Custom Objects and Fields — your data shapes, native

April 22, 2026. SGEN ships with first-class support for the data shapes your business uses. Locations, events, products, team members, case studies, testimonials — define them once as Custom Object types, attach Custom Fields, and every editor across the site picks them up automatically.

What changed

Before: a SGEN site shipped with three built-in content types (page, post, event) and you fit your business model into those three buckets. If you wanted a Locations directory or a Case Studies index, you bolted on an external tool, embedded an iframe, and crossed your fingers.

After: you define a new content type called "Location" or "Case Study" in the admin. You add the fields it needs (address, hours, photos, contact). The editor renders those fields the same way it renders the built-in page editor. The public site has URL routing for the new type, with archive pages and detail pages, out of the box.

The change is architectural — Custom Objects aren't a plugin layer on top of pages. They are pages, with a different schema. Every capability that works on pages (drafts, scheduling, revisions, SEO, permissions) works on Custom Objects too.

Custom Fields on built-in types

The same engine that powers Custom Objects also lets you add fields to the built-in types. If your blog posts need a "Reading time" number, a "Featured product" relationship, and an "Author bio" textarea — add them as a Custom Fields group attached to the post type. Every blog post editor now shows those fields.

What you can build

• Locations directory — Address, hours, phone, photos, GMB attributes, opening date. Public URL: /locations/. Archive: /locations. Detail: per-location page rendered from the schema.
• Case Studies — Client name, industry, challenge, solution, result metrics, related products. Useful for B2B sites.
• Events — Date, time, venue, RSVP form attachment, capacity, speakers (as a repeater).
• Team members — Name, role, headshot, bio, social links. Public team page renders the list.
• Testimonials — Quote, author, role, photo, related product or service. Mix into product pages or run as a standalone carousel.
• Recipes (for food brands), Properties (for real estate), Vehicles (for dealerships) — any list-of-things with structured fields.

The pattern is always the same: define the type, add the fields, the editor and the public-site renderer handle the rest.

Field types

The Custom Fields engine supports:

• Text, textarea, rich text — for prose of varying length
• Number, email, URL — with format validation
• Select, checkbox, radio, true/false — for constrained choice
• Date, time, color — typed pickers
• Image, gallery, file — Media Library pickers
• Map — geo coordinates with a Maps preview
• Repeater — variable-length lists of nested fields (good for "speakers" or "ingredients")
• Group — labeled sub-section grouping (good for "address" containing street, city, state, zip)
• Relationship — links to other Custom Objects (good for "Related products" on a Case Study)
• Taxonomy — links to category or tag terms

Twenty-two field types total. Pick what each value needs and the editor renders the right input.

How this connects to the public site

Custom Objects ship with URL routing baked in. When you create a Custom Object type called "Location":

• Detail URL: /locations/ — per-row landing page, rendered from the schema
• Archive URL: /locations — list of all published rows, sortable/filterable based on Custom Fields you mark "filter"
• Sitemap entry — every published row is in your XML sitemap automatically

You don't write a route. You don't build a template. The public-site renderer reads the schema and produces the page. If you want to customize the layout, the SG-Builder editor opens the per-row template and you adjust it like any other page.

Why this matters

Most platforms make Custom Objects a paid add-on or a plugin install. The plugin layer creates ongoing fragility — every platform update can break the plugin, and the plugin author may stop maintaining it.

SGEN's approach: Custom Objects ARE the platform's content engine. The same code path that renders a blog post renders a Location. There's no plugin to fail, no upgrade to coordinate. When the platform updates, Custom Objects update with it.

Common patterns

• An agency setting up client sites defines a base set of Custom Objects in a template (locations, team, case studies) and clones the template for each new client. The schema travels with the template — every new site starts with the shapes the agency needs.
• A multi-location business with twenty cafes models each cafe as a row in a "Cafe" Custom Object type. The list of cafes lives at /cafes. Each cafe gets a detail page with hours, photos, and a contact form scoped to that location.
• A SaaS marketing site uses Custom Objects for case studies, product features, and integration partners. Each lives at its own URL pattern. Cross-references between objects (Relationship fields) keep the content interconnected.

Behind the work

The Custom Objects engine sits on top of the same database + caching infrastructure that powers built-in content types. The April 12 changelog entry (observability + traffic visibility) covers the work that makes Custom Object archive pages cache-friendly at scale — without it, a Locations directory with 500 rows would have hurt page speed.

Next steps

• Read the Reference at Reference → Custom Objects + Custom Fields for field-by-field detail.
• Follow the Guide at Guides → Site Build → Build First Site which walks through adding a Custom Object type as part of the site setup.
• See examples in the Reference docs — the Locations and Events areas use Custom Objects under the hood; their reference pages are practical templates you can model from.