Enforcing "Mandatory" Fields in Detail Views

[Lana_Sirius]

In my Coda document, I’ve switched to using detail views instead of forms for filling out new rows due to issues with forms. However, I’m encountering a challenge: I want to make certain fields mandatory, which isn’t directly possible with detail views.

I’m attempting to create an automation that reopens the detail view if a mandatory field is left blank, while also providing a notification to remind users to fill out the required field. However, I’m facing difficulties, particularly because the column I’m checking is a referenced column where users choose between different codes in a dropdown menu. These codes are referenced from a different table. I’m unsure if the automation is being triggered correctly.

Does anyone have experience with achieving this or have suggestions for alternative approaches?

[joost_mineur]

Hello Lana,

You are not explaining what difficulty you have with forms - I use forms everyday specifically for enforcing some rules (mandatory fields for one thing).

Detail view: this is generally called a modal (just saying it to prevent confusion in the future).

About your automation: I am just as unsure as you, because you don’t show or tell us anything about the way you setup the automation.

The best way to get help in this forum is sharing a (dummy) doc that resembles the doc in which you have problems. That way we can see what you are possibly doing wrong and we can show you how you can accomplish what you are trying to do.