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Manage Field Types

Who does this article apply to?

  • Enterprise, Partner, and Small Business accounts.
  • Accounts in all regions.

The Knowledge Graph supports a variety of field types, each designed for different kinds of data.

Standard Field Types

Each field is defined by a type. These are the standard field types available in the Yext platform.

Note: The default validation for each field type is displayed in the table below. For any new custom fields using a standard field type, the default validation will be set unless alternate validation is configured by the user. 
Type Description Available Validation
Call-to-Action Call to Action with label and link Label character length (up to 255), Link character length (up to 2,000)
Complex Photo Photo with built-in caption, details, clickthrough URL & alternate text Aspect Ratio, Min Width/Height
Complex Photo Gallery Gallery of Photos with built-in caption, details, clickthrough URL & alternate text Aspect Ratio, Min Width/Height, Item count (up to 500)
Complex Video YouTube (and YouTube Shorts) URL with built-in description Description character length (up to 140)
Complex Video Gallery Gallery of YouTube URLs with built-in description Description character length (up to 140), Item count (up to 100)
Daily Times Daily times field n/a
Date Date field Date Range
Date + Time Date field with specified time of day Date and Time Range
Entity Relationship List of related entities with the option to select a One Way, Two Way (Shared Field), or Two Way (Distinct Field) relationship type Selectable Entity Types, Item Count (up to 5,000)
File File field types can be configured to support one file or support a list of files. File Format and Maximum File Size (up to 1GB) 
Hours Daily Hours field n/a
Multi-Line Text Long-form text Character length (up to 100,000)
Multi-Option Select Option field where user can select multiple options Available Options, Item count (up to 2,000)
Number Numeric field Number Range
Phone Numeric field with country code prefix and automatic phone number formatting n/a (validation on what constitutes a valid phone number is derived from Google )
Photo Photo with alternate text Aspect Ratio, Min Width/Height
Photo Gallery Gallery of Photos with alternate text Aspect Ratio, Min Width/Height, Item count (up to 500)
Price Price Field n/a
Rich Text Rich text field with formatting Type of formatting (bold, italics, underline, bulleted list, numbered list, hyperlink, code block), Character length (up to 100,000)
Single-Line Text Short-form text Character length (up to 100,000)
Single-Option Select Option field where user can select only one option Available Options
Slug A short, reader-friendly label at the end of a URL that typically acts as an identifier, e.g., hitchhikers.yext.com/docs Lowercase alpha-numerics and the following special characters: - . _ ~ : / [ ] @ ! $ ’ ( ) * + ; = “
Text-List List of text strings Character length (up to 100,000), Item count (up to 1,000)
Time An hour and minute value (hh:mm) n/a
URL Website URL Character length (up to 2,000)
Video YouTube (and YouTube Shorts) URL n/a
Video Gallery Gallery of YouTube (and YouTube Shorts) URLs Aspect Ratio, Min Width/Height, Item count (up to 100)
Yes / No Field with options Yes, No, or Unspecified n/a

 

File Field Type

The File field type allows you to store files directly on your entities. This type is available for use in custom fields and custom field types.

Properties

The File field type is composed of the following five properties:

Property Description
sourceURL Source URL of the file. Only populates if uploaded by providing a hosted URL.
url The Yext-Hosted URL of the file.
mimeType The MIME  Type of the file. Currently, all MIME types are supported.
name The display name of the file. User-settable. Note: The name property cannot be mapped via connctor, but can be set or edited on all other interfaces.the |
size The size of the file in bytes.

 

File field types can be configured to support one file or support a list of files. This will automatically create a maximum file upload validation of 1 or 5,000 respectively.

Validation

The default validation for File fields is below. You can also configure validation for File custom fields and File custom field types.

Option Default Validation Custom Validation
File Format All MIME-type formats are allowed. You can restrict uploaded files to a subset of allowed file types by common MIME type. 
Maximum File Size Files cannot exceed 1 GB. Set a different maximum size limit in bytes, kilobytes, or megabytes. The value must be a whole number.

Note: There is a known issue with JsonFormat.Printer  affecting Configuration as Code where the maxSize property will be returned as a string when pulled. However, when applied, this property needs to be a number.

Uploading Files

Files can be uploaded using all interfaces for editing entities in the Knowledge Graph (i.e., Entity Edit, Entity Upload, Connectors, API, and CaC).

All interfaces support file uploads by referencing a source URL. Uploading from a local file system is only supported in Entity Edit.

To upload a file that is hosted online, indicate the hosted URL using the url property. This provided url will then be propagated to the sourceUrl property, while the URL field will change to be the Yext hosted URL of this file.

Updating Files

To change a file being stored in a field on an entity, update the value of the url property to be the new hosted file’s URL. Sending updates to the sourceUrl property is not supported.

The user-agent string used to download files is YextBot YextFileDownloader/1.0.

