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Advanced rules for data input and validation

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Davide_Cencini
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Hi, I discovered Airtable just a few weeks ago and instantly fell in love with this application. It’s so cool! I am still new to it, but I’m learning so much.
However, as a former Access user, I’m surprised it doesn’t feature almost any advanced rules for data input and validation in fields. I’m even more surprised that so very few people are asking for them.
Data validation is important. For a solid database, it’s a core feature. Say I want to record a customer’s IBAN for money transfers. An IBAN always has exactly 27 characters; it’s not all right if someone by mistake inputs 25 or 28 characters or puts spaces into it. I need to set the IBAN field’s lenght to 27 characters and request that you fill out those 27 characters, not one less, not one more!
Same goes for zip/postal codes, or tax codes. Validation rules are needed for such fields. A lot of stuff can get messed up if this kind of data is not recorded correctly, such as payments, shipments, fees. It’s a serious matter!
Phone numbers and email fields should be validated, too, because they should not accept invalid characters.
I should be able to set Date fields to accept only certain ranges of data. Such as: “you cannot input a delivery date that is before today”.
I can’t even find such a thing as setting a field to “required”.
Even though the application is fantastic, these shortcomings are a major kickback for Airtable. Please consider introducing these features, I’m sure many users will be grateful!
As I said, I am new to the application so pardon me if I’ve said something wrong or I missed out on issues that have already been addressed.
Love Heart

84 Comments
Gulshan_Kirat
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Adding to this. I’m looking for basic functionality to make one or multiple fields that aren’t the primary key to be required. This seems like it should be out of the box. Pity that this thread goes back so far with very little movement.

Abraham_Bochner
8 - Airtable Astronomer
8 - Airtable Astronomer

Can not understand why this is not here yet

Airtable PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Brendan_Wypich1
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

+1 C’mon Airtable. The community has been waiting a long time for this!

Brad_Laney
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Hey Airtable. I have a group of very ambitious (and hungry) developers who are looking for work. I’m happy to loan them to you to help get this incredibly simple and much needed feature added. I’m guessing they could get it implemented and tested within a month. Lemme know!

Moe
10 - Mercury
10 - Mercury

We’ve built a solution that shows a warning if the input format is invalid. Our form shows a warning if the user types an email, phone number or URL with an invalid format.

georgia_carrick
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

agreed! please can we have a option to ensure that required data is entered

Lia_Calingacion
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Came here for answers about data validation. Seems like this hasn’t been resolved :frowning:

Dan_Trenchard
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

+1 for all these suggestions for data validation. My main holdup on my project has been duplicate / double linked data. I can’t recommend Airtable going forward with these features missing.

Zahra_Siahi
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

I scrolled down and was expecting a data validation solution. This is simply amazing. How can this be missing in 2021?

StevenB
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

+1

I would really like to see data validation added to Airtable. It’s critical for the purposes that I use Airtable for.