Update or Clear Contact Fields in a Workflow

Keeping Contacts accurate is half of good automation. The Update Contact Field action writes values into a contact's standard or custom fields while the workflow runs, or empties custom fields you no longer need.

Choose an action type

• Update field data: replaces the current value of a field with new content.
• Clear field data: empties one or more fields. This works on custom fields only, never on standard ones like email or phone.

Clearing can change which contacts appear in Smart Lists or which branch an If/Else condition takes, so check what depends on the field first.

Add the action

1. Open a workflow under Automation > Workflows.
2. Click + and select Update Contact Field.
3. Name the action so it is easy to spot in the canvas and logs.
4. Select the Action Type.
5. Pick the field, then enter a fixed value or switch to a Dynamic Value taken from an earlier step or another stored field.
6. Use Add field to change more than one field in a single action, then save.

Dynamic values and field types

Dynamic values are filled in separately for each contact as they pass through. They are supported for numeric, dropdown, and monetary fields, and dropdown fields take the option text rather than an ID. Match the format to the field: valid emails, phone numbers, and dates, and options that already exist for dropdowns, checkboxes, and radio fields. The action cannot create new fields.

Date fields

For a date field, you can choose among three approaches:

• Current Date: stamps the day the action runs.
• Specific Date: uses a date you pick in the editor.
• Custom Date: uses a value or merge field written as MM-DD-YYYY (12-21-2025) or DD-MMM-YYYY (21-OCT-2025).

Good to know: If an update seems to have failed, open the workflow's execution log; validation errors from mismatched formats are recorded there.