Protecting table data in pre-filled forms

[cpeusebio]

Hi! 

Scope: New Hire Form 

• Add New Hire Details
• Update New Hire Details

Description:

• Want to create a new hire form where new hires are able to fill out their details, and a copy of the form can be sent to them. 
• The form should have an editable link (similar to Google Form edit response function), so that they are able to modify different parts of the fields.

I've only seen prefill forms in usage of simple database, or for reservation purposes, not so much as complex as an employee database where multiple fields can be modified.

Thanks so much!

[ScottWorld]

You can very easily do all of that by using Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable.

Fillout is 100% free and offers hundreds of features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer, including the ability to edit Airtable records from a form, display Airtable lookup fields & Airtable rollup fields & Airtable attachments & formulas on forms, dynamically & conditionally filter linked record fields by any values that you would like, perform math or other live calculations on your forms, accept payments on forms, create multi-page forms with conditional paths, create new linked records on a form, display as many fields as you want to see in a linked record selection list (including attachments), connect a single form to dozens of external apps simultaneously, limit the number of linked records that can be chosen, upload an unlimited amount of attachments simultaneously, add CAPTCHAs to your form, add choice matrixes to your forms, direct integration with hundreds of apps like Calendly & Google Maps on your forms, and so much more.

Hope this helps!

— ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Yeap this is doable!

Airtable has a guide on how to update records via a form found here: https://support.airtable.com/docs/use-case-update-records-via-a-form

And here's their guide on how to prefill forms: https://support.airtable.com/docs/prefilling-a-form-via-encoded-url

[ScottWorld]

Airtable’s prefilled forms feature is extremely limited & uunwieldy, and you would need to continually & constantly regenerate a brand new link for people after every single update that they made.

Also, Airtable’s prefilled features don’t support all field types. For example, you can’t have it prefill an attachment field.

The only reliable, professional, customizable, and simple way to do this is to use Fillout. It is the only professional way of solving this problem.

— ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant

[TheTimeSavingCo]

re: you would need to continually & constantly regenerate a brand new link for people after every single update that they made.

Yeap, we'd have a formula field that would automatically generate them and we could send those out via an automation whenever there was an update!

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It's true that Airtable's prefill doesn't support all field types (I think attachments is the only one they don't support, actually?  Let me know if I'm wrong!), and in that situation we'd definitely need to use a third party app!  If not, avoiding third party apps and potential additional subscription costs is always nice!

[ScottWorld]

One thing to note is that Fillout is free for up to 1,000 submissions per month.

You may be right that Airtable’s only limitation for prefilled forms is attachment fields, but it’s also challenging to create prefilled links for multi-select fields and linked record fields that have multiple values.

Fillout also offers hundreds (possibly thousands) of features that Airtable doesn’t have, including displaying formulas, lookups, and rollups on a form. It’s very cool… you should check it out!

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Thanks for the heads up!  I'm actually a big fan of Fillout and have recommended it in several threads here.  It's definitely a great tool for extending Airtable's capabilities.  Always happy to see more people appreciating it!

[ScottWorld]

That’s great! And here’s another difference between Airtable’s prefilled links vs. Fillout’s prefilled links:

Airtable’s constantly-changing prefilled links might be hundreds of characters long, which looks very cluttered and can feel overwhelming to people. On the other hand, Fillout’s never-changing prefilled links are always short & concise.

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Absolutely, I get that long URLs can be a bit much. One trick I use to keep things clean is embedding the links with descriptive text:

For HTML:

<a href="https://your-long-url.com">click here to submit</a>

This will display as a simple "click here to submit" instead of the full URL.

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For Markdown:

[click here to submit](https://your-long-url.com)​

This will also display as "click here to submit" and keep your links looking neat and professional, regardless of the tool you're using!