zulip/help/custom-profile-fields.md

Custom profile fields

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User cards show basic information about a user, and user profiles provide additional details. You can add custom profile fields to user cards and user profiles, making it easy for users to share information, such as their pronouns, job title, or team.

Zulip supports many types of profile fields, such as dates, lists of options, GitHub account links, and more. You can choose which custom profile fields to display on user cards. Custom profile fields can be optional or required.

Zulip supports synchronizing custom profile fields from an external user database such as LDAP or SAML. See the authentication methods documentation for details.

Add a custom profile field

{start_tabs}

{settings_tab|profile-field-settings}

1. Click Add a new profile field.

2. Fill out profile field information as desired, and click Add.

3. In the Labels column, click and drag the vertical dots to reorder the list of custom profile fields.

{end_tabs}

Edit a custom profile field

{start_tabs}

{settings_tab|profile-field-settings}

1. In the Actions column, click the pencil () icon for the profile field you want to edit.

2. Edit profile field information as desired, and click Save changes.

{end_tabs}

Display custom fields on user card

Organizations may find it useful to display additional fields on the user card, such as pronouns, GitHub username, job title, team, etc.

All field types other than "Long text" or "Person" have a checkbox option that controls whether to display a custom field on the user card. There's a limit to the number of custom profile fields that can be displayed at a time. If the maximum number of fields is already selected, all unselected checkboxes will be disabled.

{start_tabs}

{settings_tab|profile-field-settings}

1. In the Actions column, click the pencil () icon for the profile field you want to edit.

2. Toggle Display on user card.

3. Click Save changes.

!!! tip ""

You can also choose which custom profile fields will be displayed by toggling
the checkboxes in the **Card** column of the **Custom profile fields** table.

{end_tabs}

Make a custom profile field required

If a custom profile field is required, users who have left it blank will see a banner every time they open the Zulip web or desktop app prompting them to fill it out.

{start_tabs}

{settings_tab|profile-field-settings}

1. In the Actions column, click the pencil () icon for the profile field you want to edit.

2. Toggle Required field.

3. Click Save changes.

!!! tip ""

You can also choose which custom profile fields are required by toggling the
checkboxes in the **Required** column of the **Custom profile fields** table.

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Configure whether users can edit custom profile fields

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You can configure whether users in your organization can modify their own custom profile fields. For example, you may want to restrict editing if syncing profile fields from an employee directory.

{start_tabs}

{settings_tab|profile-field-settings}

1. In the Actions column, click the pencil () icon for the profile field you want to configure.

2. Toggle Users can edit this field.

3. Click Save changes.

{end_tabs}

Profile field types

Choose the profile field type that's most appropriate for the requested information.

• Date: For dates (e.g., birthdays or work anniversaries).
• Link: For links to websites, including company-internal pages.
• External account: For linking to an account on GitHub, X (Twitter), etc.
• List of options: A dropdown with a list of predefined options (e.g., office location).
• Pronouns: What pronouns should people use to refer to the user? Pronouns are displayed in user mention autocomplete suggestions.
• Text (long): For multiline responses (e.g., a user's intro message).
• Text (short): For one-line responses up to 50 characters (e.g., team name or role in your organization).
• Users: For selecting one or more users (e.g., manager or direct reports).

Related articles

• Edit your profile
• User cards
• View someone's profile