Copy custom fields from leads to contacts

Question

I have a large amount of custom fields under leads, and now we want to make some of those people into contacts. Is there a way to copy the custom fields to contacts, so I don't have to recreate them all?

Thanks!

Edit: I'm looking at the Eclipse Force.com IDE now.

Answer 1

Using Eclipse you can retrieve the metadata for Objects in your org and then copy and paste the field definitions which you don't want to recreate manually and then save the changes.

You would then need to set the security on these newly added fields on the Contact object.

For Example, if you had a custom field on the Lead object for Preferred Phone Number, in the XML file Lead.object contained within [Your Project] -> src -> objects in Eclipse you will find the field defined similarly to this:

<fields>
    <fullName>PreferredPhoneNumber__c</fullName>
    <externalId>false</externalId>
    <label>Preferred Phone Number</label>
    <required>false</required>
    <trackFeedHistory>false</trackFeedHistory>
    <type>Phone</type>
</fields>

In order to copy this field to the Contact object, simply copy and paste this XML structure of the field definition into the Contact.object XML file in the appropriate location (where all of the other fields are defined) and then save the Contact.object file.

If you have not included the objects folder in your force.com project hierarchy, you can add it by selecting "Add/Remove Metadata Components..." from the force.com menu or Project Properties -> force.com -> Project Contents -> Add/Remove

Answer 2

You can use Eclipse to move the custom field configuration from one Lead to Contacts. Just open the Lead object in eclipse and view them as XML. Now copy the XML data to Contacts field folder and save it.

Fetch Object in Force.com IDE. Now Open Lead Object by Open With | Text Editor > you will see a XML file search for xml tag <field></field>. This is the configuration for fields in object.

Now see the in it to check which field to copy then copy the entire <field> tag.

Paste this tag to contact.object file in your eclipse project near to other field tags.

Few things to remember:

• if you are copying a standard field then append __c in of details you pasted.

• Standard field don't have tag. Append it between <field></field> as <label>field label</label>

Ex: copied LeadSource field to contacts:

 <fields>
        <fullName>LeadSource__c</fullName>
        <externalId>false</externalId>
        <label>Lead Source custom</label>
        <picklist>
            <picklistValues>
                <fullName>Web</fullName>
                <default>false</default>
            </picklistValues>
            <picklistValues>
                <fullName>Phone Inquiry</fullName>
                <default>false</default>
            </picklistValues>
            <picklistValues>
                <fullName>Partner Referral</fullName>
                <default>false</default>
            </picklistValues>
            <picklistValues>
                <fullName>Purchased List</fullName>
                <default>false</default>
            </picklistValues>
            <picklistValues>
                <fullName>Other</fullName>
                <default>false</default>
            </picklistValues>
            <sorted>false</sorted>
        </picklist>
        <trackHistory>false</trackHistory>
        <type>Picklist</type>
    </fields>

Basically this a hack which can be done using Eclipse Force.com IDE only. Well there is a idea has been posted about copying field across objects here