Building a HighLevel snapshot: where each client value goes

A snapshot can include Custom Fields and Custom Values, so the build arrives with its structure. What it can't do is know the next client's name, phone number or booking link. The work is deciding, value by value, where each piece of client information lives, so a copied account can be filled in once and checked before anything goes live.

Three homes for a value

Every piece of client information in a build belongs in one of these. Put it in the wrong one and it shows up later as a blank, or as the wrong business's details.

• The Business Profile in company settings: the account's own details, such as the Friendly Business Name and Business Phone. Account merge fields read from here.
• Custom Values, under Settings > Custom Values: information shared across the account's content. Change one and its references update.
• Custom Fields: information that belongs to an individual record, such as one contact's answer on a form.

Shared by the whole account: a Custom Value. Belongs to one contact: a Custom Field.

When the Business Profile is the right home

Use a Business Profile field when the feature reading it supports account merge fields. The Friendly Business Name supplies the account name merge field, and Business Phone supplies the account phone merge fields. Merge field support varies by feature, so check every place that will read the value before you rely on it; an unsupported merge field can stay unresolved.

One trap catches new accounts: Business Phone only fills merge fields. Entering it doesn't provision a number the account can call from. That's a separate step in every copied account, and it's easy to assume it's done because the phone number shows up in messages.

Custom Values for everything the account shares

Custom Values hold the information an account reuses across its content: a booking link, a service area, the name a message is signed with. Because one edit updates every reference, a copied account needs each value changed in one place, not hunted down step by step.

In our builds, anything an AI agent's prompt reads goes in a Custom Value, so the prompt itself is identical in every copy and the client's details sit in one list. That's our convention, not a HighLevel rule. Agent Studio can also read Account variables straight from the Location settings, and either can work.

Custom Fields for what belongs to one contact

Custom Fields hold what's different for each record: a contact's preferred service, an answer from a form, a date that changes from person to person. Including them in the snapshot gives the new account the same fields, ready for its own contacts.

The usual mistake runs the other way: business-wide information stored in a contact field. Then it has to be filled in on every contact, and anything that reads it comes up empty for the contacts nobody filled in.

AI agents and blank variables

In AI Agents > Agent Studio, an agent can use Account, Custom Values, Right Now, Form Data and Contact variables. When a variable's source data is missing, it resolves blank, and the agent shows a gap where the value should be.

That's why a copied account needs its Business Profile and Custom Values filled in before its agent goes live, and why the test runs after they're filled, not before.

Filling and checking a copied account

Run this on every account that loads the snapshot, using the value list you made when you built it.

1. List every client value the build uses and mark each one Business Profile, Custom Value or Custom Field.
2. In the new account, complete the Business Profile fields that the account merge fields read.
3. Go to Settings > Custom Values, fill in each value, use + Add Custom Value for any that's missing, and Save.
4. Wherever a value goes into content, insert it with the picker, so the merge field is one that feature supports.
5. In Agent Studio, save the agent and use Test to see each variable resolve with the new client's details.
6. Set up the account's calling number on its own. Business Phone won't do it for you.