What is this plugin? The ACF Custom Database Tables plugin is an extension for the Advanced Custom Fields plugin. The extension makes it possible for developers to generate custom database tables that map to ACF Field Groups where each field represents a column. This approach provides the option to store key entity (post, user, custom post type) […]

Table creation/modification is a two part process: First, we need to generate (or update) the field group’s table definition JSON file. Then, we need to apply the definition to the database in order to create new tables or modify existing ones. Generating the definition file Head to the field group you wish to create a […]

Does this plugin work with user data? Yes. Custom database tables can be defined for field groups that have a User Form in their location settings. Can I use this plugin for custom post types? Absolutely. Whilst the plugin supports the built in types of post and page, it is ideally suited for storing custom […]

You may face issues with third party systems that rely on WordPress’ core table structure (e.g; search plugins, database management plugins, etc.) If you find situations where this is a problem, please let us know so that we can investigate solutions. If a table definition does not contain any columns, the table will not be […]

Join tables are available where required for eligible fields and can be activated using filters. The following fields are eligible for join tables: Relationship Post Object Page Link User Taxonomy Global activation It is possible to set a global setting that will enable join tables on all eligible fields. We don’t recommend this, as you […]

If you are using custom ACF field types and wish to store their values in a custom database table, you need to register the field type as supported. You can do so using the following: * This will register a custom field type as supported by the plugin. * This affects table definition generation and […]

By default, the plugin does not bypass storage of metadata to the core meta tables as doing so can create issue with other plugins that are dependent on meta data existing in the core meta tables. However, you may configure your site to bypass core tables where data is stored in a custom database table. […]

The plugin will attempt to automatically generate a directory to house all related files when an ACF Field Group is saved and the table generation on that field group is active. The possible locations for this directory are: If using ACF JSON, the acf-json/database-tables directory will be created. If no acf-json directory is available, the plugin will […]

For consistency, we pass the data through ACFs 3rd party extension filters. If you need to disable this, you can do so using the following: * Thes two lines will deactivate ACFs 3rd party filters on data that is passed * to or retreived from a custom database table. They will not disable the filters […]