Unless Im missing it, I would like the ability to lock changes to fields in a base and/or records. Would help prevent accidental deletion. I discovered several days later I had done this…
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Yes we need this it is already a issue for us.
+1
We generate orders from a parts/price list in Airtable - prices change and we would like to be able to change them without it consequently changing the prices of previously generated orders and quotes.
Exactly – infinite use cases for this. I’m tracking submissions, by person and company. After a submission has been made – I need it saved forever. If a person changes companies, or if a company changes through Acquisition or merger – I need to be able to update my tables without it changing the Submissions records.
+1 for this as well.
We collaborate across multiple teams/departments and I would love the ability to lock down Single/Multiple selects so other users are not allowed to add more Options and only use the available selects.
+1 again, accidental deletions are a real problem for our team. I’d like to be able to lock to prevent accidental deletion and make sure additions and edits are purposeful. For a given field, I’d like to set “lock” that requires a simple “unlock” button to edit.
we need this and YOU (airtable) need this . How can i trust mission critical data when accidental deletion is so easy?
This is so important. The single most important for advanced iterations with sensitive data from our company.
100+
This is so important. The single most important for advanced iterations with sensitive data from our company.
100+
Agreed- major need for this in our organization too
Thanks for the feedback! It’s clear to us that our users want more granularity when it comes to controlling the permission levels per field. Including a locked field function is something many of our users have suggested, and it might fit into a more general overhaul of permissioning.
Would you want the ability to lock changes to be just to prevent accidental deletion? Are there any other purposes for which you would lock a field?
When you describe the ability to “lock changes,” can you describe more clearly how you would like the mechanics of that to work? Would you want a button that you can just click in the header of the column? Some setting in the field configuration menu? Would you want it to be password-locked? Something else?
Hi Katherine! Are there any updates regarding the creation and or release of this feature? It would be very helpful for our team to have this capability. Thanks!
We have just started using airtable and love it! But as well as agreeing with the requests above we have another use case. I would like to be able to choose to ‘lock’ individual entries in a particular field, ideally with a ‘two-step’ action required to change it (so a popup asks if you are sure)
We have an entry in our table that defines if a record can be seen by our customers of not. I’d like to make that one harder to change so that we can be more confident that data that is only required internally stays internal.
+1111111 for this.
We log time entries for tickets. Once a ticket has been invoiced to the client no more time entries must be made to this specific record.
any update on this matter?
How is this not already implemented? I have only been using this for a few days and already have accidentally deleted critical information on my first sheet. I, fortunately was able to go back and undo, but when I share this base, it is going to be CHAOS.
+1 this feature is really needed!
@Katherine_Duh We love the new lockable views that we use as triggers for Zaps / automation. The next logical thing for us would be to have lockable columns for other views which store the data that comes out of a Zap or other automation. For example, a single select column that shows the status of an order. Where automation manages the status of that order, you’d want to lock that column.
Thanks for the feedback! It’s clear to us that our users want more granularity when it comes to controlling the permission levels per field. Including a locked field function is something many of our users have suggested, and it might fit into a more general overhaul of permissioning.
Would you want the ability to lock changes to be just to prevent accidental deletion? Are there any other purposes for which you would lock a field?
When you describe the ability to “lock changes,” can you describe more clearly how you would like the mechanics of that to work? Would you want a button that you can just click in the header of the column? Some setting in the field configuration menu? Would you want it to be password-locked? Something else?
Hi Katherine-
I have one very specific way that I think could help a lot of people and doesn’t seem like it would be too hard on your end. The ability to lock a “linked record” so additions cant be made to the list by free type. For example, we use a database for pricing, when a printing material is selected as a linked record, a square ft price populates to price out a sign. However, because there’s no way to “Lock” the linked record column someone could potentially free type a material, which then would auto populate the sq.ft.price with $0 and not price out the item. If we could make it so they can only select one of the linked record options, then the only way to add to the linked records is to go to that tab, that would be very helpful in our case. See below. So if you added an option such as “Lock this column. Records may only be added from the tab this is linked to” or something much better worded, would be great. P.S. I checked and this can NOT be done by user, unless they are read only. An editor can click “Add new record” which would add a new item to the column. When a “single select” or “multiple select” an editor can not add to the list, this is how I’d like the “linked records” to work in this case.
Hi Katherine-
I have one very specific way that I think could help a lot of people and doesn’t seem like it would be too hard on your end. The ability to lock a “linked record” so additions cant be made to the list by free type. For example, we use a database for pricing, when a printing material is selected as a linked record, a square ft price populates to price out a sign. However, because there’s no way to “Lock” the linked record column someone could potentially free type a material, which then would auto populate the sq.ft.price with $0 and not price out the item. If we could make it so they can only select one of the linked record options, then the only way to add to the linked records is to go to that tab, that would be very helpful in our case. See below. So if you added an option such as “Lock this column. Records may only be added from the tab this is linked to” or something much better worded, would be great. P.S. I checked and this can NOT be done by user, unless they are read only. An editor can click “Add new record” which would add a new item to the column. When a “single select” or “multiple select” an editor can not add to the list, this is how I’d like the “linked records” to work in this case.
Hey @Katherine_Duh I just saw a separate post from you and may be the solution I was looking for but it’s not clear to me. Is this new beta going to do what I requested above? Here’s the link to the other discussion: Limit linked record selection to a view
+5 pts from me. We’re storing Google Drive folder IDs and cannot have them accidentally changed or altered in any way, or it breaks the front-end embedded iframes.
Trying to add more weight behind this Feature Request. We are considering managing content for a chatbot in Airtable, where we need to collaborate with writers on our client’s side, we want them to be able to edit some of the tables in the base while just being able to see other tables without the ability to edit. Or to be able to see/edit some fields while others are hidden for them.
Thank you.
This is the most important function left out of Airtable. If this is a complicated rollout, there should at least be a switch feature which toggles “ON”/ “OFF” for deletions on any particular base. This is the bare minmum to prevent an accidental deletion.
Or a choice to have a TWO step deletion process when it is toggled “ON” ( “you are about to edit/delete this field”, continue?)
Then moving forward
Google sheets has a pretty robust permissions and locking features. Certain field simply can be shut off of from editing by other users. This should be pretty self explanatory.
I have am switching my inventory databasing to Airtable (and moving away from google sheets) but I have had to build in a few redundancies, simply to deal with the accidental deletions issues. +10 for this feature!
+1
Even when I use the database myself, I occasionally find me entering a value that is not in the list. The field will accept it obviously as a new value. I don’t want that. I would either like to see a message that this value is not in the list, or even better: having the ability to lock the values.
Agree, this is especially key if you want to be able to control the vocabulary of a cell!
Definetely needed to lock data from erasing them,or at least there must be a notification about erasing something! Otherwise great functions
+1 for locking records / permissions by records!!
+1 This will be a deciding factor as to whether my team uses AirTable or not. Please can we have an update on this :grinning_face_with_big_eyes: ?
For us, it’s definitely the price list use case that FGE_Staff mentions above. If we update our pricing table, we don’t want that to update previous quotes. We’d like to be able to “freeze” a record so it can’t change without a warning.
The idea of versioning maybe fits in with this. Eg. a frozen record would link to a specific version of its linked fields. If they change, that’s fine - but the frozen record stays pointing at a particular version.
This request has been opened since 2016, it would be nice to have an official update. I hope that Airtable does not get too big too soon and stops innovating. 
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