Stop duplicate values with a unique field

Turn on Require unique values for a field such as an employee number or email, so no two live records in the workspace can save the same value.

Steps

Supported types

Text, Number, Email, Phone and WhatsApp number. Phone and WhatsApp numbers are compared by their digits only, after normalizing.

On any other type, the option is saved but has no effect.

Key rules

• The scope is the workspace: two different workspaces can hold the same value.
• An empty value never clashes, so you can leave the field empty in many records.
• Deleting a record frees its value.
• The comparison is exact: Ali@x.com and ali@x.com are two different values.
• A unique field doesn’t take a default value, because that value would certainly repeat.

When saving

If you try to save a value that another record already has, saving is refused, with the field’s name. This applies to creating, editing, importing and automations.

The duplicates list

It shows the records that hold a duplicate value, sorted by value, with how many times each one repeats. You need the Allowed view level on the unit.

A unique field only stops exact duplicates. To catch duplicates after normalizing formats, such as +966 and 00966, use deduplication control.

If something goes wrong

Good to know