Enforc unique key values?

[Bradley_Botkin]

Is there any way to force uniqueness on the key field? In other words, I want the value in the key field to be unique across all records. So I should not be able to create two records with the same key field value.
Thanks.
–Brad

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

Airtable keeps a unique recordID for every record you create, but this recordID is not exposed by default on the UI. They expose this unique recordID through a formula function:

If you make your key field a formula, and incorporate this function into its output, you’ll end up with automatically generated unique keys for every record you make – however, you will not have any control over the format of that unique key; they are usually 17(?) characters long and a mixture of numbers, upper-case letters, and lower-case letters.

[Bradley_Botkin]

Hi Jeremy,
Thank you for that explanation. So AirTable provides a unique record_ID, but there’s no inband mechanism for enforcing uniqueness on a user-defined field.
Thanks again.
–Brad

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

Bradley_Botkin:

here’s no inband mechanism for enforcing uniqueness on a user-defined field.

That’s correct – no problem

[Justin_Barrett]

The Autonumber field type enforces unique values. Even if you delete a record, Airtable will never reuse the deleted number.

[Dan_Bliss]

I have a table called Contacts with a field:Contact Names. I want to make sure Contact Names in this table has no duplicates. Is there a strategy to do this in Airtable?

[Justin_Barrett]

Welcome to the community, @Dan_Bliss! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes: The first thing that comes to mind is the Dedupe block, which is designed just for this purpose. Because it’s a block, your base will need to be in a Pro plan workspace if you’re past the free trial period.

On a side note, it’s preferable to start a new thread instead of adding to an existing one, especially if the existing one is old (anything where the latest post is older than a few months IMO).