Change Attribute type from "Category" to "Text"

Is there a way of changing a Contact or Deal Attribute type from « Category » to « Text. »?

Within my application, an API programmatically writes data to both contacts and deals. However, when encountering a custom field set as « Category » and the intended value is absent from the dropdown list, the API takes no action.

To address this, I’d like to explore two potential solutions:

  1. Enable API Creation of New Category Values: Could the API be configured to automatically create new category values when they’re not found in the existing list?
  2. Directly Change Attribute Type to « Text »: Is there a method for directly converting the attribute type to « Text, » eliminating the need to construct a new field and migrate user data?

I’m particularly interested in avoiding the latter approach if possible, as it would involve additional setup and data migration efforts.

Thanks!

Hi @capricorn ,

I tested on my side, and indeed you can’t change a category field to a text one.
And I don’t think the API can be dynamic like what you proposed either.

But, I just got an idea about how you could proceed:

  • let’s say your category field is called CF
  • create a new text field, for example TF
  • download all your contacts
  • copy what is inside CF to TF
  • import your contacts again to Brevo, and update TF with the data you just copied in this field
    => then you can remove CF and use TF

What do you think? I understand this would require a bit of effort on your side, but at least the migration would be « easy » to do

I’ve missed this reply @ahudavert, thanks for the suggestion! So effectivelly I’d be updating the users, when re-importing them, instead of creating a new one? Good idea, I’ll explore, thanks!

1 « J'aime »

Yes absolutely it would update them!