Custom Fields
Custom Fields let you collect the information you need from customers and passengers — a Terms & Conditions checkbox, a passport number per traveller, a private staff-only note — without needing a developer to build it. Two independent tools are available: booking questions, asked once per booking, and passenger questions, asked separately for each traveller.
Where it lives
Go to System Administration → Administration. Two tabs are available:
| Tab | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Booking custom fields | Questions asked once per booking (e.g. consent, T&Cs, newsletter sign-up) |
| Passenger custom fields | Questions asked separately for each traveller (e.g. passport number, dietary needs) |
These tabs only appear if your account has System Administrator access. If they're missing, ask whoever manages your Vaylo account to enable it.
Key terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Collection | A saved set of questions. Build it once, reuse it on as many tours as you like. |
| Tour collection | A passenger-question set built for regular tour bookings. |
| FIT collection | A passenger-question set built for FIT (standalone) bookings. |
| Default collection | The collection used automatically on a new tour or FIT booking. |
| Required for | Who has to answer: nobody, everyone, or the main traveller only. |
| Sync | Pushes recent question changes in a collection out to every tour already using it. |
Booking questions
Booking questions appear once per booking, in a "Complete your booking" step right before payment. Use them for anything that applies to the whole booking — Terms & Conditions, GDPR consent, newsletter opt-in, or a simple yes/no question.
Creating and managing a collection
- Go to Booking custom fields and click + Create collection, then name it.
- Open the collection and click + Add field to add a question.
- Drag questions to reorder them, and use the Active switch to turn any one on or off without deleting it.
- Use Sync (top right of the collection) to push changes out to every tour already using it, or Deactivate to hide the whole collection from new tours.
Each question can be configured with:
- Required to complete the booking — blocks payment until answered.
- Email notification for responses — sends you an email each time it's answered.
- Create task for admin — creates a follow-up task automatically.
- Save this response to client profile — keeps the answer on the customer's profile rather than just the one booking (used for newsletter sign-ups — see Automatic emails, tasks & newsletter sign-ups).
If every option is left off, the question is purely informational and can be skipped.
What the customer sees
If a tour's booking collection has at least one active question, the "Complete your booking" step appears before payment. Required questions block Confirm booking until answered; optional ones can be skipped. If a collection has no active questions, the step is skipped entirely and checkout goes straight to payment.
Once a customer completes a booking, their answer and the exact wording they agreed to are saved permanently. Editing a question's wording later never changes what's shown on already-completed bookings.
Passenger questions
Passenger questions are asked separately for every traveller — passport details, dietary needs, an emergency contact.
Tour vs. FIT collections
Every passenger collection is created as either:
- Tour — for bookings linked to one of your tours.
- FIT — for standalone FIT (Free Independent Traveler) bookings.
A collection's type is fixed once created — it can be renamed, but not switched to the other type.
For a Tour booking, staff can always swap the default collection for a different one when creating the booking. For a FIT booking, the default is locked and cannot be changed.
Three tabs inside one collection
Each passenger collection has up to three tabs, configured independently:
| Tab | Where it's used |
|---|---|
| Booking widget | Questions shown during public checkout |
| Passenger portal | Questions the passenger can view and answer via self-service login |
| Company admin | Questions your staff can see in a booking's passenger details |
Anything added on the Passenger portal tab appears automatically on the Company admin tab too — there's no need to build it twice.
Adding a question
Click + Add field and choose:
- Section — groups the question under a heading in the Passenger Portal (General information, Passport details, Invoice address, Additional information, Allergy details, Emergency Contact, or Other).
- Required for — None, All passengers, or Primary passenger only.
- Type of field — Short text, Number, Date, Time, Dropdown, Single choice, Multiple choice, Long text, URL, or Phone Number.
Dropdown, Single choice, and Multiple choice questions need at least one answer option before they can be saved.
Translating a question
Any booking or passenger question can be translated: open it and use the Multi-language tab, then either type a translation or use AI translate for a first draft to review before saving.
Once a translation exists for a language, that translation always takes priority over the English wording for customers using that language — including any link you've added. If you edit the English text or add a link later, you must update every existing translation manually, or customers on those languages will keep seeing the old wording. There's no automatic warning when this happens.
If a customer's language has no saved translation, they simply see the original English text — never a blank or broken question.
Tour bookings vs. FIT bookings
| Tour booking | FIT booking | |
|---|---|---|
| Created via | Booking widget (customer) or Company Admin (staff) | Company Admin only |
| Collection used | Configured Tour default | Configured FIT default |
| Can staff change the collection? | Yes, when creating the booking | No — locked to the default |
| Where the customer manages their details | Passenger Portal | Passenger Portal (no public checkout step) |
If a FIT default collection hasn't been set up yet, check with your Vaylo contact before creating FIT bookings — the fallback behaviour for that case is still being finalised.
Attaching collections to a tour
Every tour requires both a booking collection and a passenger collection — both fields are mandatory when creating a tour, and start pre-filled with your defaults. You can swap either one before saving (for Tour-type bookings; FIT works differently, see above).
Once a tour exists, its own page has dedicated tabs for adjusting questions for that tour specifically, on top of what its attached collection includes.
Changing a question at the tour level only affects that tour — it doesn't touch the shared collection. To push a change to every tour using that collection, edit the collection itself and click Sync.
Automatic emails, tasks & newsletter sign-ups
Both booking and passenger questions support two independent, per-question switches:
- Email notification for responses — an email each time the question is answered.
- Create task for admin — a follow-up task created automatically for your default admin user.
A newsletter sign-up is simply a booking question with Save this response to client profile turned on. When ticked, consent (and the date/time it was given) is saved to the customer's client profile rather than just the booking, and updates automatically if the same customer ticks it again on a later booking.
Custom answers in Excel exports
When a tour has active custom questions, its booking export adds the answers as extra columns at the end — one column per question. Tours with no custom questions export exactly as before, and only active questions are included.
This is rolling out gradually. If your export doesn't show these columns yet, it may not be live for your account yet — check with your account manager.
FAQ
Can I reuse the same questions across multiple tours? Yes — attach one collection to as many tours as you like, and use Sync to push changes to all of them.
Does editing a question change past bookings? No. Completed bookings keep a permanent record of the exact wording and answer at the time.
Why isn't my new link showing up for translated customers? The question likely already has a saved translation for that language, which always takes priority over the English text. Update the translation directly in the Multi-language tab.
Can I require a question for everyone except the main traveller? Not currently — the options are None, All passengers, or Primary passenger only.
Do I need to configure the Passenger Portal and Company Admin separately? No — anything added on the Passenger portal tab appears automatically in Company admin.
Why can't I change the passenger collection on a FIT booking? FIT bookings always use the configured FIT default; the selector is locked to keep FIT data consistent.