdown accepts only its listed choices.
- I see two similar columns. They are two different field names (for example a difference in spelling or capitalisation). Decide on one name, move the values over, and delete the other.
- System fields are not listed. Internal fields that CLVR uses behind the scenes (such as sign-in and preference data) are hidden on purpose and cannot be edited here.