Forum Discussion

ShaneSelasky's avatar
ShaneSelasky
Qrew Cadet
6 years ago

Change user in field who modified another field

I have a field called "Anticipated Purchase Date", which is a date field.  When the date is entered, it will automatically update the field "Anticipated Purchase Date Entered by" (which is a user field and read only).  I created a rule for this to happen. See pic.

the issue is that if someone decides to select a new date for "anticipated Purchase date" after the initial entry of a date, then the field "Anticipated purchase date entered by" will not update.  It will be keep the initial user in there.  How do i make it that when the "anticipated purchase date" is modified by a new user, the "purchase entered by" field changes to that user?  Based on what i did, it will only change if i delete out the "Purchase date" and enter the date again, then the "Anticipated Purchase Date entered by" will change to the new user (because that is how the rule is set up).  Thank you.


  • Instead of using a form rule from your screenshot - you can use an automation to populate it for each modification to the record where that specific field was changed. In the automation - you would write the value of 'Last Modified By' - the person who last updated the record - and copy that into the 'Anticipated Purchase Entered By'


    Chayce Duncan | Director of Strategic Solutions
    (720) 739-1406 | chayceduncan@quandarycg.com
    Quandary Knowledge Base
    • ChayceDuncan2's avatar
      ChayceDuncan2
      Qrew Cadet
      Here is the Quick Base documentation from the site.
      https://help.quickbase.com/user-assistance/about_quick_base_automations.html

      In your specific situation - you'll want an automation something like this: 

      1) Automation occurs when data changes in the table where you date field exists
      2) Trigger is Based on Add/Modifications - and where that exact field is the field changing
      3) Your action is to modify the specific record that was just changed (this would be in the filter condition) - and the actual change would be to copy the value of Last Modified By into your user field

      Hopefully that helps get you started. 

      Chayce Duncan | Director of Strategic Solutions
      (720) 739-1406 | chayceduncan@quandarycg.com
      Quandary Knowledge Base
    • ShaneSelasky's avatar
      ShaneSelasky
      Qrew Cadet
      nevermind. i found it.  thanks. i will have to check how this works.
  • working with automation, it seems this is more for many records to change.  I just want the one field to change when another field is modified for the one record.  Is this possible with automation?
    • ShaneSelasky's avatar
      ShaneSelasky
      Qrew Cadet
      Thanks. I will try that.  Also, it seems the previous automation i created is still having affect on the forms even though i deleted it.  Does is take time to update that the automation is no longer existing?
    • ShaneSelasky's avatar
      ShaneSelasky
      Qrew Cadet
      I figured out this issue.  The rule i created earlier seemed to get corrupted causing the issue.
  • I think an automation is overkill for this. Here's how I would do it:
    • Create a new field named Anticipated Purchase Date Compare (match the field type to whatever Anticipated Purchase Date is)
    • Create a form rule that says: When Anticipated Purchase Date is not equal to the value in Anticipated Purchase Date Compare Action change Anticipated Purchase Date Changed By to the current user
    • Create a form rule that says: When the record is saved and Anticipated Purchase Date Compare is not equal to the value in Anticipated Purchase Date Action change Anticipated Purchase Date Compare to the value in Anticipated Purchase Date
    This will maintain a copy of the Anticipated Purchase Date from the last time the record was saved in a different field and whenever these two fields show different values, the first form rule will change the User field to denote who made the most recent change. The second form rule will then re-sync the two fields after the User field has been changed and the record saved. This prevents someone that is editing other fields in the record (but not touching Anticipated Purchase Date) from being noted as the person that changed the date fields. Hope this helps.

    -Tom