Systems and methods are provided for automatic operation detection on protected fields. A data model configuration can be used to specify which attributes of a data model used by a cloud-based application are protected by a data security provider monitoring communications between the application and a client device. A determination can be made automatically which operations of the cloud-based application are supported for protected fields. The cloud-based application can be configured to enable/disable certain features, such as validators, auto complete, search operators, etc. according to whether the attributes are protected fields.