Cart and Checkout – Additional checkout fields

A common use-case for developers and merchants is to add a new field to the Checkout form to collect additional data about a customer or their order.

This document will outline the steps an extension should take to register some additional checkout fields.

Available field locations

Additional checkout fields can be registered in three different places:

• Contact information
• Addresses (Shipping and Billing)
• Order information

A field can only be shown in one location, it is not possible to render the same field in multiple locations in the same registration.

Contact information

The contact information section currently renders at the top of the form. It contains the email field and any other additional fields.

Fields rendered here will be saved to the shopper’s account. They will be visible and editable render in the shopper’s “Account details” section.

Address

The “Address” section currently contains a form for the shipping address and the billing address. Additional checkout fields can be registered to appear within these forms.

Fields registered here will be saved to both the customer and the order, so returning customers won’t need to refill those values again.

If a field is registered in the address location it will appear in both the shipping and the billing address. It is not possible to have the field in only one of the addresses.

You will also end up collecting two values for this field, one for shipping and one for billing.

Order information

As part of the additional checkout fields feature, the checkout block has a new inner block called the “Order information block”.

This block is used to render fields that aren’t part of the contact information or address information, for example it may be a “How did you hear about us” field or a “Gift message” field.

Fields rendered here will be saved to the order. They will not be part of the customer’s saved address or account information. New orders will not have any previously used values pre-filled.

By default, this block will render as the last step in the Checkout form, however it can be moved using the Gutenberg block controls in the editor.

Accessing values

Additional fields are saved to individual meta keys in both the customer meta and order meta, you can access them using helper methods, or using the meta keys directly, we recommend using the helper methods, as they’re less likely to change, can handle future migrations, and will support future enhancements (e.g. reading from different locations).

For address fields, two values are saved: one for shipping, and one for billing. If the customer has selected ‘Use same address for billing` then the values will be the same, but still saved independently of each other.

For contact and order fields, only one value is saved per field.

Helper methods

CheckoutFields provides a function to access values from both customers and orders, it’s are get_field_from_object.

To access a customer billing and/or shipping value:

		use Automattic\WooCommerce\Blocks\Package;
use Automattic\WooCommerce\Blocks\Domain\Services\CheckoutFields;

$field_id = 'my-plugin-namespace/my-field';
$customer = wc()->customer; // Or new WC_Customer( $id )
$checkout_fields = Package::container()->get( CheckoutFields::class );
$my_customer_billing_field = $checkout_fields->get_field_from_object( $field_id, $customer, 'billing' );
$my_customer_shipping_field = $checkout_fields->get_field_from_object( $field_id, $customer, 'shipping' );

	

To access an order field:

		use Automattic\WooCommerce\Blocks\Package;
use Automattic\WooCommerce\Blocks\Domain\Services\CheckoutFields;

$field_id = 'my-plugin-namespace/my-field';
$order = wc_get_order( 1234 );
$checkout_fields = Package::container()->get( CheckoutFields::class );
$my_order_billing_field = $checkout_fields->get_field_from_object( $field_id, $order, 'billing' );
$my_order_shipping_field = $checkout_fields->get_field_from_object( $field_id, $order, 'shipping' );

	

After an order is placed, the data saved to the customer and the data saved to the order will be the same. Customers can change the values for future orders, or from within their My Account page. If you’re looking at a customer value at a specific point in time (i.e. when the order was placed), access it from the order object, if you’re looking for the most up to date value regardless, access it from the customer object.

Guest customers

When a guest customer places an order with additional fields, those fields will be saved to its session, so as long as the customer still has a valid session going, the values will always be there.

Logged-in customers

For logged-in customers, the value is only persisted once they place an order. Accessing a logged-in customer object during the place order lifecycle will return null or stale data.

