Is it possible to prevent the description field in a card being edited by members

[Emma Johnson]

I would like to make sure that team members can't edit the description of a card. I don't want people to be able to edit what is there or indeed delete it completely by accident which has happened recently.  But I do want them to be able to comment and to add attachments etc.  I can't figure out how to do this. Or how to get back what has been deleted!!

Can you help?

[Iain Dooley]

@Emma Johnson you can't prevent them from editing it unless you have the board as team viewable and then only allow them to comment (ie. no attachments, no creating cards, no moving cards ... ) but you can recover a previous version of the description:

https://help.trello.com/article/783-recovering-the-description-of-a-card-that-has-been-changed

[Emma Johnson]

Thanks for that.  It does seem crazy that there isn't an option for admin to be able lock the description.  It seems totally logical for team members to be able to see instructions that the can't change and for them to then be able to add attachments and comments.  

I share boards with clients and I sure as heck don't want them to be able to change the instructions but I do want them to be able to upload content and comments in response to those instructions.

I would also like the option to be able to lock the to-do's so that they can't be changed too but can still be checked off as complete.

It seem crazy to me that all fields are essentially a free for all!

[Iain Dooley]

@Emma Johnson For full board members, the only restrictions are on closing and renaming the boards, and inviting others to the board.

You can have Observers who can comment, vote and download attachments, but not add attachments or move cards or check off checklists.

You can also have workspace viewable boards so members of your workspace are essentially like Observers, and then disable "self join" so they can't join.

But you can't hide individual elements or restrict access to elements for anyone who is a full member.

You can provide a certain amount of protect against accidental edits using a template board and an API function that will detect a change in the description and reset it to the original value from the template board. You could also create automations that would allow people to interact through comments, for example your clients could paste a link to a file in Dropbox or Drive and then you could automatically attach that link to the card.