Overview
When designing a form, there may be instances where you need to constrain the value entered into a field and prevent data entry users from making further changes. In such cases, you can set the field as read-only, effectively restricting any further edits.
Behaviour
A field that is set as Read-only prevents all users from changing the original value stored in that field. The value stored in fields set as Read-only cannot be modified at any time, including when Records are first added as well as when edits are made to Records. To generate the original value to be stored in a Read-only field, you can use the Default value property.
When a field is set to Read-only, changes are prevented when using the data entry form and the importer.
Supported field types
- Barcode
- Date
- Fortnight
- Geographic Point
- Month
- Multi-Line Text
- Multiple Selection
- Reference
- Quantity
- Single Selection
- Text
- User
- Week
Setting a field as Read-only
- In the Form Design page, click on the field you want to set as Read-only.
- In the Field Card editor, check the box next to "Read-only".
- Click on "Done" to save the field.
- When you finish adding fields, click on "Save" to save the Form.
A field that is set to Read-only, appears with the label "READ-ONLY" in the Form Designer.
Examples
Preventing changes to the date of report submission
Say you are collecting periodic reports from partners and you require reports to be submitted by a certain deadline. You can use the Read-only field property to effectively restrict the date a report was submitted, ensuring the date will remain correct over time.
You can do this by adding a Date field, say submissionDate, with a default value formula TODAY() to automatically populate the current date when adding a new record. You would then set this field as Read-only to prevent partners from modifying the submission date.
In this way, the value of submissionDate will always reflect the actual date of submission. You would then be able to confidently identify which reports were submitted late.
Related
#Related Default value