Hello all,

We are excited to announce that users can now implement Regular Expressions (Regex) in our layout and validation rules. This new functionality allows for more flexible rules to be created when designing and validating forms.

What is Regex? 

Regex is a pattern-matching language that is used to match and search text based on specific patterns or rules. With this new functionality, you can create rules that require specific patterns to be followed in input fields, such as phone numbers, email addresses, and more. This not only helps ensure accurate data collection but also saves time and effort in the data processing.

Here are some of the benefits of using regex

1. Increased Efficiency: Using Regex can save you more time when searching for specific patterns in a large amount of data.
2. Improved accuracy: Regex allows you to specify exactly what you are looking for, reducing the possibility of missing or misidentifying the data.
3. Great Reusability: Once you have created a regex pattern, you can reuse the same pattern in different contexts.

Regex in layout rules

By using regex in layout rules, you can now define a pattern for a primary field value and determine how the data should be formatted. This can be useful in determining the form behavior based on the format of the data given and eliminates the need to create several multiple criteria. 

For example, let's say you have a checkout form layout where users can enter their credit card information. One of the fields is for the credit card number, which must be a valid 16-digit number. You want to display a second field for the user's card expiration date only if they have entered a valid credit card number. 

In such a case, you can create a layout rule using the regex criteria (Such as Card number + Matches Regex + Credit Card Number). This would check whether the user's input for the credit card number field matches the regex pattern. If it does, it would then display the expiration date field. 

Regex in validation rules 

By using regex in validation rules, you can ensure that an end user's input matches a specific format, and reject any input that does not match this pattern. This can be useful in ensuring that only valid input is accepted and preventing errors or security vulnerabilities that could result from accepting invalid input. For example, you can create a validation rule using regex to validate whether an end user enters an email address in a specific format.

While defining the Regex criteria, you can either manually create a custom regex pattern or choose a desired pattern from the regex gallery.

To know more about the full potential and detailed implementation steps of Regex, refer to our help article -> Regex in Layout and Validation Rules.

The introduction of Regex in our platform expands the capabilities of our layout and validation rules and opens up new possibilities for customizing forms. 

We welcome all our users to tryout this new functionality and provide us with feedback on your experience. As always, we strive to improve our platform continually and provide our users with the best possible experience.

Thank you for your continued support!

Have a great day!

Regards,

Varsha P | Zoho Desk - User education