Placeholder Syntax

Type: Reference | Audience: Interface builder user

Placeholders are the way you insert live data values into the interface. You never type them by hand — you create them by picking a field from the Data Picker, and the builder inserts the placeholder for you. This page is a reference for what they look like, what they can target, and how they behave when the data they point at is missing.

Basic Syntax

Throughout the docs, placeholders are shown using the readable shorthand resource.key — for example title for a deal's title. This shorthand identifies what the placeholder points at and is the form most useful when reading or talking about a view.

The Data Picker actually inserts a longer named-field format under the hood — for example:

key: 'title', name: 'Title', resource: 'deal', variableType:'normal'

The runtime resolver reads the resource, key, and metadata directly from those named fields (title written by hand would not resolve to anything because the parser does not find a key: or resource: to read). You never type this form yourself — the picker generates it and the slate editor displays it as a small badge.

The remainder of this page uses the shorthand for clarity.

Examples:

• title — the deal's title
• name — the contact's name
• email — the logged-in Pipedrive user's email

Mixing With Static Text

A single field can hold any combination of static text and placeholders:

Deal: title (value currency)

You can add as many placeholders as you like and type freely around them.

Nested Fields (Dot Notation)

When a field contains a nested object, dot notation reaches deeper into it:

owner_id.name

This first picks the owner_id object from the deal, then reads its name property. If any step of the path is missing, the placeholder resolves to an empty string (see When Data Is Missing below).

What Placeholders Can Reference

Each placeholder starts with a source — the part before the first dot — that tells it where to look for the data. The sources match the tabs you see in the Data Picker:

Source	What it reads
deal	Fields of the current Pipedrive deal
organization	Fields of the current organization
person	Fields of the current person
user	Fields of the logged-in Pipedrive user
custom	Anything the view's data source URL returned
searchparams	URL parameters passed into the view
variable	Interface variables you defined
system	The four System context values — resource_id, resource, company_id and user_id — offered by the Context tab
view	A View reference, also offered by the Context tab. It stores the id of another view of the same button and resolves to that id, so renaming the view changes nothing. In the builder, the Preview and the Test view a reference to a deleted view resolves to an empty string instead; the rendered view cannot tell and returns the id.
(loop item)	The current iteration's data when the field sits inside a looping area. The resource shorthand mirrors the loop's source (for example products.name inside an area looping over deal.products); the synthetic …index resolves to the iteration number.

On a floating window button the deal, organization and person sources have nothing to read and system carries only company_id and user_id, because that button's views get no Pipedrive record.

In addition, the Data Picker's Functions tab produces placeholders that run a built-in function (for example the current date) or a system text value — these are inserted the same way but carry their own logic instead of looking up a plain field.

Inside an Input

Inside a Data Picker input, inserted placeholders look like small badges rather than raw … text. Backspace removes a badge as a whole, and you can type plain text freely before, between, and after them. The raw named-field syntax (see Basic Syntax) is what the slate field stores behind the scenes — you only see it if you export the view's data or look at it in the database.

Placeholders Inside Tables

A Table block points its Target Array at an array. The table then renders one row per item in that array. Placeholders you put inside the table's columns resolve against the current row's item — not against the full resource. For example, if the array contains objects with a name field, you write …name in the column and each row shows its own value.

Placeholders that reference anything outside the array (for example title) still resolve against the normal view-wide data. This lets you mix per-row values and view-wide values in the same table.

When Data Is Missing

Placeholders never crash a view — they degrade quietly.

Situation	What the placeholder becomes
The source (deal, person, custom, …) is not available	empty string
The field does not exist in the source	empty string
The field is present but its value is null	empty string
The field is an array (outside table context)	JSON text of the array

So a missing field never shows undefined or an error — it just leaves a gap.

Confidential Variables

Interface variables can be marked as confidential. A confidential variable never has its value exposed in the browser: the placeholder stays in its … form until the value is actually needed on the server side, where the substitution happens just before the value is used. This lets you reference things like API keys inside a URL or a header without them ever reaching the viewer's browser.