How to suppress default first record viewer for confiforms table view or list view?

[SPadalkar]

I use direct record links in the email notification that point to a specific confiforms entry displayed in a table view or list view. Sometimes after a failure (user not logged in), the search parameter gets dropped and that link defaults to the first record. This confuses the user as the link does not show what she expects. Same issue when a user directly navigates to the page without a search parameter.

I would like to show an error message indicating that a cf_search parameter is required to render the page correctly. What's the best way of doing this?

I show this message in a filtered table view that does not return any records. I would like to show the same message when the cf_search parameter is missing. 

[Alex Medved _ConfiForms_ · Accepted solution]

Hi

You can set the default filter in the view to be something what always results in an empty resultset

For example:

created:<0

Alex

[SPadalkar]

Thanks for your response, Alex.

Wouldn't that be a permanent filter though? I am guessing it needs to be used with a dynamic filter. Is there an example somewhere?

[Alex Medved _ConfiForms_]

Yeah, you are right. This makes it a permanent filter and having the filter through the URL parameters does not actually override it. 

But you can add cf_force=true as shown here to the URL and that will make sure the URL only filter is taken

https://wiki.vertuna.com/display/CONFIFORMS/Creating+links+to+filter+views+from+request+parameters+-+url

[SPadalkar]

Yesss! That worked. Thank you!