If you’re at a place order hook, doing this will return previous data (not the currently inserted one):

		$customer = new WC_Customer( $order->customer_id ); // Or new WC_Customer( 1234 )
$my_customer_billing_field = $checkout_fields->get_field_from_object( $field_id, $customer, 'billing' );

	

Instead, always access the latest data if you want to run some extra validation/data-moving:

		$customer = wc()->customer // This will return the current customer with its session.
$my_customer_billing_field = $checkout_fields->get_field_from_object( $field_id, $customer, 'billing' );

	

Accessing all fields

You can use get_all_fields_from_object to access all additional fields saved to an order or a customer.

		use Automattic\WooCommerce\Blocks\Package;
use Automattic\WooCommerce\Blocks\Domain\Services\CheckoutFields;

$order = wc_get_order( 1234 );
$checkout_fields = Package::container()->get( CheckoutFields::class );
$order_additional_billing_fields = $checkout_fields->get_all_fields_from_object( $order, 'billing' );
$order_additional_shipping_fields = $checkout_fields->get_all_fields_from_object( $order, 'shipping' );
$order_other_additional_fields = $checkout_fields->get_all_fields_from_object( $order, 'other' ); // Contact and Order are saved in the same place under the additional group.

	

This will return an array of all values, it will only include fields currently registered, if you want to include fields no longer registered, you can pass a third true parameter.

		
$order = wc_get_order( 1234 );
$checkout_fields = Package::container()->get( CheckoutFields::class );
$order_additional_billing_fields = $checkout_fields->get_all_fields_from_object( $order, 'billing' ); // array( 'my-plugin-namespace/my-field' => 'my-value' );

$order_additional_billing_fields = $checkout_fields->get_all_fields_from_object( $order, 'billing', true  ); // array( 'my-plugin-namespace/my-field' => 'my-value', 'old-namespace/old-key' => 'old-value' );

	

Accessing values directly

While not recommended, you can use the direct meta key to access certain values, this is useful for external engines or page/email builders who only provide access to meta values.

Values are saved under a predefined prefix, this is needed to able to query fields without knowing which ID the field was registered under, for a field with key 'my-plugin-namespace/my-field', it’s meta key will be the following if it’s an address field:

• _wc_billing/my-plugin-namespace/my-field
• _wc_shipping/my-plugin-namespace/my-field

Or the following if it’s a contact/order field:

• _wc_other/my-plugin-namespace/my-field.

Those prefixes are part of CheckoutFields class, and can be accessed using the following constants:

		echo ( CheckoutFields::BILLING_FIELDS_PREFIX ); // _wc_billing/
echo ( CheckoutFields::SHIPPING_FIELDS_PREFIX ); // _wc_shipping/
echo ( CheckoutFields::OTHER_FIELDS_PREFIX ); // _wc_other/

	

CheckoutFields provides a couple of helpers to get the group name or key based on one or the other:

		CheckoutFields::get_group_name( "_wc_billing" ); // "billing"
CheckoutFields::get_group_name( "_wc_billing/" ); // "billing"

CheckoutFields::get_group_key( "shipping" ); // "_wc_shipping/"

	

Use cases here would be to build the key name to access the meta directly:

		$key      = CheckoutFields::get_group_key( "other" ) . 'my-plugin/is-opt-in';
$opted_in = get_user_meta( 123, $key, true ) === "1" ? true : false;

	

Checkboxes values

When accessing a checkbox values directly, it will either return "1" for true, "0" for false, or "" if the value doesn’t exist, only the provided functions will sanitize that to a boolean.

Supported field types

The following field types are supported:

• select
• text
• checkbox

There are plans to expand this list, but for now these are the types available.

Using the API

To register additional checkout fields you must use the woocommerce_register_additional_checkout_field function.

It is recommended to run this function after the woocommerce_init action.

The registration function takes an array of options describing your field. Some field types take additional options.

Options

General options

These options apply to all field types (except in a few circumstances which are noted inline).

Example of sanitize_callback. This function will remove spaces from the value

		'sanitize_callback' => function( $field_value ) {
	return str_replace( ' ', '', $field_value );
},

	

Example of validate_callback. This function will check if the value is an email

		'validate_callback' => function( $field_value ) {
	if ( ! is_email( $field_value ) ) {
		return new WP_Error( 'invalid_alt_email', 'Please ensure your alternative email matches the correct format.' );
	}
},

	

Options for text fields

As well as the options above, text fields also support a required option. If this is true then the shopper must provide a value for this field during the checkout process.

Options for select fields

As well as the options above, select fields must also be registered with an options option. This is used to specify what options the shopper can select.

Select fields will mount with no value selected by default, if the field is required, the user will be required to select a value.

You can set a placeholder to be shown on the select by passing a placeholder value when registering the field. This will be the first option in the select and will not be selectable if the field is required.

