Setting up your field architecture is the most important step before importing employees. Fields are the foundation of everything in Shapes — your workflows, forms, reports, and dashboards all depend on them. Taking a little time to plan upfront saves hours of rework later.
Why does field architecture matter so much?
Everything in Shapes connects back to fields:
Workflows send forms that collect data — but those forms can only include fields that already exist.
Reports & dashboards can only surface data that's stored in a field.
Permissions control who sees what, configured per field.
Importing employees maps your spreadsheet columns to fields — unmapped columns are skipped.
If you import employees before your fields are ready, you'll either lose data or spend time re-importing.
What fields come built-in?
Shapes includes a set of pre-created system fields out of the box, including First Name, Last Name, Work Email, Personal Email, Phone Number, Date of Birth, Gender, Nationality, Job, Reports To, Team, Office, Address, Salary Amount/Currency, Start Date, Termination Date, and Profile Picture. You don't need to recreate these — see the full list of pre-created fields in Shapes for the complete set and their field types.
Employee ID: Shapes already includes a built-in Employee ID / Unique Identifier field in the Identification section — you don't need to create a new one. It can be configured to auto-assign sequential IDs to new employees; see Setting Up Auto-Incrementing Employee IDs. If you also track a separate physical badge number, that can be a custom field.
What custom fields should I create before importing?
Think about the categories of data you track. Common ones to set up before import:
Work & Role
Cost center / budget code
Level / seniority (e.g., IC1, IC2, Senior, Lead)
Badge number (if different from your Employee ID)
Probation end date
Documents & Compliance
Right to work expiry date
Contract type
Tax ID
Visa / work permit expiry date
IT & Equipment (if relevant)
Equipment type, serial number, purchase date
Software licenses / subscriptions
Onboarding-specific
T-shirt size, dietary requirements, preferred name — anything collected in your pre-onboarding form
Tip: Use Generate with AI to create an entire field group in seconds. Just describe what you want (e.g., "emergency contact details for employees") and Shapes builds it for you.
How should I organize my fields?
Fields are organized into Tabs → Sections → Fields. Think of it like a filing cabinet: a tab is a drawer (e.g., Personal, Work), a section is a folder inside the drawer (e.g., Emergency Contact), and a field is the individual item (e.g., Emergency Contact Phone Number).
A recommended starting structure for most companies:
Tab | What goes here |
Personal | Date of birth, address, personal contact, emergency contact |
Work | Job title, team, office, salary, cost center, level |
Documents | Contracts, IDs, right to work, certifications |
IT | Equipment, software, access |
Onboarding | Pre-onboarding info, equipment preferences |
Which field type should I use?
Choosing the right field type matters — it affects filtering, reporting, and form behavior. Commonly used types include Text (free-form, e.g., preferred name), Number (e.g., years of experience), Date (e.g., visa expiry), Phone, Currency, Country, File (document uploads), and Select fields for choosing one or more options from a list (e.g., contract type, seniority level). The full set of options appears when you click Add Field — see How to add new Employee Fields & Tables.
Tip: Use a select field instead of free text for anything you'll want to filter or report on (e.g., "Contract Type: Permanent/Fixed-Term/Contractor"). Free text is unpredictable and hard to filter.
Note: File upload fields aren't currently supported in the quick Add Employee pop-up form — they work in employee profiles and workflow forms. If you want new hires to upload a document like an ID on day one, collect it via a workflow form rather than the initial add-employee step.
Do I need to set permissions for each field?
Yes — and this is easy to forget. All custom fields are hidden by default to every role until you explicitly configure access.
For each field or group of fields, decide what each role can do:
Super Admin — always sees everything
Admin — View, Edit, or Hidden
Manager — View or Edit their reports' data, or Hidden
Employee — View or Edit their own data, or Hidden
Configure this at Account Settings → Permissions → [Role] → [Tab].
Field type | Suggested access |
Salary / compensation | Hide from employees and managers — Admin/Super Admin only |
Emergency contacts | Employees can Edit their own; Admins can View |
Job title, team, office | Employees can View; Admins can Edit |
IT / equipment | Admin can Edit; hidden from employees |
How do I prepare my import file?
Once your fields are ready:
Go to People Directory → ⋯ → Import File.
Upload your spreadsheet (CSV or Excel).
Map each column to the correct Shapes field.
Columns that don't map to an existing field are skipped — so make sure the field exists first.
Important: First Name, Last Name, and Work Email are required to identify each employee. Everything else is optional but won't be imported unless the corresponding field exists and is mapped.
What's the recommended order of setup?
Set up tabs, sections, and custom fields — Account Settings → Employee Fields
Configure permissions for each field/tab — Account Settings → Permissions
Import employees with your spreadsheet — People Directory → Import
Build your workflows — forms will now have all your fields available
Invite employees once everything is configured
Top tips from teams who've done this before
Don't over-engineer it on day one. Start with the fields you'll actually use in the first three months — you can always add more later.
Use select fields wherever possible — free text is harder to report on.
Plan your onboarding form first — work backwards from "what do I need employees to fill in on day one?" to figure out which fields you need.
Use AI to generate field groups — describe what you need and let Shapes build the structure for you.
Name fields clearly — employees will see these names in forms. "Emergency Contact Full Name" is better than "EC Name".