Read-only records

[MarkS17]

Hello all,

I'm wondering if it's possible to indicate certain records in a table as read-only. The idea is that once these records have been validated they should not be modifiable (except perhaps through a special procedure). It's for accountancy records that have been transferred to an external database and so should no longer be modifiable.

Any tips or tricks anyone to achieve this?

Thanks,

Mark

[Jon_Stephenson]

Just use field permissions?

[ScottWorld]

@MarkS17 

This is relatively easy to accomplish in Airtable.

You would simply create 2 different interface pages, each one set to filter your records by a different criteria that you specify.

One of those interface pages would be set to filter for your read-only records, and your other interface page would be set to filter for your editable records.

Each interface page allows you to control the editability of the records on that page.

Then, you would remove your users from having "base access", and just give them "interface access" instead.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

[kuovonne]

If someone has direct edit access to a base, you cannot prevent them from editing specific records. You can prevent editing of specific fields, but those permissions apply to the entire field for all records, not just some records. 

However, you can provide interface only access. Then use different interface elements and pages to show editable records versus records that you do not want edited. You can control which elements are editable. 

[MarkS17]

Thanks all for your replies, I'll set up view interfaces. But is it possible to put password access on a table even for the base owner? This would be an additional security to avoid 'accidental' record changing.

Thanks again,

Mark

[ScottWorld]

No, that’s not possible, but if you're looking for that, you may want to switch to a higher-end, enterprise-grade, database system like Apple's FileMaker.

All of the features that you asked about above are natively built into FileMaker as a part of their product.

I was a Certified FileMaker Developer for 30 years, so feel free to contact me through my website if you’d like me to introduce you to some excellent FileMaker developers.

[Hannah_Wiginton]

Hey Mark,

You've been given a few helpful answers. If interested, On2Air Forms lets you create dashboards that are filtered by person, by view, by field data, etc. So you can really set granular permissions depending on what data you want someone to be able to edit.

on2air.com/forms

Glad to help you get set up if that interests you.

[MarkS17]

Thanks again all for your solutions. I'll stick within AirTable for now and brief users about potential issues.

I note for FileMaker and On2Air, thank you.

Mark

[HannesK-ME]

Our miniExtensions portal could be used to work around this limitation in Airtable. You could simply create filtered views so records with a certain status are displayed and only allow viewing, but not editing of those records. For example, you could have a "finalized" view where data can only be viewed, and a "pending" view where records can still be edited. Once the status changes, the record would disappear from one view and appear in the other!