Enabling edit of specific fields only

[Steve_Cooke]

Apologies if this is a familiar problem. VERY grateful if anyone can suggest a solution or workaround.

I have a database of images and wish to enable a group of people (‘judges’) to rate them - without seeing each other’s ratings. To start with, I have…

…a table with (simplified for clarity) records that contain one image field and three Single select fields.

The single select fields are labelled Judge A, Judge B and Judge C and each one allows selection of a value from 1-5. I’m using single select as there appears to be no data validation feature (something of an omission in itself?).

In order to enable each judge to set the value in their respective field only, and WITHOUT seeing the other judge fields, I can see that I could share a gallery view with each judge (ideal in terms of presentation and restricting view to their field only)…

…but I cannot see how to enable them to edit the value in that field. Is there another way to do this or some kind of workaround?

I have applied for inclusion in the beta program relating to field permissions, but am not sure if that will help (and have not yet heard anything back - not a criticism as I’m sure things are challenging at present).

[Zollie]

Thanks for the detailed breakdown Steve. Shared views should address your problem. You’d create a view for each judge, hiding fields and filtering rows they shouldn’t see. Then create ‘shared view links’ for each of those views. Note that they should be free users - not users you’re paying for and adding to the base.

[Steve_Cooke]

Thanks very much Zollie. I’ll try out and confirm back…

[Zollie]

Steve, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I switched which article ‘Shared views’ was linking to above. The new article should give you a better overview

[Steve_Cooke]

Hi Zollie, thanks v much for this. I’ve tried this solution but may well be missing something!

I can create shared views which are unlocked and show only the specific fields I wish to share. However, the recipient of the share link - although able to view the records - is unable to edit data…

…unless they are already signed in as a collaborator - in which case they can see other views as well (and, indeed, the whole base)…which means they can find out what the other judges have voted.

I’m wondering if the only solution here is - for each judge - to copy and paste the data, which I want to share with that judge, to a new base where that judge is the sole collaborator (apart from myself of course).

This opens up troublesome sync issues as there is no way to link data between bases, but I guess I could create a workflow to mitigate that.

[Zollie]

Good point - forgot about the write privileges. Would a shared view combined with a form view work? Forms are also available to free users. They allow those users to submit one row of data at a time.

[Steve_Cooke]

:slightly_smiling_face: it would help but, as I understand it (and I may well be wrong, still a newbie here), it looks as if an Airtable form can only be used to create a new record, so the judge would need to enter some link data, leading to potential user error.

It looks as if I could use a third party like OpenSide’s On2Air Forms addon (https://openside.com/product/on2air-forms/) - this claims to ‘Allow employees to update record details (individually or in bulk) without granting edit access to your entire Airtable base.’ which is exactly what I need, but (a) it’s $24.95 a month! and (b) equally seriously, it restricts me to using Jotform, which isn’t my form supplier of choice.

I think unlocking an edit feature in views would be a must have (along with data validation!) as I suspect the ability to allow third parties to enter data without having the power to view everything would be a huge bonus. I’ve noticed that there’s a beta re field editing privileges, which is useful, it doesn’t address the issue of data visibility.

[Steve_Cooke]

Just an update on that last comment of mine. Although I can see some valuable applications for on2air, it effectively enforces a form-based record update workflow, rather than being able to quickly browse all records in a table (as you could with an Airtable Gallery view) and update the relevant field for any specific record…so I think I’m heading towards having to create multiple bases for the time being?

[Zollie]

Multiple bases works, but probably isn’t ideal. If I were doing this without purchasing anything, I’d create two tables, one to collect judge responses, the other to house the data the judges need to review. When a judge needs to review a given row of data, they fill out a form. One of the fields in that form will ask them to put the ID of the row they’re reviewing. If you’re careful with naming the IDs, you could later connect the two tables with linked records. To do that the “name” or primary column for one of the tables would need to be this ID. In the example below, the table Judge Responses has each row named by that ID, but you could do it the other way around too.

Review Data (table)
Shared View: Grid view for each judge
Row ID (single line text, but later a linked record)
001
002
003

Judge Responses (table)
Shared view: one input form for all judges
Row ID (single line text)
001
002
003

Judge Name (single line text)
Bob
Bob
Bob

Rating (single select)
5
5
4

[Zollie]

Steve, one last “free implementation” idea - download a CSV for each of the judges. Have them edit in in Excel or google drive, then email you back a CSV.