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Have you ever found yourself asking these questions?
“Why did I create this field?” “Why do have a ‘Name - Status’ formula in this field?” “Can I delete this field?” "What’ll break if I delete this field?
It’d be nice if we could see where our fields are being used. Perhaps a third tab in the “Customize Field Tab” area, right next to “Formatting.” Where it would list dependent fields!
This is why field descriptions (as opposed to field names) offer a place to put important documentation of what the field is for and why, etc. Airtable is likely trying to favour simplicity over complexity while being able to have many collaborators.
Simplicity is precisely why I suggested the feature. It’d just make the product stronger. Airtable is a differentiator. They set themselves apart from traditional relational databases. If I wanted to go the route of full DB design a la ERD’s or UML, I would just go back to SQL. Freeform text is never preferred anyways. It relies on human intervention and maintenance.
I might suggest a distinction between INPUT/EDITOR fields and SYSTEM/CREATOR fields. Agreed, we have a TON of formula fields that should be invisible to virtually all users (save for Creators). They confuse INPUT/EDITOR users, and would ideally be hidden nearly across the board. Obviously we hid such fields in INPUT/EDITOR views, but it’d be better to simply LOCK THEM DOWN.
Field dependencies would be an awesome option to have within Airtable. I often have entries that share a common master category, but different sub-categories or fields. Therefore, I use drop-down lists to select the sub-category, which ideally, would then reveal subsequent fields related to that sub-category specifically. Thus eliminating extraneous data input fields or the display of them.
Right now I am using Memento Database which I am loving the ability to achieve this. However, Airtable seems to have more capability when it comes to creating user forms such as invoices, receipts of payment, etc.
is there a way to tell if a particular field is being used in another field for a calculation. I have over a hundred fields, the bulk of them formulas. I want to avoid having to look at each and every formula to check before deleting what I think is an unneeded field. Thanks in advance.
