# Workaround for personalizing a Storyblok block that uses reference fields?

Asked by Lars Eriksen on 2026-02-10. Tags: storyblok, limitations, content-modeling.

Our testimonial block pulls quotes via a reference field, and reference fields
are not supported by the Croct integration, so the field does not appear in the
mapping. Before asking I tried:

1. Mapping the parent block anyway, hoping the resolved reference would come
   through. It does not, the field is simply not offered.
2. Wrapping the reference in a nested block. Same limitation applies.
3. Duplicating the testimonial content inline per variant, which works but
   means editors maintain quotes in two places.

Has anyone found a cleaner way to restructure this

## 2 answers

### Answer from paulo.m (2026-02-10)

The limitation is on the field type, not the block, so the usual approach is
to restructure so the part that varies uses supported field types. Rich text,
table, and reference fields are the unsupported trio; plain text, textarea,
numbers, assets and so on all map fine.

For a testimonial block specifically, one option is to stop personalizing the
quote content itself and instead personalize a plain text field that selects
which testimonial to show (a key or slug your frontend resolves). The
reference data stays canonical in one place, and only the selector varies per
audience. Unmapped fields keep serving the regular Storyblok content, so the
rest of the block is untouched.

### Answer from Lars Eriksen (2026-02-12)

Posting what we ended up shipping in case it helps someone. We went with a
variation of paulo.m's idea:

1. Kept the testimonial documents exactly as they are, referenced as before.
2. Added a plain text field `testimonialKey` to the block and mapped only that
   field through the Croct field.
3. The frontend resolves the key against the already-fetched references, with
   the original reference as fallback when the key is empty or unknown.

Editors maintain quotes in one place, the experiment layer only decides which
key each audience gets, and if Croct returns nothing the default reference
renders as before. Two days in production, no issues so far.

#### Reply from paulo.m (2026-02-12)

Nice, the fallback-on-unknown-key detail is a good touch. Stealing this
for our logo wall block.