Custom Fields

Learn how to extend Kombo’s unified data models with additional fields.

What are Kombo custom fields?

Kombo’s unified models cover the fields that are standard across HR, ATS, and other business systems. When your product needs additional read-side data, custom fields let you extend those models with your own stable field keys.

For example, you might add t_shirt_size to employees, benefit_eligibility to employments, or source_campaign to applications. Once a custom field is configured and mapped, Kombo returns it in the custom_fields object of the relevant API response.

This makes custom fields a good fit whenever you need a data point that is not part of Kombo’s standard unified model, but you still want to read it in an integration-agnostic way.

Custom fields are for reading additional data from connected systems. Looking to write extra data when creating candidates or applications? See Remote Fields. For a full comparison of all extension mechanisms, see Extending the Model.

How mappings work

A Kombo custom field is the target field that appears in your API response. A field from the connected system is the source field that provides the value for a specific integration.

The source field can be anything Kombo can discover from the connected system: a standard field in that system, a niche provider-specific field, or a custom field that your customer created in their HR or ATS tool.

For example:

• A Personio employee attribute called “Favorite Color” can be mapped to your Kombo custom field favorite_color.
• A provider-specific employee field for cost center, employment type, or benefit eligibility can be mapped to a Kombo custom field if your product needs that value and Kombo’s standard model does not expose it exactly the way you need.
• Different customers can use different field names, such as “Favorite Color” and “Favourite Colour”, while your API integration always reads the same Kombo key.

Setting up custom fields in Kombo

Create the Kombo custom field

Open the Dashboard and click on Configuration in the sidebar, then on the Custom Fields tab.

Find the relevant data model on the page. In this example, we want to add a field to employees, so click Add custom field in the Employees section.

Enter the field key that should appear in the API response. Let’s call it favorite_color. The field key you choose here becomes the key in the custom_fields object of every mapped record.

Prepare the field in the connected system

Sometimes the field you want to map already exists in the connected system. In other cases, your customer may first need to create or expose it there.

Let’s take Personio as an example where the source field is a custom attribute in the HR system.

Under Settings > Employee Information, you can add new attributes or entire sections to employee profiles. We will add a new attribute called “Favorite Color” to the “Public Profile” section.

If we now go to the profile of an employee, we can see the new field. Let’s set a value for it.

In the case of Personio, we need to let the API key know that we want to expose the new attribute. Go to Settings > API Credentials, click on the API key you used to connect to Kombo, then open the “Readable employee attributes” section and select the field.

Don’t forget to click save.

Map fields manually

To map a field manually, open the overview for the integration. Kombo discovers available fields during syncs, so run a sync first if the field is new or has not appeared yet.

After the sync is finished, open the custom field dropdown for the relevant model and select the field from the connected system that should fill your Kombo custom field.

Don’t forget to click Save changes to save your changes. After creating the mapping, the next sync will read the source value and return it under your Kombo custom field key.

Map fields based on live data

For supported integrations, the custom field dropdown also includes a recommended option to Identify field using live data (see screenshot above). Click Open Custom Field Explorer to search the connected system directly and find the field based on real records.

This is useful when the field name is unclear, or when you know an example value but not the exact field key. For example, you can search for an employee with the value “Large” to find the field that stores T-shirt size, then map that field to your Kombo custom field.

If the Explorer is not available for an integration yet, use the regular dropdown mapping flow described above.

Add automatic mapping rules

On the custom field detail page, you can see how many integrations use the field and which automatic mapping rules are defined for it.

Automatic mapping rules tell Kombo which fields of new integrations should automatically be mapped to this Kombo custom field. Each rule matches against a field key or label and can optionally be scoped to a connector. You can add as many rules as you need.

Click Add rule to create a new automatic mapping rule.

In the dialog, choose whether the rule should apply to one connector or every integration in the category. Then choose whether Kombo should match against the remote field’s key or label, and enter the value to match.

Whenever a sync discovers a field in an integration whose key or label matches one of your rules, its value is automatically mapped to your Kombo custom field. Going back to the Personio example: if you had set up a rule for “Favorite Color” scoped to Personio, the next Personio sync would have automatically mapped the value to favorite_color.

Self-Serve Custom Field Configuration

To simplify the mapping process, you can allow your customers to map fields themselves using our self-serve Setup Flow. This is especially useful when your customer knows best which field in their system contains the value your Kombo custom field should receive.

Custom fields can be mapped as part of the connection, reducing the need for manual setup.

Learn more about enabling self-serve field mapping here.

Accessing custom fields in the API

Each model that supports custom fields has a custom_fields attribute. This attribute is a JSON object containing all mapped Kombo custom fields for that record.

When you query the API, you receive mapped custom field values in the custom_fields attribute. In this example, we query the GET /employees endpoint.

The value of a custom field mirrors what is returned by the underlying API. It is not always a string; it can also be a number, boolean, object, or array.

{
  "status": "success",
  "data": {
    "results": [
      {
        ...
        "custom_fields": {
          "favorite_color": "blue",
          "manager": {
            "name": "Frank"
          },
          "reports": [
            {
              "name": "Tom"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}