Merge custom fields
Hello Wrike friends!
Our organization is working to clean up and align our custom fields so we can enable more reporting across projects and spaces. During our review, we've found a handful of duplicate custom fields that have been created over the years that we'd like to consolidate, like client ID or department name.
In the past, Wrike visually merged custom fields that contained the same data, but it didn't actually merge the data. That feature's been discontinued for a while now, although I can still find references to it in older articles on this site.
What we're looking for is a way to combine 2+ custom fields into one consolidated field. I think that creating a new field with the combined data would be the best solution, allowing users to decide if they want to delete or retain the old duplicate fields.
I was really surprised when I didn't find any other requests for this feature. Is this something anyone else is interested in having?
Thanks everyone!
Hi Lisa Lemmons, I am afraid that there is no way to merge custom fields. The easiest solution to consolidate data would be to copy-paste all the values to one field and then delete the unnecessary ones from the Settings.
Your idea about merging fields sounds useful and I'm sure other users will upvote it. The Community forum is the best place to share your suggestions, and popular posts are revised by our product team. If you wish to add anything else to your feedback, please feel free to do so.
Thanks (other) Lisa! 😁 We've considered doing a manual merge like that but quickly realized that it would be a huge undertaking, considering how many spaces and projects we've already created. When we first started with Wrike, we only had one team using it, but we've grown exponentially over the years - which is great! - but we didn't have enterprise governance in place to prevent us from creating duplicate fields, parallel projects, etc. We're working to get things cleaned up now and merging fields is a big piece of making that happen. I'm super interested to see if others are interested in this idea!
Lisa Lemmons I would create a third field so you don't change anything on the two existing fields yet. This will allow you to continue to filter/sort the existing fields to quickly copy/paste the data to the new field in table view..... then once you've copy/pasted the data, delete the two old fields. If you're using the field in Calendars, Reports, or Analyze boards this will also allow you to more easily update the widgets with the new field name.
The challenge I'm wrestling with is changing one option within the multi-select custom field (i.e. I made an option singular instead of plural). On the back-end of Analyze it creates a new option so I have to go find the thousands of locations where it's used the old way (singluar) and update it to the new option (plural) - but because I renamed an existing option I can't filter/sort by it to quickly update it on projects/tasks. I have been able to find most of them using a Table within Analyze.
I really wish:
1. There was an option to merge Custom Fields as mentioned above. We have so many duplicates due to years of trial and error and not understanding how they really worked years ago when we were just getting started. Manually merging them is extremely time consuming.
2. Custom Fields had some sort of bracket system. In our case, Level 1 - "Client Details", Level 2 - "Quote Details", Level 3 "System Details"
3. If there was a way to lock certain Custom Fields to specific Workspaces & Request Forms. For instance, in our Tech Support Workspace we need to know the specific motor type when customers enter a request form, however in our Service Quote Workspace, I only need to know if the motor is AC or DC. Now I have to have two Custom Fields called Motor Type stuck in both Workspaces, and I have so several hundreds of folders within these spaces that are accidentally using one or the other. And by lock, I mean I would prefer it to not even appear as an option anywhere else except the Workspace I designate it to.
4. I would be ~ extremely excited ~ if the Custom Fields in the project view went back to (or had an option to) be listed in a manual order (like table view). Alphabetical Order is does not work for us, and adding a number/letter to the beginning of each Custom Field to try to achieve that will not work for us.
Hello Rachael Vitale, welcome back to the Community!
Thank you so much for taking the time to share detailed feedback on custom fields here, I've passed it on to our Product team 👍🏼
Bumping this up. I'm now the one trying to clean up my Wrike, and a couple of people have created duplicate fields that can be merged. Sure wish there was an easy way to do that! I feel like I should be able to go to the "Custom fields" tab in my account info, select the duplicate fields, and choose "merge" from the sidebar. See, for example, my example, where we have a couple of different ways to identify city council district. Whoops!
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback, Ian Hlavacek. Indeed, the option to merge custom fields would be useful and time-saving for handling duplicate fields. I will pass this on to our team. 👍🏽
Basudha Sakshyarika Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Conosci le straordinarie funzionalità di Wrike e le best practices
Basudha Sakshyarika Wrike Team member Conosci le straordinarie funzionalità di Wrike e le best practices