1. Introduction

Here is an overview of the main steps involved, where we use PHP and the cURL library to make API requests to Pipedrive:

1. Obtain your Pipedrive API token and company domain
2. Identify the id of the custom person field that you want to delete
3. Build the URL for the API request to delete the custom person field
4. Use the cURL library to send a DELETE request to the Pipedrive API to delete the custom person field
5. Check the response from the API to see if the custom person field was deleted successfully or not, and print a success or error message to the console accordingly

If you still want to delete a custom field, follow the steps below.

2. Get the id of the custom person field

Let's say you've got a custom person field named "Relationship status". You don't need this field anymore, so you want to delete it. First, create a file getPersonFields.php and follow our tutorials on how to find the API token and how to get the company domain.

To make a GET request, you'll need the correct URL meant for getting person fields, for example, https://{COMPANYDOMAIN}.pipedrive.com/api/v1/personFields?api_token=YOUR_API_TOKEN. All available endpoints and their URLs are described in our API Reference.

Here's an example of what the request itself should look like in PHP. Remember to replace the data in the example code with yours (the $company_domain and the $api_token).

<?php
// Content of getPersonFields.php
  
// Pipedrive API token
$api_token = 'YOUR_API_TOKEN';
  
// Pipedrive company domain
$company_domain = 'YOUR_COMPANY_DOMAIN';
 
// URL for getting Person fields
$url = 'https://' . $company_domain . '.pipedrive.com/api/v1/personFields?start=0&api_token=' . $api_token;
 
// GET request
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
   
echo 'Sending request...' . PHP_EOL;
   
$output = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
 
// Create an array from the data that is sent back from the API
// As the original content from server is in JSON format, you need to convert it to a PHP array
$result = json_decode($output, true);
 
// Check if data returned in the result is empty
if (empty($result['data'])) {
    exit('Error: ' . $result['error'] . PHP_EOL);
}
 
// Print out full data if the result is not empty
print_r($result['data']);

Execute the code by using the php getPersonFields.php command in the command line.

3. Check the payload of the custom field

If the request was successful, you can now find the id of the custom person field named "Relationship status" from the payload.

As the original payload can be quite bulky, here's the section to look out for. From here, you'll learn that the id of the custom person field named "Relationship status" is 9068:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 9068
            [key] => 199fda744ce708da51ac2500dcfc2811c0032365
            [name] => Relationship status
            [order_nr] => 1
            [field_type] => enum
            [add_time] => 2018-09-17 12:15:45
            [update_time] => 2018-09-17 12:16:53
        )

4. Delete the custom person field

Next, create a file deleteCustomPersonField.php

To make a DELETE request, you'll need the correct URL meant for deleting a Person field, for example, https://{COMPANYDOMAIN}.pipedrive.com/api/v1/personFields/9068?api_token=YOUR_API_TOKEN. If you want to use this tutorial for deleting other types of custom fields, you can find the needed URLs for that below:

As you can see from the example URL, you need to pass along the custom field's $id in the request URL.

5. Full working code (PHP)

Here's an example of what the request should look like in PHP. Remember to replace the data in the code example for your actual $id of the custom Person field you want to delete, and again the $company_domain, and the $api_token.

<?php
// Content of deleteCustomPersonField.php
   
// Pipedrive API token
$api_token = 'YOUR_API_TOKEN';
  
// Pipedrive company domain
$company_domain = 'YOUR_COMPANY_DOMAIN';
  
// The ID of the custom Person field you want to delete
$id = 9068;
  
// URL for deleting a custom Person field
$url = 'https://' . $company_domain . '.pipedrive.com/api/v1/personFields/' . $id . '?api_token=' . $api_token;
 
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "DELETE");
    
echo 'Sending request...' . PHP_EOL;
    
$output = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
   
// Create an array from the data that is sent back from the API
// As the original content from server is in JSON format, you need to convert it to a PHP array
$result = json_decode($output, true);
 
// Check if data returned in the result is empty
if (empty($result['data'])) {
    exit('Error: ' . $result['error'] . PHP_EOL);
}
 
// If the custom Person field was deleted successfully, print the ID of the deleted field
if ($result['data']) {
    echo 'Success! The ID of the deleted custom Person field: ' . $result['data']['id'] . PHP_EOL;
}

And now execute the code by using the deleteCustomPersonField.php command in the command line.

6. Full working code (Node.js)

Here's the Node.js code as well:

//All tutorial Node.Js code examples are for reference only and shouldn't be used in production code as is. In production, a new new pipedrive.ApiClient() instance should be initialised separately for each request.
const pipedrive = require('pipedrive');
const defaultClient = new pipedrive.ApiClient();

// Configure authorization by settings api key
// PIPEDRIVE_API_KEY is an environment variable that holds real api key
defaultClient.authentications.api_key.apiKey = process.env.PIPEDRIVE_API_KEY;

async function deletePersonCustomField() {
    try {
        console.log('Sending request...');

        const api = new pipedrive.PersonFieldsApi(defaultClient);

        const FIELD_ID = 9073; // id of the field you want to delete
        const response = await api.deletePersonField(FIELD_ID);

        console.log('Custom field deleted from a person successfully!', response);
    } catch (err) {
        const errorToLog = err.context?.body || err;

        console.log('Deleting custom field failed', errorToLog);
    }
}


deletePersonCustomField();

7. Successful deletion ⛳️

In case of a successful request, this is the output you'll receive:

Sending request...
Success! The ID of the deleted custom Person field: 9068

You have now successfully deleted the custom person field called "Relationship status". You can also check the change from the web app.