How to create a form where submissions need to be verified before they appear in database?

Hi!
I’m in the process of creating a content database filled with articles for my team.

I would like anyone from the company to add interesting articles they find relating to different topics to inspire and help keep everyone up to date on interesting articles from around the world.

I have set up the database, and attached a form for people to add articles.

However to avoid things like double entries I would like to be able to have a feature where I can “approve” an article before it appears in the database.

Is there anyway to do this?

Yes, add a select field to your table and call it something like ‘approved’.
Make sure this field is hidden on your form.

In your database you filter on the select field - showing only approved articles. Hide the select field in this table.

Make on a separate page (hidden if you like (which is not really hidden, but you must really go look for it)) a view to your table, show the select field and filter the opposite, only unselected articles. Once you approve them with the select field they disappear from your approval view and show on the regular page.
Of course you have to approve older articles once you set this up in an existing environment in order to show them to your audience.

I think this is the simplest approach - you can make it more robust with cross docs, but I don’t like cross docs…

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When I’m adding to a table and I don’t want to have duplicates I use this structure (this is an example for adding Vendors to a vendor table):

[ Add Vendor Form ]
[ Formula to check for dupes ]
[ View of Vendor Table ]

I usually want to check several fields, in this example I’m checking the Name, Details & Type columns. The formula I use:

WithName(  listcombine(
 
  _vendors.Filter(
      Name.Upper().RegexMatch(
          [Add Vendor].[Vendor to Add].Upper().First()
        )
    ),
  _vendors.Filter(
      Details.Upper().RegexMatch(
          [Add Vendor].[Vendor to Add].Upper().First()
        )
    ),
  _vendors.Filter(
      Type.Upper().RegexMatch(
          [Add Vendor].[Vendor to Add].Upper().First()
        )
    ))
  ,  
  
  
   matchingVendors , 

SwitchIf(
  [Add Vendor].[Vendor to Add].IsBlank(),  " ",
  
  matchingVendors.Count()>0,
  concat(
    "Similar Vendors: ",
    char(10),
    matchingVendors.BulletedList()
  ),
  " "
))
1 Like

Thanks! That’s a really good solution! I’ll give that a try.

I’ve also been trying to set it up, so I get notified when a new submission is added, but I can’t seem to get that to work - do you know of a straightforward way of doing that?

Hey Clare,

Depending on the type of records (rows) that will be created and the amount of editing there will be done, there are some options. In all cases you’ll need to use an automation, and depending on your Coda license you’ll have more or less automations available.

The automation I use is “row changed” and I use a separate column for this purpose which I call NewRow or something similar, type text. I specify in the options that the value for new rows is “new row”. I make it a hidden column so it won’t be used by any user.

Everytime a new row (record) has been made, this columnfield gets filled with the text “new row”, which triggers the automation. You can make the automation send you an email or notification and you can use step 1 results to put something in the message that will tell you which record has been made (like the ID # of the record, or the author, or…).

I hope this will get you started,
Greetings,
Joost

1 Like