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Automatically link Records between two tables based on Field Value

K

Hello everyone,

I currently have two tables, one for Plants (industrial power/chemical plants) and one for Events (scheduled maintenance outages). Each Plant has a unique Plant ID that is also listed on each Event with multiple Events for each Plant. Is there a way to automatically link each Event to its respective Plant based on matching the Plant ID in each record? In other words, is there an automation that exists or can be created that looks at the Plant ID on the record in the Plant table and the Event table, recognizes that field as identical on both, then links the two records? 

Thank you!

KCVellichor

3 replies

C
  • Casey_Reid
  • Participating Frequently
  • 6 replies
  • June 5, 2024

Are you wanting to run this just one time to link them all up or is there some sort of a trigger that you would want to trigger the automation?

TheTimeSavingCo
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If this is a one off, try:
1. Make the primary field of the "Plants" table the "Plant ID" field
2. In "Events", in a view where no records are hidden, click the field header of the field that contains the plant IDs
  - This selects the entire column
3. Hit CTRL / CMD + C
4. In "Events", in a view where no records are hidden, click the field header of the linked field to "Plants"
5. Hit CTRL / CMD + V

This will link everything up

--
For new data, if you can leave the primary field of the Plants table as "Plant ID", then you can create an automation that'll trigger when new "Event" records get created, and their action would be to paste the "Plant ID" value into the linked field, which would link stuff up for you automatically

If you cant have "Plant ID" as the primary field, then you'll need to create an automation that'll do a "Find Record" step followed by an "Update Record" step, and Airtable has a guide for that here: https://support.airtable.com/docs/linking-existing-records-using-automations

Adam, Consultant @ The Time Saving Co
K
  • KCVellichor
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • 1 reply
  • June 6, 2024
Casey_Reid wrote:

Are you wanting to run this just one time to link them all up or is there some sort of a trigger that you would want to trigger the automation?


No this will be an ongoing process to track scheduled events. As I upload records of newly scheduled Events, I would like them to automatically link to their respective Plants. The trigger would ideally be something along the lines of "If new Events added, link to Plant based on Plant ID". If that isn't an option and it ends up being an automation run at a certain time each day, or if I need to manually trigger the automation, that is fine. I just don't want to manually link every Event to a Plant. 

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