Advanced rules for data input and validation

[Davide_Cencini]

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 ️

[Moe]

Davide_Cencini:

An IBAN always has exactly 27 characters

We just built this feature in our Advanced Form for Airtable. You can set certain rules for the field. The form won’t submit unless those rules are met. Right now it supports different conditions including “number of characters”. But we’re planning to add many more. Let us know if there’s a specific condition you’d like us to add.

miniExtensions for Airtable

Field Validation in miniExtensions Form

When the user tries to submit the form, it checks to see if the data format is valid before sending it to Airtable. E.g. phone numbers must be 10 digits

[Karlstens]

We absolutely need both View Form and Interface Form input validation.

The problems caused by retroactively trying to fix accidentally bad data entered into a form is are huge - with the potential to cause an entire breakdown in production all because someone put a typo in their email. Such errors need to be caught when the user is entering in their email, not after they've hit the "Submit Form" button - where chaos then unfolds...

Airtable Devs, please please PLEASE bring View Form and Interface Form input validation to the market for 2023.

[sandromancuso]

Unfortunately, we are considering to stop using AirTable due to the lack of input validation. The amount of issues with invalid data being input in our application is making it harder to scale its use, on top of making our dashboards useless as we need to keep cleaning the data. 

[QuantumStep]

Hey @Davide_Cencini , I hear you! Airtable’s lack of built-in validation can be frustrating, especially when you’re used to strict rules like in Access. If you need to enforce things like character limits (e.g., exactly 27 for an IBAN), validate phone numbers, or set date ranges, the DataGuard extension could be what you’re looking for.

It lets you:

• Set minimum/maximum lengths for text fields (like IBANs or postal codes).
• Validate email and phone formats with regex.
• Enforce rules on dates (e.g., delivery dates can’t be before today).
• Mark certain fields as required so they’re never left blank.

It’s not native, but it can help keep your data clean and accurate.