How to Add Conditional Logic to Airtable Forms
Airtable's native form view has no conditional logic. Not on the free plan, not on the Business plan, not on Enterprise. There is no setting, no workaround, no hidden feature. Every respondent sees every field.
This guide explains exactly what that means in practice, covers the four levels of conditional logic Filla adds to Airtable forms, and walks through how to set each one up.
Need conditional logic now? Filla adds show/hide logic on four levels — fields, sections, pages, and automation branches — all connected directly to your Airtable base. Start free →
Why conditional logic matters
A form without conditional logic shows every field to every respondent. That's fine when your form has three fields. It stops being fine when your form has twelve.
The practical impact:
- Respondents see questions that don't apply to them. An individual applicant sees business registration fields. A domestic customer sees an international shipping section. They skip, get confused, or abandon the form.
- You collect garbage data in those fields. Fields that don't apply get filled with random answers, "N/A", or left blank — but blank-because-not-applicable is different from blank-because-they-forgot. You can't tell the difference.
- You maintain multiple forms instead of one. The common workaround is to build separate forms for each case. Now you have three forms, three share links, and three places to update when anything changes.
Conditional logic solves all three problems. One form. Each respondent sees only what's relevant to their situation.
The four levels of conditional logic in Filla
Filla supports conditional logic at four distinct levels. Each one handles a different scope.
Level 1: Field-level conditions (show/hide individual fields)
The most common type. A field appears or disappears based on what the respondent entered in a previous field.
How it works: Click any field in the Filla editor to open its settings panel. Under the advanced settings, find Display conditions. You'll see: "Show this field when..." — then a visual filter builder where you define conditions.
Each condition has three parts:
- Field to watch: which earlier field triggers this rule
- Operator: is, is not, contains, is empty, is not empty, is greater than, etc.
- Value: the specific value that triggers the show/hide
You can combine multiple conditions with AND or OR logic, exactly the way Airtable's own filter interface works.
Example: Client type routing
Your intake form asks "Are you applying as an individual or a business?"
- Individual: show three fields (full name, personal email, ID type)
- Business: show seven fields (company name, registration number, VAT ID, billing email, billing address, account owner, department)
Without conditional logic, you show all ten fields to everyone. With field-level conditions, each respondent sees exactly three or seven — and the form feels half the length it actually is.
Example: Follow-up on low satisfaction scores
A feedback form asks "How satisfied were you?" as a star rating (1–5).
- Rating 1 or 2: show "What went wrong?" and "What would have made this better?"
- Rating 4 or 5: show "What did we do especially well?" (optional)
- Rating 3: skip both follow-ups (the most neutral responses are the least actionable)
Level 2: Section-level conditions (hide groups of fields)
Sections in Filla group related fields under a collapsible header. You can apply a show/hide condition to an entire section at once.
How it works: Click a section header in the editor. Open the Show/hide rules panel. Set conditions. When the conditions aren't met, the entire section disappears — not collapsed, not greyed out, completely gone. No empty space, no visible placeholder.
Why this is better than field-level for dense forms: If you have a 6-field "International shipping" block that should only appear when the respondent selects a non-US country, hiding the section is cleaner than adding the same condition to all six fields individually. One condition, six fields hidden.
Example: Conditional compliance section
A contract intake form has a "Regulatory compliance" section with five questions about GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2. This section only applies to clients in regulated industries.
Set the section condition: show when "Industry" is "Healthcare" OR "Financial services" OR "Legal."
Everyone else skips past it without seeing the fields or the section header.
Level 3: Page-level conditions (skip entire steps in multi-step forms)
In multi-step Filla forms, you can skip entire pages based on previous answers. Respondents only see the pages relevant to their situation.
How it works: In the Filla editor, click on a page in the page list at the bottom. Open Page Visibility in the sidebar. Select "Only show this page when..." and set your condition.
When the condition isn't met, the page is skipped entirely — it doesn't appear in the progress indicator, and the form jumps to the next visible page.
Example: A 5-page grant application that becomes 3 pages
- Page 1: "What type of applicant are you?" (Individual / Organization / Partnership)
- Page 2 (always visible): Contact information
- Page 3 (condition: Organization or Partnership): Organization details, registration number, authorized signatory
- Page 4 (condition: Partnership): Partner information, partnership agreement
- Page 5 (always visible): Project description and budget
An individual applicant skips pages 3 and 4 entirely. They see pages 1, 2, and 5 — three pages instead of five. An organization sees pages 1, 2, 3, and 5. A partnership sees all five.
One form. Three distinct paths. Clean, short experience for each type.
Important note about required fields and conditional pages: If a field is required but on a page that gets skipped, the requirement doesn't block submission. Filla only validates fields on pages that are actually shown.
