Overview
When designing a Form, there may be instances where you need to constrain certain users from altering the value of a Field, but allow other users to make changes to that Field. In such cases, you can set the Field as Read-only, effectively setting up an approval workflow.
Behavior
A Field that is set as Reviewer-only prevents unauthorized users from changing the value of the Field. On the other hand, users with the “Edit ‘Reviewer only’ fields” permission change the status of the Record set to Reviewer-only.
If a user does not have permission to “Edit ‘Reviewer only’ fields”, the Field is not visible in the Data Entry Form, but is visible as a read-only column in the Table view.
Supported Field types
The following Field types can be set as Reviewer-only:
- Attachments
- Barcode
- Calculated
- Date
- Fortnight
- Geographic Point
- Month
- Multi-Line Text
- Multiple Reference
- Multiple Selection
- Quantity
- Reference
- Reverse reference
- Single Selection
- Subform
- Text
- User
- Week
Setting a Field as Reviewer-only
Setting a Field to “Reviewer-only” in the Form settings is the first step, then you need to set up the proper Roles and Permissions in Database settings as well.
To set the proper Roles and Permissions, Navigate to the Database settings, and set up the following Roles:
- a Submitter Role without the “Edit 'Reviewer only fields” permission
- an Approver Role with the “Edit 'Reviewer only fields” permission granted
See the Set up an approval workflow article for a detailed use case example.
Example
In some cases, one group of users need to approve the submissions of another group of users. A supervisor may need to approve case closure, or a M&E officer may need to approve submissions of reporting partners. You can set up this workflow using the “Reviewer Only” field property.
For more information, see the Set up an approval workflow article.