Smartsheet Forms - Displaying View Only Fields

Carolynh · 04/22/22

We have a SS Form that we are using to collect Project Go-Live Confidence for that month. The Form provides the PM with the Project Mgr Name, Project Name and Current Go-Live Date along with conditional questions. We want some of those fields to be View Only on the Form (PM, Project Nm and Curr Go-Live Date). I haven't found any way to do that in a form that is NOT using Update Request functionality. We can't use Update Request since some fields are conditional. Is there any way in the Form setup to make a field View Only or can that only be accomplished using Update Request?

Carolynh · 04/22/22

@Jeff M. - Hi Jeff! I built a Smartsheet with those fields populated and added the columns for the questions we want to ask. Then, to create the Form, we are passing the PM name, project and date through the web form URL so it pre-populates those 3 fields on the Form. We want the PM to see what project we are asking information on, but just not let them change the project or current go-live date. We have over 100 projects we want updates on, so we wanted to do this as automated as possible.

Adding that info in the Heading/Description would be a bit manual if we had to do that for every form we're sending out.

Carolynh · 04/22/22

Forgot to add...I did lock those 3 columns in the Smartsheet and they still are editable. Thanks!

Jeff Reisman · 04/22/22

@Carolynh

How are you passing the Project Mgr Name, Project Name and Current Go-Live Date to the form user? I'm assuming you're doing this through default values on those fields?

If that's how you're doing it, here's an idea: Put that same information into a Heading/Description form element, and then set those three fields (with their default values) to Hidden. The user gets the info, but cannot change the info, and the info gets written to the new row.

Regarding the fields being editable in the form despite being locked in the sheet - I believe that any field presented to the user on a form can be filled in. You won't even get the option to show them any column with a column formula in it. On an update request, formula fields can be presented to the user with the calculated value but the field is greyed out and not editable.

Carolynh · 04/22/22

@Jeff M. - Hi Jeff! I built a Smartsheet with those fields populated and added the columns for the questions we want to ask. Then, to create the Form, we are passing the PM name, project and date through the web form URL so it pre-populates those 3 fields on the Form. We want the PM to see what project we are asking information on, but just not let them change the project or current go-live date. We have over 100 projects we want updates on, so we wanted to do this as automated as possible.

Adding that info in the Heading/Description would be a bit manual if we had to do that for every form we're sending out.

Jeff Reisman · 04/22/22

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/327098#Comment_327098

Aha, that makes a bit more sense knowing that you're dynamically creating the web form URL.

How are you sending this URL to the PM? Since you're adding the data to the URL, perhaps you can also add the information to whatever process you use to notify the PM of the URL, and also set those fields to hidden to preserve their read-only state? (The whole process isn't really foolproof though, since anyone can replace those values in the URL...)

When I tested this, specifying a value for a column that's hidden on the form, it submitted that value successfully when I submitted the form.

Carolynh · 04/22/22

Ah, so somehow put those fields in the email that we are generating and then hide them on the Form. That could be an option if we can figure out how to parse out the URL data into an email template. Too bad you can't just toggle "Editable" on the form setup to turn a field off/on from being edited, like the "Viewable" toggle. Maybe a future enhancement! I'll see how I can work with the delivery method communication vs. the form. Thanks for your help!

Jeff Reisman · 04/22/22

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/327108#Comment_327108

You're welcome!

You can submit enhancement requests here:

Smartsheet Product Enhancement Requests

Carolynh · 04/22/22

Just submitted the suggestion. Thanks for your help!

Smartsheet Forms - Displaying View Only Fields

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