When you add/import a parcel to TrackMage, tracking information about that parcel are captured in relevant fields in the system.

Some of the default fields we have in TrackMage include: Tracking Number, Status, Origin Carrier etc.

In addition to the default fields, you can add custom fields that best suits your business to your tracking pages. For instance, you can add SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) field, which of course isn't one of the default fields in TrackMage.

But before adding custom fields to your tracking pages, it's important you understand the concept of custom data types.

What are Data Types?

Simply put, data types are the formats inputs to TrackMage can take. For instance, the Tracking Number field can only accept a text data type. 

A text data type can take any of the following formats: 110, ORD, ORD110, T334T, 987NN. Of course, these are just examples; the idea of text data type is that they can either be a number, text or a mix of both. 

In addition to text data types, the other data types you will find in TrackMage are:

• Number
• Date
• Phone
• Email
• Link
• Array

Let's go over them briefly.

Number: This data type only accepts numeric values, which can either be a whole number(eg. 2) or fractional values (eg. 0.2). 

For instance, if you wanted to add SKU column that only accepts numeric values, you will have to set the data type to Number

Number data types take the form of a range. For instance, if you want to filter out parcels with SKU number 1000 to 1099, you will have to apply the range.

Date: This one is pretty straight forward: these are calendar dates that can take the form of a range. 

Phone: Data types that take the form of phone numbers. But only phone numbers in the right format can be accepted. As such, only phone numbers with the right international code, and the right length can be accepted. Here's an example

Email: Similar to phone numbers, email must also follow the right format to be accepted. 

Here's a sample email:

email@email.com

Link: Link, basically, is the URL to a page. Like other data types, it must also follow the right format. Here are examples:

http://website.com

https://website.io

http://my.website.net

And lots more.

Conclusion

Now you've learned the basics of data types, you can proceed to create custom fields. Not to worry, we have curated an in-depth guide to creating custom columns, so we recommend you read it by following this link.