What happened to the RequiredIF property, on List columns?

[David_Ackling-J]

Need help.

I have a table Person, that has a Virtual Column, of the type “List”, called “My Providers”.

The formula for the Column is: REF_ROWS(“ClientPerson”, “Client”).

It is a list of the Providers that have that Person as a Client.

The Required property for that Colum is set to TRUE. This means that I cannot add a new person without also relating them to at least one Provider.

I want to alter that property, but I do not see the ability to set the Required property in the new editor.

Please help.

[David_Ackling-J]

The ability to edit the Require property has been disabled for lists of this type in the current editor. Please reenable it.

[Arthur_Rallu]

Hi David,

I think you cannot require for user to input a value for a virtual column. A virtual column is computed automatically from other fields through a formula. See https://help.appsheet.com/en/articles/919891-virtual-columns

You say you want your users to add a new person, but not a provider. I don’t know how your users input the two, but you may want to check the properties ‘Is a part of’ and ‘Require’ for the ‘Ref’ column (in your ‘ClientPerson’ table) that’s a reference to the “Person” table.

Arthur

[David_Ackling-J]

Hi Arthur,
You can require a user to input a value into a virtual column when that virtual column is gerated by a REF-ROWS formula, relating to a Ref Column in another table with the ISPARTOF property set to True.
My app has been doing this without controversy for over twelve months.
The new app editor has greyed out this option, incorrectly, and I am not able to update this property anymore. See my reply to Steve Coile below.
Please, I pay $15,000 per year for a business plan, and I just need you to action my above request:

David_Ackling-Jones:

Please reenable it.

[David_Ackling-J]

The “Is Part Of” property is True, for the Ref column, “Client”, in the ClientPerson table.

Hence this virtual column is Editable from within the “My Providers” Virtual Column on the Person table.

I set the RequiredIf property of this column to True, so that new Person records, must have at least one record in the “My Providers” list.

This all works well. I was able to build this in the old editor, and it still works fine.

The issue is that I wish to alter the RequiredIf property now, in the new editor, and the property is greyed out in the editor. I no longer am able to force the “&oldeditor=true&” parameter in the editor url, so this has effectively disabled a function I used to have access to.

Please help.

[ps. in my actual app, the “My Providers” Virtual Column is actually called “My Important People”, but I was simplifying that for this context–this is for the info of Appsheet Support]

[Steve]

Because virtual columns cannot be modified directly by app users, it makes no sense to require a value when the user cannot directly add a value. The alternative in cases such as yours is to set a Valid_If expression that enforces your requirement:

ISNOTBLANK([_THIS])

or:

(COUNT([_THIS]) > 0)

[David_Ackling-J]

Hey Steve,
Some Virtual Columns actually can be modified directly by app users.
When a List “Is Part Of” another Ref column in a different table, you can edit that Column within the form.
I have already set the RequiredIf Property to the virtual column with the Ref_Rows formula using the old editor to (Not([service request type].[label]=“internal project”), but the new editor won’t allow me to edit that. It is greyed out.
I wish to update that RequiredIf property to AND(Not([service request type].[label]=“internal project”,Not([Client is able to legally consent to service])), but I have no access to it any more.
In the case above, the ISNOTBLANK([_THIS]) and the COUNT([_THIS])>0 formulas do not work as VALIDIF properties.
As I requested above,
“The ability to edit the Require property has been disabled for lists of this type in the current editor. Please reenable it.”
Cheers, David.

[Adam-google]

At the time of the editor update I expect the rationale was that these options weren’t thought to be relevant for computed columns. However as you’ve pointed out there are sensible use cases for both required and valid conditions. I’m looking into re-enabling the required setting for VCs, I may be able to get it out with today’s update.

[Adam-google]

I’m expecting now that this should go out tomorrow.

[David_Ackling-J]

Thanks Adam.