Which field is used for what
2 min read · By Stefan Köhn
Parts of the application need to know which of your fields holds the email address. A field role answers that once instead of asking in every place.
Why this does not hang off the name
Your email field might be called Email, Contact address or mail_private. An automation meant to send a message would have to guess, and with two address fields it guesses wrong. Instead you state once, in the Roles tab, which field carries which role.
The three roles
Email says where the email action writes and where incoming replies are matched from. Phone says where the SMS action writes. Marketing consent marks the field without which no campaign goes out; mail an automation sends on a record does not check it, and you put a filter in the flow for that. What a record is called is no longer a role: the record name decides that.
Step by step
- Open Settings, Entities, the Roles tab.
- For each role, pick the field that carries it.
What happens without an email role set?
The email action finds no recipient and the step stops with a note. Incoming replies cannot be matched to a record either.
What if I have several email fields?
Each role points at exactly one field. You decide here which one is meant. The others stay ordinary fields.
Why does my campaign reach nobody?
Often the marketing consent role is missing, or the field is not set on the recipients. Bulk email only goes to people with consent recorded, see Campaigns.
What decides how a record is named in a list?
The record name. It is not among the roles but has its own card on the entity, and the pencil next to a record's name opens it too. More under Entities.
Do roles apply across all entities?
No, they belong to the single entity. Each one has its own fields and therefore its own roles.