---
title: "Feature: Configurable frontend user phone number types"
manual: "Academic Profiles"
version: "main"
source: "Changelog/2.4/Feature-ConfigurableFrontendUserPhoneNumberTypes.rst"
rendered: "2026-10-02T20:47:49+00:00"
---

# Feature: Configurable frontend user phone number types {#feature-configurable-frontend-user-phone-number-types}

## Description {#description}

Telephone and fax numbers imported from frontend users no longer carry the
hard-coded values `phone` and `fax`, which are not selectable in the shipped
phone-number type list. Two new extension configuration options say which type
each source field imports as:

```none
profile.feuser.telephoneNumberType = business
profile.feuser.faxNumberType = business
```

Both default to `business`, which is part of the shipped
[types.phoneNumberTypes](../../Configuration/General/Index.html#confval-types-phonenumbertypes). Each value is validated against that list
before it is written: a value the installation does not offer falls back to the
undefined type `''`, which the backend select ships as its first item. The
synchronisation therefore never writes a type the backend cannot resolve.

An existing selectable type is an editor decision and is left alone. Only the
two historical values are corrected, and only where they are not selectable on
that installation: an installation that genuinely offers `phone` or `fax` as
types keeps them.

## Impact {#impact}

New and updated imports carry a configured, selectable type. Installations that
want the imported numbers typed differently — or not typed at all — set the two
options; no other configuration changes.