Example of options value

		[

	[
		'value' => 'store_1',
		'label' => 'Our London Store'
	],
	[
		'value' => 'store_2',
		'label' => 'Our Paris Store'
	],
	[
		'value' => 'store_3',
		'label' => 'Our New York Store'
	]
]

	

Options for checkbox fields

The checkbox field type does not have any specific options, however required will always be false for a checkbox field. Making a checkbox field required is not supported.

Attributes

Adding additional attributes to checkbox and text fields is supported. Adding them to select fields is not possible for now.

These attributes have a 1:1 mapping to the HTML attributes on input elements (except pattern on checkbox).

The supported attributes are:

• data-* attributes
• aria-* attributes
• autocomplete
• autocapitalize
• pattern (not supported on checkbox fields)
• title
• maxLength (equivalent to maxlength HTML attribute)
• readOnly (equivalent to readonly HTML attribute)

maxLength and readOnly are in camelCase because the attributes are rendered on a React element which must receive them in this format.

Certain attributes are not passed through to the field intentionally, these are autofocus and disabled. We are welcome to hear feedback and adjust this behaviour if valid use cases are provided.

Usage examples

Rendering a text field

This example demonstrates rendering a text field in the address section:

		add_action(
	'woocommerce_init',
	function() {
		woocommerce_register_additional_checkout_field(
			array(
				'id'            => 'namespace/gov-id',
				'label'         => 'Government ID',
				'optionalLabel' => 'Government ID (optional)',
				'location'      => 'address',
				'required'      => true,
				'attributes'    => array(
					'autocomplete'     => 'government-id',
					'aria-describedby' => 'some-element',
					'aria-label'       => 'custom aria label',
					'pattern'          => '[A-Z0-9]{5}', // A 5-character string of capital letters and numbers.
					'title'            => 'Title to show on hover',
					'data-custom'      => 'custom data',
				),
			),
		);
	}
);

	

This results in the following address form (the billing form will be the same):

The rendered markup looks like this:

			<input type="text" id="shipping-namespace-gov-id" autocapitalize="off"
       autocomplete="government-id" aria-label="custom aria label"
       aria-describedby="some-element" required="" aria-invalid="true"
       title="Title to show on hover" pattern="[A-Z0-9]{5}"
       data-custom="custom data" value="" >

	

Rendering a checkbox field

This example demonstrates rendering a checkbox field in the contact information section:

		add_action(
	'woocommerce_init',
	function() {
		woocommerce_register_additional_checkout_field(
			array(
				'id'       => 'namespace/marketing-opt-in',
				'label'    => 'Do you want to subscribe to our newsletter?',
				'location' => 'contact',
				'type'     => 'checkbox',
			)
		);
	}
);

	

This results in the following contact information section:

Note that because an optionalLabel was not supplied, the string (optional) is appended to the label. To remove that an optionalLabel property should be supplied to override this.

Rendering a select field

This example demonstrates rendering a select field in the order information section:

		add_action(
	'woocommerce_init',
	function() {
		woocommerce_register_additional_checkout_field(
			array(
				'id'          => 'namespace/how-did-you-hear-about-us',
				'label'       => 'How did you hear about us?',
				'placeholder' => 'Select a source',
				'location'    => 'order',
				'type'        => 'select',
				'options'     => [
					[
						'value' => 'google',
						'label' => 'Google'
					],
					[
						'value' => 'facebook',
						'label' => 'Facebook'
					],
					[
						'value' => 'friend',
						'label' => 'From a friend'
					],
					[
						'value' => 'other',
						'label' => 'Other'
					],
				]
			)
		);
	}
);

	

This results in the order information section being rendered like so:

The select input before being focused

The select input when focused

If it is undesirable to force the shopper to select a value, mark the select as optional by setting the required option to false.

Validation and sanitization

It is possible to add custom validation and sanitization for additional checkout fields using WordPress action hooks.

These actions happen in two places:

1. Updating and submitting the form during the checkout process and,
2. Updating address/contact information in the “My account” area.

Sanitization

Sanitization is used to ensure the value of a field is in a specific format. An example is when taking a government ID, you may want to format it so that all letters are capitalized and there are no spaces. At this point, the value should not be checked for validity. That will come later. This step is only intended to set the field up for validation.

Using the woocommerce_sanitize_additional_field filter

To run a custom sanitization function for a field you can use the sanitize_callback function on registration, or the woocommerce_sanitize_additional_field filter.

