PRODUCT SUGGESTION FOR FORMS: Hidden fields & hidden prefill fields that actually submit

[ScottWorld]

2024 update:

Even though Airtable eventually added this feature, all of this is possible in a MUCH easier & much more customizable way with Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable.

Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable are 100% free and offers hundreds of features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer, including the ability to conditionally hide fields on a form, update Airtable records from a form, display Airtable lookup fields & Airtable rollup fields & Airtable attachments & formulas on forms, dynamically & conditionally filter linked record fields by any values that you would like, perform math or other live calculations on your forms, accept payments on forms, create multi-page forms with conditional paths, create new linked records on a form, display as many fields as you want to see in a linked record selection list (including attachments), connect a single form to dozens of external apps simultaneously, limit the number of linked records that can be chosen, set advanced field validations & limitations, upload an unlimited amount of attachments simultaneously, add CAPTCHAs to your form, add choice matrixes to your forms, direct integration with hundreds of apps like Calendly & Google Maps on your forms, and so much more. 

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Old post from 2020:

Not sure if this is a bug in Airtable or just a missing feature, but we really need this feature. Airtable needs the ability for us to have hidden fields on forms that will submit data upon form submission.

Currently, Airtable doesn’t accept the values from any hidden fields.

Here’s the situation:

My clients are currently having difficulties with Airtable forms, because prefilling fileds on forms (using the “?prefill_fieldname=” syntax) only works if the fields that you’re prefilling are actually visible upon submitting.

We’re trying to prefill hidden fields on the form that we’ve hidden using Airtable’s brand new conditional field feature for forms. So we’ve hidden a bunch of fields (using fake values that will always result in false). We’re forcing these fields to be hidden.

These hidden fields actually get their prefilled values filled in correctly!

How do we know this? Because if we type in the fake values to “show” these hidden fields again, the prefilled values are visible! The prefilled values are right there!

But — the only way to get these values to be added into our Airtable database upon form submission is to keep the field visible.

If the field is hidden, Airtable won’t submit the value into the base, which then defeats the purpose of having a hidden field to begin with.

Thanks!

[Rebecca_Elam]

well. usually if youre hiding it from the user its something that the user isn’t changing. if that’s the case you just write an automation that says when a form is submitted update it with this info.

[Rebecca_Elam]

youre the one who put the prefill things in there, just prefill it after instead of before. but it depends on the usecase

[Augustin_Clouti]

This feature is a must. Been looking for that for a long time

[Arno_B]

Yes, this is a must! This thread started in July 2020, I don’t understand why this feature has not been prioritized.

[Rebecca_Elam]

Generally, it’s one of a few things, Either because the underlying problem requires too much restructuring needed to accomplish it. That there is already a way that most people know that only a few people are missing. They built in a different feature that solves the issue. Or they’re already working on it and everyone needs to be patient. Not saying any of those are applicable here. I don’t know. but every time I ask these questions one of those is the answer. Ultimately what we need is transparency.

[david_schaerf]

I use forms to have users submit data to my base. After having done A LOT of research I cannot believe there is no native way to set up a form with hidden fields. This is so obviously needed and wanted by many people that it seems like an intentional omission. @Airtable Is this on your roadmap? Is there a workaround or am I forced to use yet another tool to create a working form? Thanks :pray:

[Rebecca_Elam]

I am pretty sure they intended the ‘when a form is submitted’ trigger to solve for this

[david_schaerf]

@Rebecca_Elam the automation does not work for the use case most people need. the hidden fields are set by custom variables in the URL. When the user hits submit these are gone and as such these cannot be passed on to the automation for parsing.

[Rebecca_Elam]

between conditional automations and the when a form is submitted trigger I cant figure any use case that would not already be solved in this area.

[david_schaerf]

@Rebecca_Elam I appreciate the positive attitude but i dont see how it can work because hidden fields are not posted by the form and as such cannot be picked up by the “when a form is submitted” automation. it seems I’m not the only one as you can see here : Prefill a hidden form field - #53 by sic