Program field editor

The Field editor is the building area to access the different parts required to set up a field. Navigate through the editor as desired, by clicking through using the left navigation pane. From there, you can access:

Basic details and settings — Includes key and required properties for the field to work.
Advanced settings — Includes optional specific configuration information.
Formula definition — Only for Formula fields. Builds a formula by choosing a function, a field, and an operator.

Important: This feature is restricted to limited instances. To use this feature, contact your Medallia expert.
Segment definition — Only for Segmentation fields. Builds segments by defining a condition for each of them.

Basic details and settings screen.

Basic details and settings

Name

Name fo the field. This name helps to identify the field in reports and when pulling its data into surveys, emails, etc. For example, Advisor Challenge.

Important: Field name must be unique within a program.

Description

Optional description for the field.

Field ID

Unique name used to identify the field in Experience Cloud. By default, the Field ID begins with the company name, followed by its name, and then data type, separated by underscores. For example, Advisor Challenge ID is mn_advisor_challenge_choice, where mn is the company name, action_taken is the field name, and choice is the data type. Once set, it cannot be changed while editing a field.

Note: After saving the field, the following are prepended at the beginning of the ID:

Feedback field IDs: q_.
Case management, Contact, and Event field IDs: e_.
Formula and Segmentation field IDs: f_.

Field category

Any of the categories available to create a field (Case management, Contact, Event, or Feedback field). Modifying a field category after being save set affects every place the field is used, so be sure you understand the full impact of your change.

Profile mapping

Only for the Contact category. Choose a field to map the Contact category field to a Profile field, which are the fields available to select when configuring the Contact information, Contact summary and Contact timeline modules Customer Profiles. For more information, see Use Contact fields in Total Experience Profiles.

Question text (in survey)

Only for Feedback fields. Question prompt that appears in surveys, such as What is the top challenge that you face in doing business with [=u_bp_brand_txt]?.

Question text can be formatted using a visual editor, with a real-time preview. Additionally, you can use ordered and unordered lists, insert variables as well as links and images (alternative text is required). Make sure to maintain accessibility standards when formatting the survey. For more information, see Shared assets accessibility.

Question text (in mobile)

Only for Feedback fields. Question prompt that appears in mobile surveys.

Data type

Type of input values the field accepts to store. See Data types below for more details. Once a data type is set, it cannot be changed while editing a field.

Programs

Optional Experience programs and Ad Hoc surveys this field will be part of.

Advanced settings

Short name

Name that appears in dropdown filter in reports, which is usually the same as Name. When the filter is too wide because of the Feedback field name, use this to provide a shorter name, such as Rate instead of Room Rate.

Abbreviation

Name that appears as the column heading in Responses feed view.

Export label

Name to use for the field name (column heading) in the exported file when exporting this field. When empty, the Field ID is used instead. This label can only contain alphanumeric characters and underscores.

Client identifier

Alternative name to Field ID to uniquely identify the field. It can only contain alphanumeric characters and underscores.

Other settings

Other settings include:

Use for duplicate checking — Only for Case Management, Contact, Event, and Feedback field categories. Whether or not the field is used to check for duplicate values using One-time passcode. This creates an index for this column in the database.
Warning: Most fields should not be indexed because indexes slow the import process.
Make it multi-valued — Only for Case management, Event, Formula, and Feedback fields categories with Choice set (also known as Alternative set), Email, Fractional, Indexed text, Integer, and Text data types. Whether or not the field can store multiple values. Once set, it cannot be changed while editing a field.
Important: Multi-valued field Alternative sets must use the Dropdown FormKind instead of the default value of Radio button. If the FormKind remains Radio button, form choices intended to be multiple selection are instead single selection.
For more information, see Multi-valued fields.
Retain this value if the survey is reset — Only for Case Management, Contact, and Event field categories. Whether or not to clear the field value when resetting a personalized invitation and in Case forms.
Use it for Anti-Cheating Engine — Only for Case Management, Contact, Event, and Feedback field categories. Whether or not the Anti-Cheating Engine (ACE) uses this field. See Anti-cheating Engine for more details.
Personally Identifying Data — Indicates the field contains sensitive data about individuals. The data in this field may be deleted or anonymized per the company's data retention policy. For more information, see Sensitive data.
Anonymize date — Only for fields with Date/Time data types when Personally Identifying Data is selected. It clears the time part of the field value to avoid knowing the exact time of the event.

