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Simply the ability to set a default on fields other than numeric


On a date, the obvious is Today


On a string, just set a default value

My work around for this is to use a second field. I have a “status” field and a “status_chooser” field. “status_chooser” is single select, as we all know the default is blank when adding a new record. My “status” field is a formula. if(status_chooser = “”,“in process”,status_chooser)

if status_chooser field is still blank, then status = “in process” otherwise it = status_chooser. And still works if later someone selects “in process” from the status_chooser.

I am doing this in grid view. Not sure how it would work in an online form.


yes I came to the same workout for Project Management application. However since the field is calculated there are some limitations when the records are grouped by this and you want to add another record with the same grouped parameters.

bump!

Was very surprised to find this was not already a feature

This seems like a very heavily requested feature for a very long time now. I also would really like to able to set defaults on other field types!


Any update on this?

It’s 2020 why are still asking for this?

This seems like extremely basic functionality that many, many people have been asking for for years — why isn’t this prioritized over something like Pexels integration that no one was asking for?

This seems like a very heavily requested feature for a very long time now. I also would really like to able to set defaults on other field types!


Any update on this?


+1 on this. Would be great to have the ability to set the default selection for the single-select field, and also have default text for the single line text, and long text fields.

Having asked the original question nearly 4 years ago I am staggered this hasn’t been addressed. It seems such a simple fix but gets overlooked by major (but questionable) new functionality. Worries me about Airtable as a commercial enterprise solution as it feels like the developers are prioritising things they think are “cool” over the market needs.

This seems like extremely basic functionality that many, many people have been asking for for years — why isn’t this prioritized over something like Pexels integration that no one was asking for?



Lol, well the Pexels block was actually created by Pexels themselves, not Airtable.


And +1 on this feature request for field defaults! 🙂

Adding default number is not working - it doesn’t pre-fill the cells

In case there is a need for some kind of minimum users requesting this feature.


+1 for default fields, specially for single select))

I’d like defaults for long text - use case is a checklist of tasks. I know I could make each check a single field but they’re really not worth their own fields for my use case.

It would be great to have a default “Time” set when choosing the date field. We have a table dedicated to logging employee time off, and when they are filling the form out, it would make it easier and faster for the start time to default to 8:00am and end time to default to 5:00pm. The start and end DATE could still pull from what the current day is. It would help when sending this information to Zapier to correctly interpret what a “full day” is.

enable making one of the items from the picklist the default value.

Hey everybody! So, I would love this feature too.


When a new user is onboarded into our platform, we have a certain number of steps we want the user to go through to complete their onboarding. We track these steps in a Status column that’s field type is “Single select”. The field has four different options, and we want the first option to be the default when a new user is added to the table. As you all know, this isn’t possible in Airtable for the moment. However, it occurred to me that Airtable’s new(ish) Automations feature might be able to solve the problem, and the good news is that it did. 🙂


Steps to create a default value for a Single select field type using an Automation:



  1. Click Automations (top-right) >> New Automation

  2. Name the automation

  3. Click “Choose Trigger” button

  4. Click “When a record matches a condition…”

  5. Under Conditions, select “When tStatus] lis empty]”

  6. In the “Select a table” field, select the table where the record is created (e.g. Users), and click “Run test” (make sure the test runs successfully, you will need a record with an empty Status)

  7. Click “Done”


Screenshot for reference on the “Triggers” segment (Steps 1–7)



  1. Click “Add Action”

  2. Click “Update Record”

  3. Under “Record ID” click the o+] button

  4. In the dropdown, next to “Record (from Step 1)”, click “Continue”

  5. From the list select “Record ID”

  6. Click “Choose Field”

  7. Click “Status” (or whatever your field you want to update)

  8. In the Status field, enter the text of the default status (in our particular case, the default status is “On Deck”), and click Run test (make sure the test ran successfully)

  9. Click Done

  10. Last, but not least, make sure to toggle the Automation to ON in the top-right corner.


Screenshot for reference on the “Actions” segment (Steps 8–17)


::phew:: That was a lot! And a bit confusing, to be honest. Setting the Record ID (step 10) and entering the default value (step 15) were not clear at all when I was going through this. I hope this helps some of you!



  • B

You might be interested in https://miniextensions.com/autofill-default-value-for-airtable-records/ as mentioned earlier by Set defaults on fields


I haven’t found any other automated solution besides Set defaults on fields (but it’s more work, and count towards your automation executions count)

me too … this one of the real time-wasters in my current project testing out Airtable; yes i saw the workarounds, and if i had thousands, rather than just a couple hundred records to deal with, it would be worth the effort to build the workaround

Strong upvote here! Would love it for checkbox fields, and should be easy to implement.

Strong upvote here! Would love it for checkbox fields, and should be easy to implement.


I asked this question 5 years ago and still nothing! Pathetic to be honest and a platform that lately spends more time down than up.


So disappointed but looking for an alternative platform

IT is very disappointing to see this feature was never actions in 5 years. I just started using airtable, thinking it would replace an old spreadsheet I have. This was my first requirement beyond the simple spreadsheet functionality.

IT is very disappointing to see this feature was never actions in 5 years. I just started using airtable, thinking it would replace an old spreadsheet I have. This was my first requirement beyond the simple spreadsheet functionality.


Exactly Emre, unfortunately they are way more interested on new functionality than simple issues in the base product. I loved Airtable, told everyone it was the answer to every problem but I’m completely disillusioned with it now

It would be especially useful to set a default value for a Single Select field.

Add my company’s interest for this feature

+1 for a single select field default.


It would make the kanban view more usable instead of having everything show up under an “Uncategorized” column which isn’t helpful. By convention, the first column in a kanban flow should always be some categorized first step, so it’s really redundant to have to manually categorize every item we add to be that first step.

How can such a basic, important feature not been implemented in over 5 years?

I started this and find it bizarre it’s not addressed. I’ve moved on from Airtable for exactly this kind of reason. Gannt chart views rather than something so fundamental??? Lost sight of what they were supposed to be and what they did well, Better tools out there now which is a real shame

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