Programmatically Hide Empty Columns

If you have a large number of columns in your schema that may not be used every import, hiding the additional columns is a good way to ensure your users don't have a cluttered view and can see the columns they need to be editing quickly.

They can hide all empty columns themselves with the options on the Review Table:

But you may want to hide these programmatically to save them a step. Below is a code example of a job that could be used to hide empty columns for your users:

/** 
* The CondenseField Job is a custom job with the following responsibility: * 
* 1. For every field in the sheet, verify if it meets any of the following checks 
* - Is the field required 
* - Does the field have any validation errors 
* - Does the field have any data 
* 2. Any fields that do not meet any of the expected criteria are hidden */ 

export default jobHandler("sheet:condense-fields", async ({ context }, tick) => {
 try {
  const { data } = await api.sheets.get(context.sheetId)
  const { data: counts } = await api.sheets.getRecordCounts(context.sheetId, { byField: true })

  await tick(50, "Checking fields to hide...")

  const fieldsToHide = data.config.fields.reduce((acc, field) => {
   const isRequired = field?.constraints?.some((constraint) => constraint.type === "required") ?? false
   const isInvalid = counts.counts.errorsByField?.[field.key] > 0
   const hasData = counts.counts.byField?.[field.key]?.total !== counts.counts.byField?.[field.key]?.empty 

   // Fields which do not meet any criteria should be hidden
   if (!isRequired && !isInvalid && !hasData) {
    acc.push(field.key)
   }
   return acc
  }, [])
  return {
   outcome: {
    message: "All empty fields that are neither required nor invalids have been successfully hidden!",
    acknowledge: true,
    hideDefaultButton: true,
    next: {
     type: "view",
     hiddenColumns: fieldsToHide,
     sheetId: context.sheetId,
    },
   },
  }
 } catch (error) {
  throw new Error(`Failed to condense sheet view: ${context.sheetId} | ${error}`)
 } 
})

This uses the hiddenColumns parameter that is available when using the job outcome to navigate the user to a specific view.