Example of sanitization

This example shows how to remove whitespace and capitalize all letters in the example Government ID field we added above.

		add_action(
	'woocommerce_sanitize_additional_field',
	function ( $field_value, $field_key ) {
		if ( 'namespace/gov-id' === $field_key ) {
			$field_value = str_replace( ' ', '', $field_key );
			$field_value = strtoupper( $field_value );
		}
		return $field_value;
	},
	10,
	2
);

	

Validation

There are two phases of validation in the additional checkout fields system. The first is validating a single field based on its key and value.

Single field validation

Using the woocommerce_validate_additional_field action

When the woocommerce_validate_additional_field action is fired the callback receives the field’s key, the field’s value, and a WP_Error object.

To add validation errors to the response, use the WP_Error::add method.

The WP_Error object

When adding your error to the WP_Error object, it should have a unique error code. You may want to prefix the error code with the plugin namespace to reduce the chance of collision. Using codes that are already in use across other plugins may result in the error message being overwritten or showing in a different location.

Example of single-field validation

The below example shows how to apply custom validation to the namespace/gov-id text field from above. The code here ensures the field is made up of 5 characters, either upper-case letters or numbers. The sanitization function from the example above ensures that all whitespace is removed and all letters are capitalized, so this check is an extra safety net to ensure the input matches the pattern.

		add_action(
'woocommerce_validate_additional_field',
	function ( WP_Error $errors, $field_key, $field_value ) {
		if ( 'namespace/gov-id' === $field_key ) {
			$match = preg_match( '/[A-Z0-9]{5}/', $field_value );
			if ( 0 === $match || false === $match ) {
				$errors->add( 'invalid_gov_id', 'Please ensure your government ID matches the correct format.' );
			}
		}
	},
	10,
	3
);

	

It is important to note that this action must add errors to the WP_Error object it receives. Returning a new WP_Error object or any other value will result in the errors not showing.

If no validation errors are encountered the function can just return void.

Multiple field validation

There are cases where the validity of a field depends on the value of another field, for example validating the format of a government ID based on what country the shopper is in. In this case, validating only single fields (as above) is not sufficient as the country may be unknown during the woocommerce_validate_additional_field action.

To solve this, it is possible to validate a field in the context of the location it renders in. The other fields in that location will be passed to this action.

Using the woocommerce_blocks_validate_location_{location}_fields action

This action will be fired for each location that additional fields can render in (address, contact, and order). For address it fires twice, once for the billing address and once for the shipping address.

The callback receives the keys and values of the other additional fields in the same location.

It is important to note that any fields rendered in other locations will not be passed to this action, however it might be possible to get those values by accessing the customer or order object, however this is not supported and there are no guarantees regarding backward compatibility in future versions.

There are several places where these hooks are fired.

• When checking out using the Checkout block or Store API.
  • woocommerce_blocks_validate_location_address_fields (x2)
  • woocommerce_blocks_validate_location_contact_fields
  • woocommerce_blocks_validate_location_other_fields
• When updating addresses in the “My account” area
  • woocommerce_blocks_validate_location_address_fields (x1 – only the address being edited)
• When updating the “Account details” section in the “My account” area
  • woocommerce_blocks_validate_location_contact_fields

Example of location validation

In this example, assume there is another field registered alongside the namespace/gov-id called namespace/confirm-gov-id. This field will be a confirmation for the Government ID field.

The example below illustrates how to verify that the value of the confirmation field matches the value of the main field.

		add_action(
	'woocommerce_blocks_validate_location_address_fields',
	function ( \WP_Error $errors, $fields, $group ) {
		if ( $fields['namespace/gov-id'] !== $fields['namespace/confirm-gov-id'] ) {
			$errors->add( 'gov_id_mismatch', 'Please ensure your government ID matches the confirmation.' );
		}
	},
	10,
	3
);

	

If these fields were rendered in the “contact” location instead, the code would be the same except the hook used would be: woocommerce_blocks_validate_location_contact_fields.

Backward compatibility

Due to technical reasons, it’s not yet possible to specify the meta key for fields, as we want them to be prefixed and managed. Plugins with existing fields in shortcode Checkout can be compatible and react to reading and saving fields using hooks.

