Formatting Your CSV for Custom Merge Fields

For: District Admins, School Admins, and Teachers of AFC+, School Engagement, and District Engagement partners

Before you can use Custom Merge Fields, you'll need to build a CSV file (a simple spreadsheet you can make in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers). This article walks through exactly what your file needs to include.

Already have your file ready? Head to Sending a Message with Custom Merge Fields for the next steps.

The Basic Layout

Your file needs one row for each student, and one column for each piece of information. Here's an example:

id	Name	balance_owed	pickup_time
100023	Jane Doe	$12.50	3:15 PM
100024	John Doe	$0.00	2:45 PM

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED: Example CSV shown in a spreadsheet program — see "image 1.png" in source doc]

Required and Optional Columns

The first column: id (required)

This column must come first. It holds each student's ID — either their SIS ID or their manual ID.

The Name column (optional)

You can add a column called Name to help you keep track of who's who while you're building your file. TalkingPoints ignores this column completely — it's just there to help you.

Your custom field columns

Every other column becomes a custom merge field. The column header becomes the field name, so name it carefully:

Use only letters (a–z, A–Z), numbers (0–9), and underscores ( _ )
No spaces or special characters
The name can't match an existing standard merge field, like student_name
You can include up to 10 custom fields in one file

Good to know: Whatever you type as the column header is exactly what you'll use later in your message, including capital letters. If your column is named Balance_Owed, your message needs [Balance_Owed] — not [balance_owed].

File Requirements

Save your file as a CSV (most spreadsheet programs let you do this under "Save As" or "Download")
We recommend UTF-8 encoding, which is the default in most programs

A Quick Checklist Before You Upload

First column is named id and has the correct student ID for each row
Column headers use only letters, numbers, and underscores
No two columns have the same name
No column name matches a standard merge field
10 or fewer custom field columns
File is saved as a CSV

Once your file is ready, you're set to attach it to a message. See Sending a Message with Custom Merge Fields for those steps.