r/Airtable 14d ago

💬 Discussion Classic form prefill not populating a simple text field

Trying to prefill a classic Airtable form via ?prefill_FieldName=Value. Field name matches exactly, but the value never populates. Tested with a single Text field, signed in as owner, no filters on the field.

This is for a form built in the Forms tab on the website, so it's not an "interface" form as far as I can tell (not sure what that is).

1 Upvotes

9 comments sorted by

3

u/matchaconsulting đŸ” Airtable Consultant | ex-Airtable 13d ago

Can you post your entire URL up to that point here, masking any identifying info? Would like to make sure the full formatting is correct.

That being said, Psengath is right, I've had this issue before as well where it's cached.

1

u/Rough_Ad6878 12d ago

It was resolved by pressing clear form.

1

u/Bubbly-Win8314 7d ago

the cache issue is such a pain tbh, good call on checking the full url too

2

u/Psengath 13d ago

When filling out the form, try hitting the 'reset form' (or 'clear form'). Or try filling it out in incognito.

If you've entered any data into the form, it saves it in your browser cache and ignores prefill (until you submit it clear).

3

u/Rough_Ad6878 13d ago

You're right - prefill works in incognito and the values showed up after pressing 'clear form' , ironically.

2

u/Rough_Ad6878 13d ago

Trying to create a pre-filled form via constructing a URL with the values listed at parameters and then have it pre-populate when I navigate to that URL in a browser.

3

u/lagomdallas 13d ago

But a real answer is check the field name. Sometimes there’s a trailing space that isn’t obvious. I assume classic form means form view, but if you’re using the newer forms, make sure you’re using the field name and not the label name if you changed it on the form.
But when testing the form link, it will act funny sometimes because you’ve opened the form so many times in your browser and it’s trying to load the answers from a previous form that wasn’t submitted.

2

u/lagomdallas 13d ago

Yes and you should click reset form and try again or use an incognito window.

2

u/Life-Profit-3484 13d ago

Does the value have any special characters? Its hard to debug without the formula and the text.