I have a form that has a few sections that are visible only when certain previous dropdown selections were made. As my form is now, someone could make a selection to make a section appear, fill out fields in the section, then go back and change the dropdown selection and the values stay in the fields that are now no longer visible. These values could mess with my automations downstream, so they need to be null if they are not visible. How can I ensure that fields retain a null value if they are not visible?
Cognito Forms – How to Require a Null Value
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I'm a developer with Cognito Forms. Unfortunately, a checkbox can only have two states, checked or unchecked, which equates to true or false in the context of a calculation. However, I do believe you can accomplish your requirement by using the "Radio Buttons" option for the Choice field, without it looking strange or odd. A Choice field does not require a default value therefore you do not need a third option to represent that null state. For a choice field to not have a default selection, the checkbox next to all Choices should be unchecked. I included a couple of screenshots to help explain this configuration. The first one is the configuration for the "Radio Buttons" Choice field and the second is a Yes/No field configured to be visible when the Choice field value is "Yes". I hope this helps. Hopefully, I am not misunderstanding your requirement.
Cognito Forms allows you to post a JSON document to webhooks when new entries are submitted that accurately reflects the data being collected. Forms can be hierarchical with multiple repeating sections and even nested repeating sections, so it naturally lends itself to being expressed using JSON. Repeating sections are not stored in a single field--they are actually arrays of child entities that have their own fields and children.
For example, the form you described might look like this:
And the corresponding JSON looks like this:
As you can see, the Children repeating section is represented correctly in JSON as an array of child entities, each of which have Name and Gender fields.
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Best Answer
I'm a developer with Cognito Forms. In order to make sure that a field retains a null value even when changed from visible to not visible, what you can do is add an if/then statement to the default value of the field that you would like to clear the value from.
In order to do this, you'll select the field that you want to clear the value from when hidden. In the 'Default Value' found in the field settings, you'll create an if/then statement that is referencing the choice field and the selection within the choice field that its appearance is dependent upon. For example:
Now, when someone makes a selection other than "Choice" in ChoiceField, the conditional field will disappear, and the value will be cleared.