Guide
Sometimes you need to enforce mandatory fields to ensure data consistency and integrity when creating or updating entities. This can be done with the Required fields option in the Advanced section of Field setup.
When a field is marked as required, it is not possible to have an entity in database where this field is not set. For example, you mark the Effort field as required for Features but have some features with empty efforts. Fibery will ask you to provide a value for such tasks.
What fields can be marked as required?
You can require a value option for almost all fields, including: Basic Text, URL, Email, Phone, Number, Date, Single Select, Parent relation (many-to-one).
Here are some limitations:
❌ Multiple relations (many-to-many) and multi-select fields can't be required
❌ Formulas and Lookups can't be required
❌ Required fields can not be selected for Highlights database
How to Add New Required field or mark existing field as required?
To make a field required, open its settings, click Advanced and switch Always require a value. You will have to choose a value for all existing entities that have no value set for this field yet.
For example, we want to set Estimated Effort for Feature as required field and we choose to set 0 as the value for all Features where the Estimated Effort is currently empty.
Required fields are marked with * in the fields list, so you can quickly see what fields are required in a database setup.
Note that you can always remove require a value option from a field and it will work as before.
Creating new entities with required fields
Remember, it is not possible to have an entity without a value if a field is required. This means Fibery will always asks a user to fill this value for new entities. It makes new entities creation harder, but it is what you wanted!
For example, here we have two required fields for the Feature database, and when a user tries to add a new Feature from a table view, a form for the new feature will appear with required fields marked yellow:
The same popup appears when you try to create an entity in any other way, including Search, inline from selected text, etc.
Updating entities with required fields
Nothing in general changes here, but it is not possible to clear a value from a required field. If you try to delete a value, it will be reverted back to a previous value.
How required fields affect API, Automations and other services?
In all cases where Fibery does not have a value for a required field, it will throw an error Some required fields values are missing, here are required fields list: [field1, field2].
You have to make sure that your automations/API calls provide values for required fields.
Deleting and restoring a db with required fields
If a database which has required fields is deleted, and then subsequently restored, the 'required' toggle will need to be re-enabled.
FAQ
Can I change the order of required fields in the small pop-up?
No - currently, it’s not possible to reorder required fields in the small pop-up that appears when you create an item directly from the table view. The field order there is fixed.
Can I make non-required fields appear in the small pop-up?
No — the only way to make non-required fields appear in that pop-up is by including them in the Name formula. Otherwise, they won’t be displayed.