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Field Mapping

Merge, 2024

Empowering enterprise users with flexible, self-serve data mapping across integrations.

Project Overview & Introduction

In 2022, Merge faced a key integration challenge: how to handle non-standard data across diverse third-party platforms.

Accessing custom data is critical for customers with enterprise end users because they rely on systems with specialized data needs that go beyond Merge's Common Models. Enterprise platforms are rarely one-size-fits-all, and having the flexibility to extend or modify data fields allows businesses to tailor integrations to their specific workflows.

To address the limited flexibility of Merge's standardized data models, we launched a beta version of Field Mapping in 2023 to a few selected customers. These customers gave us important feedback and insight into how we could make Field Mapping more user-friendly and comprehensive. Through iteration and redesign, this feature grew into a full-fledged Field Mapping platform that is a flagship feature today and is used by over half of Merge's Professional and Enterprise organizations and supports 6,000+ mapping instances across (as of November 2024).

Although I led the design of Field Mapping from its conception in 2022, this case study focuses on the latest iterations of the feature from 2024.

The Challenge

Merge's Common Models (like Employee, Ticket, Candidate, etc.) standardize data across platforms such as BambooHR, Zendesk, and Greenhouse. But every platform—and often every company—has custom fields unique to their use case, such as:

• "T-shirt size" on an employee record

• "Urgency score" on a support ticket

• "Lead source" on a CRM contact

Without support for custom fields:

• This data is inaccessible through Merge.

• Integrators must build custom logic outside of Merge.

• It breaks the promise of a "unified API" for real-world use cases.

Our goal was to make custom data mapping intuitive, accurate, and scalable—whether users were mapping an employee's personal email or transforming nested JSON fields across platforms like Workday, BambooHR, and Salesforce.

My Role

I was the sole product designer on this project, responsible for leading the end-to-end design process from discovery and user research to prototyping and final handoff. I collaborated closely with a cross-functional team that included a product manager, product marketing manager, post-sales, and several software engineers.

Research

We collaborated with Merge's Field Mapping power users to conduct workflow observations and analyzed support tickets to identify pain points.

See prototypes of the initial beta version of Field Mapping below. Note: Remote Fields were called "Origin Fields" in the beta version.

Key Problems We Identified:

1. There were too many options on the initial screen in the dashboard, leading to choice overload.

   We had multiple buttons for adding a mapping to ensure users could create any type of mapping for any Common Model, but this abundance of choices left users feeling confused and overwhelmed—especially given that Field Mapping was a completely new concept they were still learning to grasp.

2. Customers had built thousands of mappings manually, a sign of high need but also high friction. We found that many use cases require custom fields that are the same across an integration.

3. End users couldn't easily self-configure mappings because the Merge Link UI (end-user interface) for Field Mapping was outdated and unintuitive, blocking them from customizing integrations and limiting the feature's scalability.

4. Users did not feel confident in choosing the right third-party field.

   Not all integrations support human-readable field names (for example, a typical field name in Workday: wd:Worker_Data.wd:Employment_Data.wd:Worker_Job_Data.wd:Position_Data.wd:Job_Profile_Summary_Data.wd:Management_Level_Reference) and companies often deprecate and replace fields as they grow. Field names can be unclear, and the field type and endpoint were not enough context for users to trust their selections. Users would map a field, wait for data re-sync to see what value was returned, and then update the mapping if the value was not what they expected.

5. Customers struggled to map nested or complex fields (e.g., List[object]), requiring them to build custom logic outside of Merge, which is the problem Field Mapping (and Merge's Unified APIs overall) sought to address in the very beginning.

   This issue was particularly common in enterprise applications like Workday, NetSuite, and Salesforce, where custom objects can be complex and extensive, making it difficult to isolate specific fields.

Ideation & Solution

Design prototypes were tested with feedback loops across engineering, post-sales, and selected customers. After some iteration, we came up with the following solutions to address the key problems identified above.

1. Simplified mapping flow

We streamlined the dashboard view to only show relevant information and reimagined the mapping flow experience to better fit the user journey.

