I have a table linked to an application form. This table has a field with a check in it.
I have another table within the same workspace for people that are referred, also with a check in it.
Right now, new members apply and then I have 2 records: one from the application form, another from the manual enter I did as the person got referred.
I want the system to update all records when someone applies using the form, so it doesn’t create another record, but fill in all the information on the already created one. Is this possible?
I can’t seem to make it work via automations.
Solved
Automation for when records match conditions
+2Best answer by TheTimeSavingCo
Hmm, so your workflow currently is:
- Person gets referred
- You create a record manually in the ‘Referred’ or some such table
- You send the person the form link
- They submit the form
- New record gets created from the form submission
And now you want the data from the form submission to go into the record you created in step 2, is that right?
---
Third party app solution
Try using Fillout (https://www.fillout.com/), free up to 1k submissions a month and would be the fastest way for you to deal with this I reckon. In step 3, instead of sending the form link, you’d send them a specific link that’s tied to their ‘Referred’ record, and then when they submitted that it’d update your form directly
Airtable solution
Assuming the tables are in the same base and that there’s a unique identifier between the two records (e.g. the email would be a good one), then you could create an automation that’ll trigger when the form is submitted, it’d look for a record in ‘Referred’ with the same email and then update the appropriate fields. You could also make the record delete itself via a Run a Script action too
+35I’m not sure I understand your question, but it sounds like you’re trying to have people update an existing record (that already exists in Airtable) through a form?
That is not natively possible with Airtable’s forms, and is extremely fragile if you try to do it with prefilled links & automations.
The easiest & best way to do this is by using Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable.
Fillout is 100% free, and it offers hundreds of features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer, including the ability to update Airtable records using a form, display Airtable lookup fields on forms, accept payments on forms, collect signatures on a form, create multi-page forms with conditional paths, create new linked records on a form, and much more.
Fillout will give you a special formula that you paste into Airtable, and it will give each person a unique URL for their particular record in Airtable. So, you would send each person an automated email that gives them their own unique URL.This unique URL will enable them to update their own record in Airtable by using a Fillout “update form”.
You can see how to set this up in my video below, which also shows off many other advanced techniques using Fillout:
Hope this helps!
If you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld
+6Hey
It makes perfect sense that you want to keep everything neat and organised by having the existing record be updated!
There’s two approaches I can think of:
Scott’s approach would require you to build another form for the second table.
Another approach would be to copy over all the data from the newly-created record to the existing record. Then, delete the new one. This is because Airtable forms can only create new records for the table they are associated with. They cannot modify records in other tables.
Of the two approaches, Scott’s is the easier to maintain solution.
Best of luck!
+31Hmm, so your workflow currently is:
- Person gets referred
- You create a record manually in the ‘Referred’ or some such table
- You send the person the form link
- They submit the form
- New record gets created from the form submission
And now you want the data from the form submission to go into the record you created in step 2, is that right?
---
Third party app solution
Try using Fillout (https://www.fillout.com/), free up to 1k submissions a month and would be the fastest way for you to deal with this I reckon. In step 3, instead of sending the form link, you’d send them a specific link that’s tied to their ‘Referred’ record, and then when they submitted that it’d update your form directly
Airtable solution
Assuming the tables are in the same base and that there’s a unique identifier between the two records (e.g. the email would be a good one), then you could create an automation that’ll trigger when the form is submitted, it’d look for a record in ‘Referred’ with the same email and then update the appropriate fields. You could also make the record delete itself via a Run a Script action too
+2Thanks, all!
+21Screenshot of the automation details may help if you have something misconfigured with the RecordIDs, but a common error with automations is to make sure you’ve rerun testing the initial steps (and that you have a valid record for the test to find)
+31Here are a couple of screenshots of the setup:
Record to update:
Record to link (optional)
You can also DM me an invite link to your base and I can check it out directly for you if you want
+2
I changed the Record ID as per your screenshots and it now let me turn it on, so we’ll see if it works.
Thanks a mil!
Enter your E-mail address. We'll send you an e-mail with instructions to reset your password.