Make field always visible but editable only for specific user

[gioKelly]

Hi guys,

I want to have a field “Comments” always visible because it may already has data, but make it Editable only if the user email logged is = “test.mail@gmail.com”

I already tried with Editable_if expression, but what happened is that if I am not the user with that email, the field is not shown to me. And I already tried in the Show_if expression = True() it appear even if field is blank but only in View, not when not work when Edit the form.

[Marc_Dillon]

Editable_if: USEREMAIL() = “test.mail@gmail.com" should be what you want.
The field should always show in a form view if Show is on (no expression).
If you’re wanting it to show in a detail view even when blank, I think you can set it as a Quick Edit column.

[gioKelly]

Actually I already tried when the Show is on but same problem in the edit Form mode.

[Marc_Dillon]

You’re saying that with the conditions:

1. editable_if expression set as above
2. Show? is marked ON
3. logged in user is NOT “test.mail@gmail.com”

that the Comment field is not visible in the Form view?

Let’s see some screenshots of the app and the column definitions.

[gioKelly]

Exactly

1. the Editable_if expression is set as above
2. Show? is marked ON
3. logged in user is NOT “test.mail@gmail.com”

I just saw that the issue is only when the field is empty, if there is nothing, the field is not shown. I will show the case with the real field, called “Fecha Compromiso”

here when the user logged is “test.mail@gmail.com”, the field is editable (good):

Here when it is other user, the field is Not editable (good):

and this is the error, when it’s another user and the field is empty, “Fecha Compromiso” is not shown:

And my case is that, the field “Fecha Compromiso” becomes required if a “Status” field is set to “In Process”, but the same field must be filled only by the user “test.mail@gmail.com”

[pravse · Accepted solution]

We don’t show empty non-editable fields because forms sometimes can have many of these and they do not show meaningful information.

If the issue is that the ‘Fecha Compromiso’ field might be required when the Status field is set, but the current user cannot fill it in, you can define a Valid_If constraint on the Status field to indicate this.

I hope I am correctly interpreting your requirements.

[gioKelly]

Thanks Praveen, and I just saw in other post the same you said. I changed a little bit the logic in my App to get almost the same, so I am fine for now.

Would be fine that team updates the helping article with what you said:

help.appsheet.com

Editable_If Column Constraint

How to determine if a column is editable under certain conditions.

[Francis_B]

It seems to me that behavior should be revisited as there are already ways to control which field are shown / relevant, e.g. list of columns in the form and Show checkbox / formula.

for some forms, it would be relevant to be able to display some information relative to the context for the user - e.g. bug ID, bug title before they update the priority, add a comment, update the status...