• The default view for Linked Account Field Mapping is now primarily for viewing all existing mappings. A single primary colored button at the top right lets users know where and how to take action.

• Users start by choosing the type of mapping they want to create → then selecting the Remote Field they want → then selecting or creating a target Common Model field → then validating their selection.

2. Integration-wide mappings

We introduced the ability to create integration-wide mappings (vs. Linked Account-specific) to improve scalability.

• Users can create a mapping that will be automatically applied to all new Linked Accounts for a given integration.

3. Wide Merge Link interface

We overhauled and widened the Merge Link interface to allow for more intuitive left-to-right mapping (like in the dashboard) instead of vertical mapping.

• After successfully implementing a wider screen for another Merge Link feature, we applied the same approach to Field Mapping to display more information, making the experience more self-serve.

4. Remote Field coverage and example values

We added more information to the Remote Fields dropdown to increase confidence and provide users with more context about each field before they create and commit to a mapping.

• Coverage is a percentage value that provides visibility into how often a Remote Field appears across synced objects. The higher the percentage, the more likely the field is what the user is looking for.

• Example values provide visibility into what data is actually going to be synced. If the value is null or unexpected, the field is likely not what the user is looking for.

5. Preview values

We added a small input to allow users to instantly preview real values for each mapping in the dashboard to easily double check their mappings at a glance.

• The preview values replace the endpoint so that the visual change does not cause each card's height to increase jarringly.

• I originally wanted the input to be a dropdown of human-readable objects that users could scroll through and select, to eliminate the need to retrieve an object ID and reduce errors, but we were limited by engineering resources and this solution addressed the customer need while also being easy to implement.

6. Advanced Mapping with JMESPath

We added an optional Advanced Mapping step to the mapping flow to enable users to access nested fields and apply unique business logic within the dashboard

• We decided to use JMESPath, a query language for JSON, because even though most customer use cases could be solved by indexing on the List[object] , the order can change so mapping via index can cause errors.

• We implemented an easy click-to-generate query functionality to simplify the Advanced Mapping experience for most users, but still gave users the flexibility to write their own complex queries if necessary.

Final Design

The final product consists of three tightly integrated modules, each designed to support different aspects of the Field Mapping experience.

Merge Dashboard

For customers: Full control over creating, editing, and managing mappings.

Merge Link

For end users: An intuitive, guided interface for setting up mappings, including support for advanced logic.

Documentation

For customers and prospects: A comprehensive guide to understand and implement Field Mapping effectively.

Insights & Impact

What We Learned:

• Validate with users early to avoid post-launch adjustments.
  • Many of the insights we gained from the initial beta version now seem obvious, but they could have been identified earlier if we had invested time in user testing during the initial design process.
  • Due to tight deadlines, we prioritized shipping quickly, relying on assumptions rather than validation. While the final version is a success, incorporating user feedback earlier would have made the iteration process more efficient.

• Providing clear, contextual information builds user trust and reduces mapping errors.
  • Feature enhancements like coverage indicators and example values increased user confidence when selecting fields.
  • Being able to see real data from mappings further increased user confidence.

• Simplify the experience for regular users, and allow advanced configurations for power users.
  • The streamlined mapping flow allows users to more easily and quickly create mappings.
  • For those willing to learn, using a query language like JMESPath makes Field Mapping flexible and powerful enough for complex use cases.

• Change is good—things don't have to remain the way they have always been.
  • The initial design of Field Mapping in Merge Link was narrow simply because that was what we were used to, not because it was the best user experience.
  • After testing the wider Link UI and talking to customers, it proved to be a much better experience and no one found the wider screen to be unfamiliar.

Results:

• Field Mapping usage grew by 50% from Q1 to Q4 2024.

• Reduced support tickets related to incorrect mappings and syncing errors.

• Field Mapping became a flagship feature for existing and new customers.

• Field Mapping feature enhancements made Merge more appealing to enterprise clients seeking customizable integration solutions.