Date of Birth Field

The Date of Birth field is a built-in system field that stores a contact’s birthday in Month/Day/Year format. It serves two practical purposes: triggering automated birthday communications through workflows, and filtering contacts by age in Smart Lists.

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How to populate the field

The Date of Birth field can be filled in several ways:

• Manual entry — edit the field directly on the contact record.
• Form submissions — include a Date of Birth field in any form or survey.
• CSV import — include a column mapped to the Birthday field when importing contacts.
• API — populate via integration if you’re syncing data from another system.

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Birthday automation workflows

You can trigger automated messages — emails, SMS, or internal tasks — based on a contact’s birthday.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Workflows and create a new workflow.
2. Set the Trigger to Birthday.
3. Choose when to trigger:
   • On the birthday
   • Before the birthday (e.g., 7 days in advance)
   • After the birthday (e.g., 1 day later)

Step 2: Add actions

Common actions for birthday workflows:

• Send Email — personalized birthday greeting or promotional offer.
• Send SMS — short birthday message or discount code.
• Assign Task — alert a team member to follow up manually.

Example workflow structure

Step	Action
1	Trigger: Birthday
2	Send Birthday SMS
3	Send Birthday Email
4	(Optional) Notify internal team

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Filtering contacts by age in Smart Lists

The Date of Birth field enables age-based filtering so you can build segments for targeted campaigns.

1. Go to Contacts → Smart Lists.
2. Apply a filter using the Birthday field and choose the Age condition.
3. Select the comparison:

Filter condition	Example use
Age is greater than X	Target contacts aged 50 and above
Age is less than X	Promotions for contacts under 25
Age is between X and Y	Focus on a specific range, e.g., 30–40

Age is calculated dynamically from the stored birthday and today’s date, so the segment stays accurate without manual updates.

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Best practices

• Capture birthdays at intake — include a birthday field in your lead capture forms so you have the data from the start rather than needing to backfill it.
• Use MM/DD/YYYY format — consistently formatted dates prevent automation failures.
• Test your workflow first — create a sample contact with a birthday set to tomorrow and verify the workflow fires correctly before making it live.
• Check time zone settings — birthday triggers may use the contact’s configured time zone; confirm this matches your expectations for timing.

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Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
Birthday automation is not triggering	Confirm the Date of Birth field is fully populated with a valid date including the year
Age calculation is wrong	Verify the birth year is entered correctly — missing or incorrect years cause age errors
SMS or email was not sent on the birthday	Check workflow timing settings, trigger configuration, and the contact’s time zone