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If a customer’s custom field used to hold a value and now shows nothing, the value was almost always overwritten on purpose — either by an explicit instruction from your system or by a setting on the field itself. Maestra doesn’t drop custom field data at random. There are two scenarios that clear a custom field value.

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1. The special value %CLEAR% was sent

When %CLEAR% is passed as the value for a custom field, Maestra treats it as an explicit instruction to wipe whatever was stored there. The field becomes empty. This is the intended way to remove a value through an integration or API call — useful when you want to deliberately reset a field rather than overwrite it with new content.

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2. The field is set to clear on empty values

Each custom field has a setting called Clear if an empty value is transmitted. When this option is turned on, sending an empty value to the field tells Maestra to remove the existing data. If the setting is off, empty values are ignored and the previous value stays in place. If it’s on, any empty payload — including ones sent unintentionally by an integration — will erase the field.
Both scenarios are by design. The value is removed because Maestra received an explicit signal to remove it, not because of an error or data loss inside the platform.

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How to investigate

If you’re trying to figure out why a specific customer’s field went blank, work through these checks:
1

Open the customer profile's change history

The change history shows when each field was modified and what the new value was. Find the moment the field cleared — that timestamp tells you which event or integration call to look at next.
2

Check the integration or API call that wrote to the field

Look at what was sent to Maestra at that moment. If the payload contained %CLEAR% or an empty value, you’ve found the cause.
3

Review the custom field configuration

In the field’s settings, see whether Clear if an empty value is transmitted is enabled. If it is and your integrations sometimes send empty payloads, the field will keep getting wiped until you either change the setting or fix the source data.
4

Audit recent imports and external syncs

Bulk imports, CRM syncs, and other scheduled jobs are common sources of unintended empty values. Confirm none of them ran around the time the value disappeared with payloads that omitted or blanked out the field.

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How to prevent it

  • If you don’t want empty values to wipe data, turn off Clear if an empty value is transmitted on that custom field.
  • Make sure your integrations only send %CLEAR% when you actually want to erase a value.
  • When syncing from an external system, send only the fields you intend to update — leaving a field out of the payload is safer than sending it empty.