Customize Baserow Fields

You can customise the field (column) type and access additional options from the field’s dropdown menu after you’ve created it. This support article will cover the various options for customising fields. For an overview of field types supported in Baserow, refer to this article on Baserow fields overview.

Field configuration menu

Click the dropdown arrow next to the name of the field you want to edit to open the field configuration menu.

Different field types have different customization options. The following options are covered:

• Field editing
• Inserting a new field
• Duplicating a field
• Sorting by a field
• Filtering by a field
• Hiding fields and field visibility
• Deleting a field

Only a few field configuration options are available for the primary field. Please refer to this article for more details on customizing the primary field.

Reordering fields

You can rearrange the order of the fields in your grid view by clicking and dragging the field header to move the fields.

You can also easily move a field directly by clicking and dragging a field in the enlarged view.

You can select a field and either insert a new field to the left or right of that field.

Edit field

To edit a field,

1. Click on the dropdown icon next to the field you want to edit
2. Select ‘Edit field’
3. Click the ‘Change’ button when all desired changes are made

Although you cannot delete the Primary field or make a different existing field as the Primary field, you can change its type or copy the data to another field.

Change an existing field type

You can create a new field using the values from an existing field. From the field customization menu, select a new field from the dropdown. This will convert the values in your existing field to the new field format.

When you convert an existing field with existing cell values to a new field type, Baserow does its best to convert the current cell values to the new type. For example, a single line text field can be changed into a long text field. However, keep in mind that with particular kinds, some conversions might not be possible. For example, changing a text field to an attachment field will remove all of the text values.

You can undo your edit and restore the field to its previous state if you discover that you lost some cell values during the conversion by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl Z to restore the data that was lost due to the conversion.

Sort fields

Note that you cannot sort the Lookup, File and Link to table fields.

There are numerous ways to arrange distinct field types. Keep in mind that while sorting in ascending order, blank values nearly always appear at the top.

Fields can be sorted in ascending order (A → Z   (or)   1 → 9 (or)   ☑︎ → ☐) or descending order (Z → A   (or)   9 → 1   (or)   ☐ → ☑︎).

Text field types can be sorted alphabetically (A → Z) or in reverse alphabetical order (Z → A), including single line text, long text, email, multiple select, formula, URL, and single select fields.

Both ascending order 1 → 9 and descending order 9 → 1 can be used in numerical fields like number, rating, phone number, last modified, created on and date fields (from the earliest date to the latest date, or from the latest date to the earliest date).

You can either ☑︎ → ☐ in ascending order or ☐ → ☑︎ in descending order sort boolean fields according to whether the box has been checked or not.

Create a filter

You can create and combine conditions to customize how rows are filtered, enabling you to build highly specific, organized views for your workflows.

To create a filter,

1. Click on the dropdown icon next to the field you want to filter by
2. Select ‘Create filter’

We advise reading this section on adding filters in a view first if you are new to creating conditions to filter your rows.

Hide field

To hide or show fields, click the ‘Hide fields’ button in the grid view or ‘Customize cards’ button kanban view to bring up the hide fields dialog.

Note that you cannot hide the Primary field.

Hiding fields from the field header

By clicking the field header in grid view and choosing the Hide field option from the dropdown menu, you can also hide a field.

Hiding fields in an expanded row

You also can hide or show specific fields within an expanded row by clicking the option menu beside the field.

Delete field

Note that you cannot delete the Primary field.

To delete a field, other than the primary field, you can do it by selecting the ‘Delete field’ option from the dialog box beside the field’s name.

1. Click on the dropdown icon next to the field you want to delete
2. Select ‘Delete field’

You can recover deleted things by using the ‘Trash.’ To review and restore any fields that have been deleted in a base during the last three days. Learn more on how to access the trash here.

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