You can set a field to be Read Only when you don't want its value to be changed by everybody. For example, you might want only managers to be able to change an employee's hire date. You would then set the field to be Read Only in all rule set layouts, except the one seen by managers.

• To edit a field's Read Only property for all layouts:
  1. In the Layout's Fields tab, select the field you want to work with.
  2. Edit the field's Read Only property in the Properties pane.
     
     

     
     Description of the illustration read-only-fieldstab.png

     
     
• To edit a field's Read Only property in a particular layout:
  1. In the Rule Set editor, open the layout and select the field in the center pane.
  2. Edit the field's Read Only property in the Properties pane.
     
     

     
     Description of the illustration readonly.png

     
     

     If the field's Read Only property was set in the Fields editor to apply to all layouts, you would see a warning as shown here when you try to edit the property in a particular layout:
     
     Description of the illustration readonly-override.png
     

     The Read Only property might not be editable if you select a field that has a template applied to it. You would need to remove the template if you want to edit the property in the layout.

• To override a field's Read Only property using business rules:
  The rule set must be included in business rules. You can only view a rule set's fields and create extension rules if the rule set is included in business rules.
  1. In the Layout's Business Rules tab, create a form rule.
     See Create a Rule For Forms.
  2. Specify the condition for the rule.
     See Set Conditions for a Rule.
  3. In the list of fields, locate the field you want to make read-only.
  4. Click the dash—or an existing value—in the Read Only column, and select Read Only in the dropdown list.