Team Signatures
What are Smart Fields?
A Smart Field is a named piece of information that a signature pulls in per person, defined once for the whole workspace rather than per template. Where a template says "put the teammate's booking link here", the Smart Field is what defines what a booking link is, where its value comes from, and what to show when someone does not have one.
The Smart Fields page lists them all, showing each field's Name, its Data source, its Default, whether it is Required, and how many signatures it is Used in.
What each column means
- Name is how you refer to the field when placing it in a template.
- Data source is where the value comes from. Fields can be filled from your connected Google Workspace or Microsoft directory rather than typed in by hand, which is what keeps titles and departments correct as people change roles.
- Default is what appears when a teammate has no value of their own. This is the column that decides whether a gap looks deliberate or broken.
- Required marks fields that every teammate is expected to have, so you can see who is missing one.
- Used in signatures tells you the blast radius before you change or delete anything.
Text fields and image fields
Smart Fields come in two kinds. Most are text: a job title, a phone number, a booking link. Some are images, which render as a picture in the signature rather than as words, and are the right choice for things like a personal headshot or a per-person badge.
Choose the kind when you create the field. A text field holding an image URL is not the same thing and will render as a link.
Why defaults matter more than they look
The default is the most consequential setting on a field, because it decides what a signature looks like for the people who are incomplete.
Take a booking link. If half the team has one and the field has no default, half your signatures carry an empty space where a button should be. Set the default to a shared team link and those signatures stay whole. Set it to nothing deliberately and the element should be one that disappears cleanly when empty, not one that leaves a gap.
Before adding a field to a template, ask what the signature looks like for the person who has no value for it. That case is usually more common than you expect.
Smart Fields and per-template fields
Smart Fields live at workspace level, so one definition serves every template. Older per-template custom fields still work and are treated as text, and existing ones are brought into the registry automatically as they are used.
The practical guidance for new work: define it once as a Smart Field rather than repeating it in each template. You will thank yourself the first time the value has to change.
Common issues and fixes
| Issue | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| A signature shows a blank where a field should be | The teammate has no value and the field has no default | Set a sensible default, or fill the teammate's value |
| An image field renders as a link | It was created as a text field holding a URL | Recreate it as an image field |
| Directory values are not updating | The field is not pointed at a directory data source | Set the data source, and check the integration is connected |
| Deleting a field broke signatures | It was still in use | Check Used in signatures before deleting |
| A teammate's title is wrong everywhere | The value is wrong at the source, not in each signature | Fix it in the directory or on the teammate record |
Related articles
- What are dynamic variables covers placing per-person values inside a template.
- What are workspace templates explains static and dynamic parts of a template.
- How to import and manage teammates covers getting per-person values in.
- Set dynamic social links for teammates covers a common per-person field.
Still stuck? Email support@syncsignature.com and include the field name and the template it is used in.