How to Create Custom Fields in Bullhorn ATS

If you’re wondering how to add a field to your field mappings, this article walks you through the setup process so your custom fields are properly mapped and usable across your system. Capture company-specific information that Bullhorn’s standard fields don’t cover by creating a custom field. This allows your team to track unique data for jobs, placements, candidates, or contacts efficiently.

Common Reasons You Might Need a Custom Field

You need to add a brand-new custom field to jobs, placements, candidates, or contacts.
You want to make a field mandatory or conditional based on another value.
You want to add or edit dropdown values in a custom field.
A custom field may not be showing up in search, list views, or reporting.
You want to reorder or group custom fields under specific headers.
You are unsure how to set up a new custom field for integration or payroll systems.
You want to make a field required.
You want to hide or unhide a field.

Create a Custom Field

You can add fields to Contacts, Candidates, Jobs, and Placements.

From your Bullhorn Menu, select Admin and then Field Mappings.
- S-Release: On the Tools menu, select Field Mappings.
Locate the entity where you want to add the custom field.
In the field column, type "customText" and press Enter.
Select a custom field that is not currently in use or that you want to edit by clicking its hyperlinked field name.
Fill out the field details in the pop-up window:
- Field Description Display: Enter the name visible to users.
  
  Changing a field label will not break anything. Field labels are for display purposes only and do not affect the functionality or data of a field.
- Edit Type: Choose the appropriate type (e.g., Text, Drop Down).
- Required: Toggle on if you want to require users to fill out this field before saving.
- Hidden: Toggle on this checkbox to hide a field, and ensure whether users see it.
- Allow Multiple Values: Toggle on if users can select more than one option.
- Sort Order: Enter a number to reorder the field’s position on the edit screen. This can also change the grouping of your custom fields. By assigning different numerical values in this column, you can control the sequence in which the fields appear.
- Value List: For drop-down fields, input the values separated by commas.
- Default Value: Optional; select a default value from the value list.
- Description: Provide the field’s purpose.
- Hint: Add optional guidance text within the field.
Click Save.
Log out and log back in to see the changes.

The new field to the entity is applied. For more, see About Encrypted Fields.

Do not repurpose existing Bullhorn fields (e.g., changing the Status field to store emails). Section Header fields only display visually on the Edit tab; they do not store data.

Troubleshooting

If the field isn’t appearing: Ensure it’s unhidden in Field Mappings and you have the correct permissions.
If you get a character limit error: Use a customTextBlock field for text longer than 100 characters.
If the field needs to store sensitive info: Use customEncryptedText fields instead of standard text fields.
If users can’t see the field: Confirm the field is not restricted by security settings and is properly assigned to the entity.
If a field works in Sandbox (NPE) but not in Production, review the following:
- Confirm whether code or configurations were updated in Sandbox but not deployed to Production.
- Compare field mappings between Sandbox and Production (e.g., value list, display value, sort order).
- If multiple private labels exist, check field mappings across each label, since they can be set separately.
- Verify the View Layout for each private label and corp to ensure the field is visible and placed correctly.
- If recent changes were made, log out and back in; if that doesn’t work, clear cookies and cache.
- If all checks fail to resolve the issue, escalate to Engineering.

FAQs

Q: Can I repurpose an existing Bullhorn field for custom data?

A: No, existing fields should not be repurposed, as this can break system functionality.

Q: Can I set a custom field to be conditional based on another field's value?

A: No, custom fields cannot be set to be conditional on other fields. The platform does not support this type of conditional logic for custom fields.

Q: How do I control who can edit a field?

A: Field editability is determined by the Usertypes that have been granted edit capability. All custom fields are editable by these users. The only exceptions are specific, system-level fields like Encrypted and Confidential fields, which are typically used for integrations (e.g., for GDPR compliance) and are not editable by standard users.

Q: How do I make a field mandatory or conditional?

A: It is not possible to make fields required or conditional based on another value or stage of a workflow in standard Bullhorn. Required fields only apply during record creation. To implement conditional or stage-specific required fields, reach out to Professional Services to build a Field Interaction.

Q: My custom field isn't showing up in search, list views, or reporting. Why?

A: There are two common reasons why a custom field might not be appearing as expected.

It's a customTextBlock: If the custom field was created as a customTextBlock, it's designed to hold large amounts of unstructured text and, by default, is not searchable. This means it won't appear in search results, filterable lists, or reports.
It's not in the Search Layout: Even if a custom field is configured correctly, it won't show up in search or list views unless it's explicitly added to the Search Layout. This setting, found under the View Layout, controls which fields are visible and searchable for a particular object or record type.

To resolve this, you should check how the custom field was initially set up. If it's a customTextBlock and you need it to be searchable, you may need to recreate it using a different field type, such as a regular text field. If it's not a customTextBlock, navigate to Admin > View Layout and add the field to the Search tab to make it visible and searchable.

Q: How do I set up a custom field for payroll or an integration?

A: Setup is like any other custom field. The integration will typically look for a specific field name (e.g., customText5, customInt7, customFloat2) rather than the field label. You should choose the appropriate data type (text, date, integer, or float) based on what the integration requires.