Data types

Data types (previously known as Alternative sets) determine the kind of input values a field accepts to store and instruct the database to expect values of the selected type. Medallia Experience Cloud classifies data into the following types:

Choice set — Stores a range of constrained options (values). Each item in the choice set represents a possible option. To create a new choice set item, either mouse over an existing choice set item and click Add, or type enter from an existing choice set item. Both cases add a choice set item below. For each new item, enter the text to show.
Alternatively, click Add existing to reuse an existing choice set. Scroll down to see all existing choice sets, or write some key words in the search bar to locate the options faster. Click information to get more information about the choice set.
Next to each item, select the choice set menu to:
- Display settings — Optionally, define the choice set content in desktop and mobile surveys, a short name to appear in dropdown filter in reports (which is usually the same as the choice set), its visibility, box color (HTML color for the Responses Form table cell that appears when this is selected by the survey taker. If not set, Experience Cloud uses a default color), and ID.
- Delete choice — Delete existing choice set item.
On Choice set options, select Add value to choices to give a numeric value to each choice set item to perform calculations using Formula fields or to use in conditions.
On Form kind, define how the choice set appears in surveys, which can be either as radio button or dropdown.
Choice set items content can be formatted using a visual editor, with a real-time preview. Additionally, you can insert variables, as well as links and images (alternative text is required). To format a choice set item, select the content written in the item and mouse over the words to apply the chosen format. Make sure to maintain accessibility standards when formatting the survey. For more information, see Shared assets accessibility.

Restriction: Each Choice set item and value must be unique from the other items within the same choice set.
Comment — Stores information similar to text, but translatable.
Date — Stores date without time.
Date/Time — Stores dates and time.
Email — Stores email addresses. Accepted email format is youremail@company.com.
Fractional — Stores numbers with decimals. It requires to set a minimum and a maximum number to define the acceptable range, as well a the decimal place. For example, if Minimum is set to 10, Maximum to 70 and Decimal place is 10th, any number within that range and decimal place — such as 28.6 — is accepted.
Hyperlink — Stores URL type information and automatically displays a hyperlink on reports. The hyperlink must begin with http. This data type is not supported for Contact fields.
Indexed text — Also referred to as Auto-indexed. Filters on a text field in reports. Maximum number of values is 600,000; however, in practice, Experience Cloud performance degrades around 200,000. Further, performance of these fields depends heavily on how the field is being used, not solely by the number of values. Indexed text fields can be configured using Medallia Setup to support a maximum of 2,000,000 values with the High cardinality for auto indexed... property.
Integer — Stores numbers. It requires a minimum and a maximum number to define the acceptable range. For example, if Minimum is set to 10 and Maximum to 70, any number within that range — such as 28 — is accepted.
Time — Time without date.
Text — Stores information as plain text.
Unit — Stores information about Units. Accepted format is the Unit identifier.
Unit group — Stores information about Unit groups. Accepted format is the Unit group identifier.

Once a data type is set, it cannot be changed while editing a field.

Differentiating between Indexed text, Integer, and Choice set

Among the different Data type options, Choice set, Indexed text, and Integer are ones of the most commonly used, which can lead to confusion on which one is the most suitable to best fit your needs.

This decision tree presents the following case:

Choice set — A company has a Loyalty tier system with Gold, Silver, and Bronze levels. They want to analyze satisfaction by tier. The tiers are stable over time and consistently populated.
Indexed text — A company has 400 unique products. The names of the products are consistently populated, but the products are reviewed and updated on a monthly or quarterly basis.
Integer — A company wants to calculate an average purchase amount per customer or a set of customers for financial linkage.

Decision tree to choose best data type option.

Reports

The following table shows the most suitable data type when working with reports.


Capability	Text	Indexed text	Choice set	Integer
Use as segment	No	Yes	Yes	No
Custom query	No	Yes	Yes	No
Use in Ranker	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Use in Profiler	No	No	Yes	No
Use in columns	No	No	Yes	No
Translatable	No	No	Yes	No
Use to customize reports	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Use in search box	Yes	Yes	Yes	N

Surveys

The following table shows the most suitable data type when working with surveys.


Capability	Text	Indexed text	Choice set	Integer
Used in survey conditions	No	No	Yes	No
Used to pipe-in to survey/email	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Translatable	No	No	Yes	No

Role permissions and data access

The following table shows the most suitable data type when working with role permissions.


Capability	Text	Indexed text	Choice set	Integer
Grant permissions	No	Yes*	Yes	No

*As the values in an Indexed text field can change at any time, basing permissions on such fields is risky and not recommended.