Accessing Stored Files

Files stored on entities can be accessed via Entity Edit and via API.

Entity Edit

Files can be downloaded from the URL property. The edit state of this field will show all properties of the File field. Properties of a file cannot be edited in Entity Edit, except for the name of the file.

API

Opening the URL stored in the url property will download the file onto your local device. Here’s an example of what this would look like on an Entities: GET.

With other fields elided, the response looks like this:

 
{
  "response": {
    "entities": [{
      "c_pdfFile": [{
  		"sourceUrl": "https://www.pdfs.com/123",
  		"url":"https://a.mktgcdn.com/f/3912636/123",
  		"mimeType": "application/pdf",
  		"name": "Instruction Manual",
  		"size": 2001
	}]
    }]
  }
}

Photo Field Type

The Photo field type allows you to store photos directly on your entities. This type is available for use in custom fields and custom field types.

Properties

The Photo field type is composed of the following five properties:

Property Description
width The width of the photo in pixels.
height The height of the photo in pixels.
url The Yext-Hosted URL of the file.
sourceUrl Source URL of the file. Only populates if uploaded by providing a hosted URL.
thumbnails (Legacy) A legacy feature generating thumbnails of various sizes for a photo upon upload. This functionality has been replaced by dynamic image transformation.

 

Validation

You can configure validation for Photo custom fields and Photo custom field types.

Option Available Validation Default Accepted Values
Width Set the minimum width in pixels 0 Whole numbers 0-1,000
Height Set the minimum height in pixels 0 Whole numbers 0-1,000
Aspect Ratio Set the accepted ratio of width to height Unconstrained Unconstrained, 1:1, 4:3, 3:2, 5:3, 16:9, 3:1,2:3, 5:7, 4:5, 16:10


Limitations

Option Accepted Values
Image size Up to 100 megapixels
Image format JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, WEBP

Uploading Photos

Photos can be uploaded using all interfaces for editing entities in the Knowledge Graph.

All interfaces support photo uploads by referencing a source URL. Uploading a photo from a local file system is only supported in Entity Edit.

To upload a photo that is hosted online, populate the photo URL in the url property. This URL will then be propagated to the sourceUrl property, while the URL field will be the Yext-hosted URL of the photo.
 

Updating Photos

To change the photo that is being stored in a given Photo field, update the value of the url property to be the new hosted photo’s URL. Sending updates directly to the sourceUrl property is not supported.

Accessing Photos

Once an image has been uploaded to an entity, its hosted URL is kept as a reference in the entity’s field. You can access the entity via API to retrieve the photo’s URL directly, for example:

 

With other fields elided, the response looks like this:

{
  "response": {
    "entities": [{
      "photoGallery": [{
        "image": {
          "width": 314,
          "height": 366, 
          "url": "http://a.mktgcdn.com/p/Oua5ocwC7euaUFkJ-V8n3OpF76Xtfh_rdsDT9ki_laY/314x366.jpg"
      }]
    }]
  }
}

Every image is assigned a long UUID (the long random string above), so the URL has the form: a.mktgcdn.com/p/UUID/WIDTHxHEIGHT.EXT.

Both HTTP and HTTPS are supported.
 

Custom Field Types

You can create custom field types to group multiple fields together into a single complex field. For example, you could create a "Business Hours Override" field type with subfields for day, open time, and close time.

You’ll usually use the built-in field types in Yext. If necessary for your use case, you can also create custom field types. 

To create a custom field type:

  1. Navigate to Knowledge Graph > Configuration and click the Field Types tile.

    configuration-field-types.png
     
  2. Click Add Custom Field Type.

    custom-field-type-add.png

     
  3. Enter the basic information for your custom field type.
    • Field Type Name
    • API Name: This will be automatically set based on the name, but you can modify it if desired.
    • Type Description (optional)

      custom-field-type-info.png
       
  4. If you're using alternate language profiles, add translations to your custom entity type. Click Add translation on the Name or Description setting.

    custom-field-type-add-translation.png
  5. Choose your desired language and enter the translated value. Click Save or Save & Add Another to add another translation to the same setting.

    custom-field-type-translated.png
  6. Add the individual fields that will make up your new field type. To start, click Add a subfield.

    custom-field-type-add-subfield.png
     
  7. Enter the settings for your subfield.
    • Subfield type: choose the type of subfield you want to add. Depending on your chosen field type, you may see slightly different settings.
    • Subfield label: enter a label for the subfield. Add translations if desired.
    • Validation: set validation rules such as a minimum or maximum character count, or other accepted content in the subfield.
    • Settings: choose whether this subfield should be required when populating your custom field, and whether this subfield has list options.
    • Click Add a subfield to add any other subfields.
    • Click the trash can icon on a subfield to remove it.

      custom-field-type-subfields.png
  8. Click Save at the bottom of the screen to save your custom field type.