Assuming 2 fields, named my-plugin-namespace/address-field in the address step and my-plugin-namespace/my-other-field in the order step, you can:

React to to saving fields

You can react to those fields being saved by hooking into woocommerce_set_additional_field_value action.

		add_action(
	'woocommerce_set_additional_field_value',
	function ( $key, $value, $group, $wc_object ) {
		if ( 'my-plugin-namespace/address-field' !== $key ) {
			return;
		}

		if ( 'billing' === $group ) {
			$my_plugin_address_key = 'existing_billing_address_field_key';
		} else {
			$my_plugin_address_key = 'existing_shipping_address_field_key';
		}

		$wc_object->update_meta_data( $my_plugin_address_key, $value, true );
	},
	10,
	4
);

add_action(
	'woocommerce_set_additional_field_value',
	function ( $key, $value, $group, $wc_object ) {
		if ( 'my-plugin-namespace/my-other-field' !== $key ) {
			return;
		}

		$my_plugin_key = 'existing_order_field_key';

		$wc_object->update_meta_data( $my_plugin_key, $value, true );
	},
	10,
	4
);

	

This way, you can ensure existing systems will continue working and your integration will continue to work. However, ideally, you should migrate your existing data and systems to use the new meta fields.

React to reading fields

You can use the woocommerce_get_default_value_for_{$key} filters to provide a different default value (a value coming from another meta field for example):

		add_filter(
	"woocommerce_get_default_value_for_my-plugin-namespace/address-field",
	function ( $value, $group, $wc_object ) {

		if ( 'billing' === $group ) {
			$my_plugin_key = 'existing_billing_address_field_key';
		} else {
			$my_plugin_key = 'existing_shipping_address_field_key';
		}

		return $wc_object->get_meta( $my_plugin_key );
	},
	10,
	3
);

add_filter(
	"woocommerce_get_default_value_for_my-plugin-namespace/my-other-field",
	function ( $value, $group, $wc_object ) {

		$my_plugin_key = 'existing_order_field_key';

		return $wc_object->get_meta( $my_plugin_key );
	},
	10,
	3
);

	

A full example

In this full example we will register the Government ID text field and verify that it conforms to a specific pattern.

This example is just a combined version of the examples shared above.

		add_action(
	'woocommerce_init',
	function() {
		woocommerce_register_additional_checkout_field(
			array(
				'id'            => 'namespace/gov-id',
				'label'         => 'Government ID',
				'location'      => 'address',
				'required'      => true,
				'attributes'    => array(
					'autocomplete' => 'government-id',
					'pattern'      => '[A-Z0-9]{5}', // A 5-character string of capital letters and numbers.
					'title'        => 'Your 5-digit Government ID',
				),
			),
		);
		woocommerce_register_additional_checkout_field(
			array(
				'id'            => 'namespace/confirm-gov-id',
				'label'         => 'Confirm government ID',
				'location'      => 'address',
				'required'      => true,
				'attributes'    => array(
					'autocomplete' => 'government-id',
					'pattern'      => '[A-Z0-9]{5}', // A 5-character string of capital letters and numbers.
					'title'        => 'Confirm your 5-digit Government ID',
				),
			),
		);

		add_action(
			'woocommerce_sanitize_additional_field',
			function ( $field_value, $field_key ) {
				if ( 'namespace/gov-id' === $field_key || 'namespace/confirm-gov-id' === $field_key ) {
					$field_value = str_replace( ' ', '', $field_key );
					$field_value = strtoupper( $field_value );
				}
				return $field_value;
			},
			10,
			2
		);

		add_action(
		'woocommerce_validate_additional_field',
			function ( WP_Error $errors, $field_key, $field_value ) {
				if ( 'namespace/gov-id' === $field_key ) {
					$match = preg_match( '/[A-Z0-9]{5}/', $field_value );
					if ( 0 === $match || false === $match ) {
						$errors->add( 'invalid_gov_id', 'Please ensure your government ID matches the correct format.' );
					}
				}
				return $error;
			},
			10,
			3
		);
	}
);

add_action(
	'woocommerce_blocks_validate_location_address_fields',
	function ( \WP_Error $errors, $fields, $group ) {
		if ( $fields['namespace/gov-id'] !== $fields['namespace/confirm-gov-id'] ) {
			$errors->add( 'gov_id_mismatch', 'Please ensure your government ID matches the confirmation.' );
		}
	},
	10,
	3
);