Logic - Can you define if text in entry then show x field, as opposed to number?

Andrew Melbourne

Hi all, I would like a field to show an error message if anything other than a number or a decimal place is entered, so no other characters. Is that possible? I'm assuming I can't use regex within the contains logic? Thanks in advance

Paul Newcome

You would need to use a separate column to display any type of message. If you just wanted to highlight the cell (red for example), then you can use conditional formatting and set the condition for when the cell "is not a number".

Andrew Melbourne

Hi Thanks but in the forms conditional formatting their is not an option for 'is not a number', just:

blank,

not blank,

contains,

does not contain,

how would I trigger the error message to display for the entry?

I just want to add some basic data validation to stop customers accidently putting the wrong information in places, like the ZIP, telephone numbers etc.

Paul Newcome

My apologies. I didn't realize you were using forms. Within forms, there is no way to include data validation. There are a few other options though.

Google Forms may have data validation (I am not 100% sure though) and does integrate very easily with Smartsheet.

You could use a helper column to flag a row after the form has been submitted that contains an invalid datatype and have an automatic update request sent to the form submitter (as long as you capture their email address) to have them update the data.

I would also suggest including help text on the form field to indicate the proper data type.