The library and field types

Every custom field you'll ever need lives in one library, reusable across as many activities as you want. Each field shows its collection mode, which activities use it, and how many responses it's gotten. Creating a new one starts with picking a type — twelve real options, from a simple Text field to Checkbox and Dropdown, which can also trigger conditional logic.

Building a field: type and collection mode

The type you pick shapes the question; a setting called collection mode decides how often you ask it:

• Once per Trip — asked one time for the whole booking. Good for something everyone shares, like "are you celebrating a special occasion?"
• Once per Guest — asked separately for every person in the party. Good for something that's different per person, like a weight limit for a per-person activity.

Standard guest fields

Before you even reach for a custom field, the built-in guest fields are already configurable per activity. Name, email, phone, and group name can each be set to Hidden, Optional, or Required — independently for online bookings versus walk-up bookings at the counter.

Visibility and required

Every custom field has two more decisions: is it required, and who actually sees it?

• Everywhere — shown to staff and every guest booking surface. Use this for something a guest provides themselves, like dietary needs.
• Staff only — kept in your internal back office, never shown to guests. Use this for an internal note, like which boat a group was assigned to.
• Online booking only — shown at checkout, hidden from the staff back office.

Conditional logic

A Checkbox or Dropdown field can do more than collect an answer — it can reveal an entirely different field depending on what the guest picks. For example, checking a "Groupon Booking?" field can reveal a Boater Safety Test field, so staff only get asked to confirm it when it's actually relevant.

Assigning a field to an activity

Once a custom field exists in your library, attaching it to an activity is a drag — drag an unassigned field into Applied to turn it on, or drag within Applied to control the order guests see it at checkout.

Where answers show up

Every answer a guest gives ends up right where your team already looks:

• On the trip — guest-level answers (like a team color) show up under Guest Info; per-ticket answers (like shirt size or weight) show up under that ticket's own Additional Info.
• On the Manifest — every custom field becomes its own column, per guest, with a Totals row at the bottom that rolls up the day's answers across everyone.

Summarizing a numeric field

A numeric field like Weight goes one step further. Turn on Summarize this field on the Manifest, and your team sees the real total for the day. Turn on an alert range, and TripWorks flags it the moment that total falls outside a safe operating limit — catching a problem before it becomes one, not after.

Next steps

Open your own Custom Fields library to see what you're already collecting, or book a demo if you want a walkthrough on your own account.