Prefilling a form

When making an Airtable form, you can use prefill_ parameters in the URL of the form to prefill specific fields. Note that this feature cannot be used to edit information that already exists in your base; only collaborators with editor permissions or above can edit existing records. 

Copy your form URL

Find the URL for the form you wish to prefill and copy the URL to your clipboard. 

Add URL parameters

Once you get the form URL, you can manually add parameters in the form URL to prefill fields. Knowing exactly what formatted text to use to properly encode the URL can be difficult, especially when special characters are being used in a field's title or a record's value. Check out this website to find the proper encoding for various symbols. At Airtable, we use UTF-8. Here are some common examples:

Prefixes

Start by adding a ? to the end of the URL.

Then, type prefill_ and the name of the field you wish to prefill. The part after prefill_ must exactly match the actual field name as it appears in the table, not the label used in the form. Note that spaces in the name of the field will need to be converted to %20 or to the plus sign (+).

Prefilling a single select or multiple select field

Once you've typed in the field name, you can then type in an equals sign (=) and the information you wish to prefill. (If there are spaces in the information you wish to prefill, you will need to replace those spaces with %20 or plus signs (+).)

If you'd are prefilling a multiple select field, you can add multiple value by including commas between the options you are selecting:

https://airtable.com/shr12345678?prefill_FIELD=Option1,Option2

Prefilling multiple fields

If you wish to prefill more fields, enter an ampersand (&) and then enter more prefill_ parameters.

Prefilling time

It's important to note that when prefilling time fields in a form you will need to use the ISO 8601 time format. Below is a breakdown of what each number in that format means:

Here's an example of what a URL would look like for prefilling time into a form. Notice that the number 10 has been added to the hour section of the ISO 8601 format. This means that the form will be prefilled to 10 am. 

Prefilling linked records

You can prefill a linked record input on a form by appending "prefill_FIELDNAME=THE_RECORD_ID" to the form's url.  For a walkthrough on how to prefill linked record inputs in a form we recommend checking out this video demo. 

Test your prefilled URL

This URL that you have created will prefill a form for you when access it. 

Using apps to create a prefilled form URL

One of our community apps streamlines creating prefilled URLs. If you're a pro or enterprise customer you can add this app to your base. 

FAQs

Can I create a hidden field on a form that isn't visible to the person filling out the form?

Airtable forms do not currently support hidden fields at this time. However, you could create a workaround using an Automation with the "When a form is submitted" trigger to add information to the record you are creating/updating when your form is submitted. 

Can I prefill special characters into form fields?

You can! You will need to ensure any special characters are URL encoded. You can create a formula using the ENCODE_URL_COMPONENT(component_string) formula, as shown in this guide, or you can encode the special characters yourself using a site like this one.