Logic and validation

Operators

Every condition you can use in display logic, validation rules and automation conditions, and which fields each one suits.

Operators are the comparisons in a condition, such as Is, Contains or Is more than. The same set is used by conditional logic, validation rules and conditions in automations, such as an If step. The builder only lists the operators that suit the value you picked.

All operators

Validation rules phrase each operator as a requirement, so the label differs slightly from display logic and automations.

Display logic and automations	Validation	Needs a value
Is	Must equal	Yes
Is not	Must not equal	Yes
Is more than	Must be greater than	Yes
Is at least	Must be greater or equal to	Yes
Is less than	Must be less than	Yes
Is at most	Must be less or equal to	Yes
Length is	Must have length	Yes
Length is not	Must not have length	Yes
Length is more than	Must exceed length	Yes
Length is at least	Must exceed or equal length	Yes
Length is less than	Must be less than length	Yes
Length is at most	Must be less or equal to length	Yes
Contains	Must contain	Yes
Does not contain	Must not contain	Yes
Starts with	Must start with	Yes
Ends with	Must end with	Yes
Matches pattern	Must match a pattern (regular expression)	Yes
Is an email address	Must be valid email	No
Is a web address	Must be valid URL	No
Is a number	Must be number	No
Is a whole number	Must be integer	No
Is a decimal number	Must be decimal number	No
Is letters only	Must be alphabetic	No
Is letters and numbers	Must be alphanumeric	No
Is true	Must be true	No
Is false	Must be false	No
Is empty	Must be empty	No
Is not empty	Must not be empty	No

In the condition menu they are grouped as Is or is not, More or less, Length, Text, Kind of value, Yes or no and Filled in or not.

When an operator needs a value, you can type one or pick another answer or data table value.

Operators by field

Fields	Operators offered
Text, Long text, Email, URL, Phone, Password, Signature, Hidden value, Dropdown, Single choice, Country, Team member, and the parts of Name and Address	Is, Is not, the length operators, Contains, Does not contain, Starts with, Ends with, Matches pattern, the kind of value checks, Is empty, Is not empty
Number, Slider, Rating	Is, Is not, Is more than, Is at least, Is less than, Is at most, Is empty, Is not empty
Yes or no	Is, Is not, Is true, Is false, Is empty, Is not empty
Date, Time, Date and time	Is, Is not, Is empty, Is not empty
Multiple choice, File upload	The length operators, Contains, Does not contain, Is empty, Is not empty
A repeating field or group, as a whole	The length operators, Is empty, Is not empty

To compare the answers inside a repeating group, pick a field in it rather than the group.

When the type of a value isn’t known in advance, such as the result of an automation step, every operator is listed. Pick one that suits the value you expect.

The condition menu also lists Is more than, Is at least, Is less than and Is at most for date and time fields, but these comparisons don’t work for dates and times yet. To limit which dates or times can be chosen, use the field’s minimum and maximum settings. See Field settings.

How the operators compare

Is and Is not

Text comparisons are exact and case-sensitive: “London” is not “london”.
Numbers compare by value, so 10 is 10.0.
For Dropdown and Single choice, compare with the option’s value, not its label. Country answers are two-letter codes such as GB.

More or less

These compare numbers. Is at least includes the value itself; Is more than doesn’t.

Length

For text, the length is the number of characters. “café” has four.
For Multiple choice, it is the number of options chosen. For File upload, the number of files.
For a repeating field or group, it is the number of items.
An empty answer has a length of 0.

Text

Contains, Starts with and Ends with are case-sensitive.
For Multiple choice, Contains checks whether a particular option was chosen. Use the option’s value.
Matches pattern takes a regular expression in RE2 syntax. It can match anywhere in the answer unless you add ^ at the start and $ at the end.

Kind of value

These check what text looks like:

Operator	Passes for
Is an email address	Letters A to Z, digits and `. _ % + -` before the @, then a domain with a dot and an ending of two or more letters
Is a web address	Text starting with `http://`, `https://` or `ftp://`, with no spaces
Is a number	A whole or decimal number, such as `42` or `-3.5`, with no spaces or thousands separators
Is a whole number	A number with no decimal point, such as `42`
Is a decimal number	A number written with a decimal point, such as `3.5`
Is letters only	Only the letters A to Z, in either case. Spaces, accents and hyphens fail.
Is letters and numbers	Only the letters A to Z and digits 0 to 9

Is an email address is stricter than the Email field’s own check, which accepts any address like name@example.com.

Yes or no

Is true and Is false check a Yes or no answer.

Filled in or not

Is empty passes for an unanswered question, empty text and a list with nothing in it. A number 0 and a Yes or no answer of no are not empty.

Unanswered questions

When the value being checked has no answer, a condition passes only for:

Is empty
Is not, when compared with a value
the length operators, which treat it as length 0

Everything else, including Does not contain, fails. For example, “Notes Does not contain urgent” doesn’t match until something is written in Notes. Add an Is not empty rule, or use Is empty, when you need to handle unanswered questions explicitly.

In validation, rules don’t run on an optional field left empty. See Validation.

Change operators in automations

Automations started by Answer changes while filling in, Answers are changed or Team field changes have three more operators, grouped under Change:

Operator	Passes when
Changed	The value is different from before the save
Changed to	The value changed, and is now the value you give
Changed from	The value changed, and used to be the value you give

See Triggers.