Need more flexibility on which columns in a table are searchable

I think it would be helpful to have more flexibility to hide columns in tables. I understand that I can set all columns to be searchable (or just the columns visible in the table). However, I don’t want all columns searchable and there are some columns that I want searchable but not visible.

For each column, it would be good to have a simple button in settings (Hide column Yes/No). This way, we can be more strategic in terms of which columns are searchable. The problem with making “All” columns searchable is that there may be PII in some of these columns. I want most columns searchable, but not columns containing PII. I also don’t want to add a column to the table just because I need to make it searchable.

Thank you for taking this into consideration!

This would be a useful feature.

As a workaround you can add the PII column (not sure what PII means) and then add a rule to the column that if the PII field is not blank hide the value. Then set the table to hide empty columns. The field won’t be visible but will be able to be searched.

If you already knew this I apologise :grinning:

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I suspected something like this might be possible but couldn’t figure it out. My feature request is for a more direct toggle to show/hide columns, but your solution is creative/perfect. Thank you for your help!

Best from Colorado!

David

P.S. PII = Personally Identifiable Information

Agreed, a more direct method would be great. :+1:

Please mark as “solution” if you’re happy with the workaround.

Greetings David and Carl,

I saw your post this morning, and decided to tackle the challenge. I think I came up with something interesting, that does what you want… and a little more actually.

See it here: https://forums.knack.com/t/hide-or-remove-columns-from-tables-and-prevent-filtering-on-any-fields/13549

Thanks for this info Carl. Solved a problem for me, and I hadn’t seen or thought of this before.

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