Can I have a form that allows anyone with the link to view and download an attachment in a recor

[hauwi]

Hi. I've not really used forms very much, so please bear with me!

I would like to have a form, accessed from a unique form-record-URL, that allows anyone with the link to access only the attachment field in a record, so they can view or download (but not edit or delete) the attachment.

Is this something that can be done with forms?

Very many thanks.

[kuovonne]

This cannot be  done with native Airtable forms. Native Airtable forms only create new records. They cannot be used to access existing data in the base.

You could share a filtered shared view that shows only the attachment field and the primary field. People with the url for the shared view would be able to view both the primary field and the attachment field, but not edit or delete any data. They would also be able to view and download the attachment.

However, this is not a practical solution if you need to share multiple records, as you would need to manually create and share a new view for each record.

If you need a system that will create a unique url for each record with access to only that record without having to manually create a bunch of views, you can look into a third party portal service.

[ScottWorld · Accepted solution]

I was actually in the middle of typing up all the same stuff that @kuovonne said above, so I will just trim down my comments to just the bare necessities now:

1. Airtable forms never allow you to view any information in a record, whether it is an attachment, text, or any other data. Airtable forms are simply blank forms that people can fill out to create brand new records in Airtable.

2. Your #1 best bet, as Kuovonne said, is to share a view. That is actually your ONLY option that will work within Airtable. There are no other options that will work with Airtable on its own.

3. Otherwise, you will need to use other services. Kuovonne lists a bunch of portals on her page that she linked to above.

4. In my personal opinion, the #1 best portal for your use-case scenario is to use Fillout's advanced forms for Airtable, because it is 100% free, it lets you view & update Airtable records from a form, and it will give you a unique URL link for each record. Fillout also allows you to show the values of any of your Airtable fields on your form itself, which is specifically what you requested above. You can show attachment fields, lookup fields, rollup fields, and you can even calculate formulas live on your form as well. You will currently need to use some workarounds to allow people to view/download an attachment field without giving them the ability to edit/upload/delete attachments, but chat with their support team and they will talk you through the process of doing it. (Fillout is also bringing read-only attachment fields in the near future, so workarounds won't be necessary in the future.)

5. Alternatively, you don't even need to give people the ability to download the file directly from the Fillout form. You can just put your attachments in a cloud storage space like Google Drive, and just give people a clickable link on your Fillout form to click on. If you want to automate the process of getting Airtable attachments to Google Drive and having a unique URL for each attachment, you would want to automate this process using Make. I talk about how to work with attachment fields and Make in this Airtable podcast episode: https://youtu.be/sKPyG0HZCYY?list=PLqssva4liHRwHhQIpTXekG8WObEoyC2F1

6. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld 

[Celeste_Bancos]

Wow, thank you for the Fillout recommendation! I'm really impressed with it so far, and I love that I can do so much on the free plan.

I was figuring out workarounds for Airtable's form limitations but I think I'll be able to provide my form users with a much smoother experience if I go with Fillout instead.

[ScottWorld]

You're welcome! I love it, too! I've got most of my Airtable consulting clients using it! 😃

[hauwi]

Thank you @kuovonne and @ScottWorld. That's really useful information. I have a few Make scenarios working well now - on @ScottWorld 's advice, and just started with Fillout, so I'm entering a new learning curve to understand them better! It's good to know that I'm on the right track now. Many thanks. 🙏

[ScottWorld]

@hauwi That's great to hear! I've assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread.

[hauwi]

This resource is great, - as is the other air.tableforums.

But I wonder if there are similar forums/communities for questions about fillout? I see they have online help and a few youtube vids. But nothing like the extensive user-forums here for airtable.

Thanks again.

[ScottWorld]

It doesn’t look like they have a forum, but you can post your question in Air.TableForums.com. Many of the users there use Fillout.

[HannesK-ME]

Hey @hauwi and everybody else finding this thread in the future!

Our miniExtensions Form has the ability to display and/or edit existing records (unlike the Airtable form which can only create new ones). You can generate a unique URL for each record that will open that record, showing only the fields you define. In this case, you could simply add the attachment field and nothing else, and set that field to read-only so it cannot be edited. Users can still open and download the files though (unless you want to disable that, too)! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about this!