Prefill form with linked entry and disable chaning it

[kaminoan]

I want to create forms to get reviews from some products I sell and for that I have created a Table which consists of the following fields:

• Product (linked to the corresponding "Product" record in the "Products" Table)
• Q1
• Q2
• ...
• Qn

I want to be able to send form links with the "Product" field prefilled (using its RECORD_ID), so that the reviewer can easily know which product he/she is reviewing. However, I don't want the reviewer to able to change that value in the form and select by mistake any other "Product" record. How can disable the possibility of changing a prefilled value in a form?

I have tried using the option "Limit record selection only in view" to another view, but it is not working.

[TheTimeSavingCo]

I don't think you can prevent users from changing the prefilled value I'm afraid so you might have to look for another form service for this functionality. 

A possible workaround might be for you to hide your linked field and create a new single line text field that has the product name?  That way the reviewer can see what they're reviewing, but also won't have the ability to modify the linked field

Note that this isn't foolproof either as the user can manipulate the URL and reveal the hidden field if they wanted to

[kaminoan]

Thank you for you quick answer Adam.

A possible workaround might be for you to hide your linked field and create a new single line text field that has the product name?  That way the reviewer can see what they're reviewing, but also won't have the ability to modify the linked field

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This is exactly what I want to avoid, since it would imply creating a form view for every product I want to get reviews from...

I would need to have a dynamic link which I could easily create in my Products Table for every Product and not have to manually create different forms for each of them. I understand this is not possible with Airtable, right?

I don't think you can prevent users from changing the prefilled value I'm afraid so you might have to look for another form service for this functionality. 

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Any recommendation of a free service which I could easily link to Airtable, get the info from my Products and then feed-back the reviews submitted to that service to Airtable.

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Note that this isn't foolproof either as the user can manipulate the URL and reveal the hidden field if they wanted to

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I don't think that would be a problem. If I have to manually create a form view for every product I will directly hide that field from the form View itself.

[TheTimeSavingCo]

> This is exactly what I want to avoid, since it would imply creating a form view for every product I want to get reviews from...

Hmm, I was thinking it would just be one form view actually.  You'd definitely have one unique URL per product you wanted to get reviews from though, and you could create those pretty easily with a formula field?  The product name would go into the same single line text field no matter which product it was, and you'd use an automation to paste that product name into the linked field to create the link between the form submission and the product record

> Any recommendation of a free service which I could easily link to Airtable, get the info from my Products and then feed-back the reviews submitted to that service to Airtable.

I've used Softr for this to good effect before; they've got a hidden field function in their forms that combines with the ability to pull a URL param that works well in combination, and you can find the documentation for that here

> I don't think that would be a problem. If I have to manually create a form view for every product I will directly hide that field from the form View itself.

Ah we might be having some confusion about what "hide" means here.  I think you're referring to not having the field present in the form at all, and if that's the case you can't prefill the field via the URL I'm afraid

[kaminoan]

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Hmm, I was thinking it would just be one form view actually.  You'd definitely have one unique URL per product you wanted to get reviews from though, and you could create those pretty easily with a formula field?  The product name would go into the same single line text field no matter which product it was, and you'd use an automation to paste that product name into the linked field to create the link between the form submission and the product record

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Yes, I was thinking using a formula field. If I understand correctly, you suggest using a "Product Name" as a Single Line Text field which is prefilled and allows having different URL's for each product, and then when the form is submitted it is matched with the corresponding Product record using an automation. This still leaves the possibility that the reviewer modifies the Single Line Text in the prefilled form and breaks the automation. Am I right?

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I've used Softr for this to good effect before; they've got a hidden field function in their forms that combines with the ability to pull a URL param that works well in combination, and you can find the documentation for that here

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Thanks, I will take a look at it.

Ah we might be having some confusion about what "hide" means here.  I think you're referring to not having the field present in the form at all, and if that's the case you can't prefill the field via the URL I'm afraid

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Oh, I did not know about that... I still a newbie with Airtable and I though disabling the fiel from the form would just hide from the view.

[TheTimeSavingCo]

> This still leaves the possibility that the reviewer modifies the Single Line Text in the prefilled form and breaks the automation. Am I right?

Yeap, unfortunately with Airtable forms you're going to have some risk no matter which of the following two options you take:

1. Prefill and hide the linked field, but show a prefilled single line text field
  - User can modify the URL and show the linked field, which allows them to view all the records from that linked table, and also to modify the selected record
  - User can view the single line text field to see what product they're reviewing
    - If user modifies this single line text field it's fine as we're not using it for anything
2. Prefill a single line text field with the product name
  - User can view the single line text field to see what product they're reviewing
    - If user modifies this single line text field it'll break the following automation
  - Use an automation to link the form submission to the product
   

[AnaG]

Would like to suggest a workaround for your case, using a form that integrates with Airtable.

We have built a form that allows you to pre-fill the value for the product field and make this none editable by making it read only. Miniextension form.