Feature Request: Default field data

[rothgar]

I have fields for Date and email and it would be great if when using the app those fields had default values based on today's date and who was adding an item to the table. It's fine if they're editable but to save time I would like the ability to make some fields have default values.

[Simone]

@rothgar doesn't it work like this?

[Nina]

Welcome to the community, @rothgar!

If I'm understanding your comment correctly, what @Simone has suggested should allow you to capture today's date. As for capturing the user who is adding the data, you can use $[SYS_USER] to record the person who is adding the item. (I encourage you to check out System Variables in this article to learn more about what you can do with $[SYS_USER]: Variables in Honeycode)

[Fernando]

@Simone and @Nina, I believe that what @rothgar is requesting -and what I would like to see too- is a default value for Shared data cells, not for Variables. Basically, if the field on the sheet is blank and someone is using a form to input data, it would be useful to set a default value using a formula like TODAY() or something else. If the user changes the value, then it would save their value to the sheet, if not, it would save the default value without the user having to interact with the field.

[AndrewB]

@Fernando that use case makes total sense. For it to work, you’d want your data cells to be setup as variables, not shared.

Shared data cells are direct references to a cell in a table. Whatever it displays is the value of the cell it’s sources to. Edit that data cell in the app, and the value in the table changes as well.

Variable data cells are independent. Editing a variable does not immediately edit a table cell. So if you only want an edit to happen when a user presses a button, you’ll want all your cells to be variables, and then use an automation to take data from each variable, and then write that data to a cell.

Hope that helps. Variable and shared data cells are a tricky concept, it’s not just you!

[rothgar]

Thanks for the tips. @Fernando is correct in how I want the field to be used.

I'll try it with variable data cells and see if I can figure it out.