Permissions and Checkbox

[Coach_Nic]

The situation: I’m setting up an attendance function on a sheet. Name, date, checkbox. Easy. I need other uses to be able to click that checkbox as well as myself.

The problem: Any other user has to be promoted to the level of “Editor” to click the checkbox. We’re a really small non-profit and I just realized that promoting six people to editor so that they can check a box is gonna charge us … a lot. I’ve already emailed support to say “Whoops! Please don’t charge me for my idiocy.”

The solution? Obviously, I could do this quickly in, say, Google Sheets. But my data in Airtable is synced, so the pool of possible attendees is live and could grow or shrink depending on data in another sheet. I can’t afford to promote 6 folks to editor for a few months while we are in-season.

Is there a way around this? Is there a way to create a front-facing document where a user can click that checkbox without them being an editor? I feel like I could turn this into a form that has all the possibilities of attendees and a checkbox and anyone with the link could edit it, but I’ve not been able to successfully do that so far.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[ScottWorld]

Check out MiniExtensions.com.

[kuovonne · Accepted solution]

If you have budget for a portal like MiniExtensions, that is one solution.

Another option is to use a system with a prefilled form and a scripting automation to update existing records in a shared view. Users click a button in a shared view, which opens a prefilled form for that record. User submits the form, then an automation updates the original record and deletes the record created by the firm submission.

[Coach_Nic]

Was looking at MiniExtensions and got really excited, but then got priced out. Whomp whomp. I’m going to attempt this other idea you have here because I’m intrigued.

So what will happen is:

1. Create a sheet with a shared view that has a button.
2. When users click that button, a pre-filled form opens up that is attached to the record button.
3. When the user submits that form, a script runs that updates the original record.

This share view could be accessed by anyone with the link.

Is that all correct? I’m gonna give this a shot.

[kuovonne]

Yes, you have the general idea. Some notes:

• You don’t actually need to share the view if all of the users are read-only collaborators. Read-only collaborators are free.

• The prefilled form will not be attached to the record button. You must prefill the form with information that can be used to identify the original record. I recommend having a single line text field that is prefilled with the record id.

• The script will need to be customized to your base.