Level 4: Automation-level conditions (If/Else branches after submit)
After a form is submitted, you can run different automations depending on what was submitted. This is conditional logic that runs on the server side — not the form UI, but the workflow that triggers after the form closes.
How it works: In the Filla editor, open the Automations tab. Add an If/Else action to any automation. Define branches — each branch has a condition and a list of actions to run when that condition matches.
Example: Different PDFs for different submission types
Your order form has a "Customer type" field with options: Standard, Wholesale, Enterprise.
Automation setup:
- If "Customer type" is "Enterprise": generate the enterprise contract PDF template + send a webhook to notify the sales team
- If "Customer type" is "Wholesale": generate the wholesale order confirmation PDF
- Else (Standard): generate the standard receipt PDF
One form, three distinct post-submit paths.
Example: Route incomplete submissions for follow-up
Your application form has a "Budget" field. Applications with budgets under $5,000 get flagged for triage.
- If "Budget" is less than 5000: update the record's "Status" field to "Triage" + fire a webhook to Slack
- Else: update the record's "Status" field to "Qualified"
The record lands in Airtable correctly categorized without any manual review step.
Setting up conditional logic in Filla: step by step
Step 1: Connect your Airtable base
Sign up at app.filla.io/signup, connect via OAuth, select your base and table. Your fields appear in the palette immediately.
Step 2: Build your form layout
Drag fields onto the canvas. Add sections by dragging the Section widget from the palette. Add pages with the + button in the page bar at the bottom.
At this stage, every field is visible to everyone.
Step 3: Add field-level conditions
Click a field you want to make conditional. In the settings panel, click Full field settings to open the advanced dialog. Select the Visibility tab.
Click Add condition. Choose the field to watch, the operator, and the value. Click Done.
The field now displays a blue Conditional tag in the editor so you can see at a glance which fields have conditions set.
Step 4: Add section-level conditions (optional)
Click a section header. In the right panel, find Show/hide rules. Add conditions the same way as field-level conditions.
Step 5: Add page-level conditions (optional)
Click a page in the bottom page bar to select it. In the right sidebar, find Page Visibility. Switch from "Always show this page" to "Only show this page when..." and add your conditions.
Step 6: Preview all paths
Click Preview in the top toolbar. Switch between device widths (desktop/tablet/mobile) and test each conditional path:
- Fill in answers that trigger different conditions
- Verify that fields and sections show and hide correctly
- Walk through each page path for multi-step forms
Test every branch. Conditions that are never true don't throw errors — the fields just stay hidden forever, which is a silent failure you'll only catch by testing.
Step 7: Set up automation conditions (optional)
Open the Automations tab. Add an automation. Inside the automation, click Add action and select If/Else. Define your branches and assign actions to each.
Common mistakes
Making a required field conditional. If a field is required and has a display condition, the requirement only applies when the field is visible. If the condition is never true for some respondents, they'll never see the field and can submit without it — which is usually correct. If it's not correct, reconsider whether the field should be required or conditional.
Too many nested conditions on one field. A field with four conditions that depend on three different earlier fields is hard to debug. If your logic is that complex, consider whether multi-step pages with page-level conditions handle it more clearly.
Forgetting to test the "false" path. It's easy to test the path that shows the conditional field and forget to test the path that hides it. Always verify both states.
Conditional logic on the first field. You can't show a field conditionally based on a field that appears after it. Conditions reference earlier fields. If you need to route based on the first question, add a routing question as the very first field on the form.
FAQ
Does Airtable have conditional logic on forms?
No. Native Airtable forms have no conditional logic of any kind. Every field shows to every respondent regardless of what they enter. Airtable's Interface Designer has some conditional display features, but that's a separate product — not the form view. For conditional logic on Airtable forms, you need a third-party tool like Filla.
What operators does Filla support for conditional logic?
Filla's condition builder supports: is, is not, is empty, is not empty, contains, does not contain, is greater than, is less than, is greater than or equal to, is less than or equal to. The available operators depend on the field type — for example, rating fields support numeric comparisons, while select fields support "is" and "is not" against option values.
Can I combine AND and OR conditions?
Yes. Filla supports AND/OR logic in condition groups, matching the way Airtable's own filter interface works. You can set "Show when [Field A] is [X] AND [Field B] is not empty" or "Show when [Field A] is [X] OR [Field A] is [Y]."
What happens to a conditionally hidden field in Airtable?
If a field is hidden and the respondent never sees it, the submission creates a record with that field left blank. The field exists in your Airtable table with no value for that record. This is expected behavior. The field isn't deleted — it's just empty for submissions where the condition was never met.
Can I use conditional logic to route to completely different Airtable tables?
Not within a single form. Each Filla form writes to one primary table. However, you can use linked record child forms to create records in related tables — for example, creating a project record and a client record in the same form submission. Conditional logic works within that structure.
Build your first conditional form in Airtable →