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Automation to add linked record

O
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Hi,

I have three tables :

- students
- challenges
- attachments

There is a form that allow students to submit challenges in the table attachments. When I receive a challenge submitted by a student, I review it and if it is correct, I manually link the challenge from the table challenges to the row challenges done in the table students.

Here are screenshots for an exemple. In this example, student 1 submitted challenge ex3 and it was correct so I added ex3 to the list of challenges done by student 1 in the table students.

Attachments :

Challenges :

Students :

I want to automate this. When I click on success for a row in the table attachment, I want to automatically add the challenge succeded in the row challenges done in the table students.

I chose this as a trigger :

But when I automatically update the record, it replaces the list of linked records in the row challenges done by the new challenge only instead of adding the new challenge to the existing list of challenges done by the student.

Do you know how I can automatically add a linked record challenge to the list of linked records (like clicking on a “plus” button) instead of replacing the list of linked records by the new linked record ?

Thanks for your help !

Best answer by Russell_Findlay

Hello - i think i can help here without an automation by using roll-ups if i have understood correctly.

Attachments is effectively a junction table between students and challenges - and is effectively their submission.

When a student submits their challenge - you need a way of linking this to the student and to the challenge.

This can be done by getting the students to select their name and the challenge number in the form (we will improve on this later)

Then you have the attachments linked to both the student and hte challenge.

You now need a way of marking the success or otherwise (could be as simple as a check box field - or single select or a mark % etc) - lets go with check box for now - your success box)

For a successful attachment (submission) you check this box.

Now in the challenges table - you create a LOOKUP field of Attachments which selects the name of the students CONDITIONAL on when the record is ticked as success

On the students table you create a LOOKUP field of attachments with the name of the Challenge CONDITIONAL on being successful.

Now it may not be great practice for students to select themselves from a list in the form (as they may pick the wrong person) - so you can use emails (with an automation to link to the correct student) or unique reference numbers (which you can make as a field which also creates an automation to link to the student - so that in the attachments (submissions) table you are connecting both STUDENTS and CHALLENGES

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R
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Hello - i think i can help here without an automation by using roll-ups if i have understood correctly.

Attachments is effectively a junction table between students and challenges - and is effectively their submission.

When a student submits their challenge - you need a way of linking this to the student and to the challenge.

This can be done by getting the students to select their name and the challenge number in the form (we will improve on this later)

Then you have the attachments linked to both the student and hte challenge.

You now need a way of marking the success or otherwise (could be as simple as a check box field - or single select or a mark % etc) - lets go with check box for now - your success box)

For a successful attachment (submission) you check this box.

Now in the challenges table - you create a LOOKUP field of Attachments which selects the name of the students CONDITIONAL on when the record is ticked as success

On the students table you create a LOOKUP field of attachments with the name of the Challenge CONDITIONAL on being successful.

Now it may not be great practice for students to select themselves from a list in the form (as they may pick the wrong person) - so you can use emails (with an automation to link to the correct student) or unique reference numbers (which you can make as a field which also creates an automation to link to the student - so that in the attachments (submissions) table you are connecting both STUDENTS and CHALLENGES

Hannah_Wiginton
kuovonne
O
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  • Hannah_Wiginton
    Hannah_Wiginton
  • kuovonne
    kuovonne
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    Olivier_N
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  • kuovonne
  • Brainy
  • 6002 replies
  • July 27, 2022

When you update the record, you have to include the existing linked records along with the new linked record, using a comma separated list.

In order to get the existing linked records for the student, you need to do a “find records” action to get the data for that student. Then you can pull the existing linked records for the student from the find action using the plus sign.

Hannah_Wiginton
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  • Hannah_Wiginton
    Hannah_Wiginton
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  • Olivier_N
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  • July 27, 2022
Russell_Findlay wrote:

Hello - i think i can help here without an automation by using roll-ups if i have understood correctly.

Attachments is effectively a junction table between students and challenges - and is effectively their submission.

When a student submits their challenge - you need a way of linking this to the student and to the challenge.

This can be done by getting the students to select their name and the challenge number in the form (we will improve on this later)

Then you have the attachments linked to both the student and hte challenge.

You now need a way of marking the success or otherwise (could be as simple as a check box field - or single select or a mark % etc) - lets go with check box for now - your success box)

For a successful attachment (submission) you check this box.

Now in the challenges table - you create a LOOKUP field of Attachments which selects the name of the students CONDITIONAL on when the record is ticked as success

On the students table you create a LOOKUP field of attachments with the name of the Challenge CONDITIONAL on being successful.

Now it may not be great practice for students to select themselves from a list in the form (as they may pick the wrong person) - so you can use emails (with an automation to link to the correct student) or unique reference numbers (which you can make as a field which also creates an automation to link to the student - so that in the attachments (submissions) table you are connecting both STUDENTS and CHALLENGES


Very nice solution, worked very well, better than automatisation !
Thanks !!

O
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  • Olivier_N
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  • July 27, 2022
kuovonne wrote:

When you update the record, you have to include the existing linked records along with the new linked record, using a comma separated list.

In order to get the existing linked records for the student, you need to do a “find records” action to get the data for that student. Then you can pull the existing linked records for the student from the find action using the plus sign.


I tried this but I could not do it. It don’t know if there is a problem with Airtable or if it is just me : I tried to search for all the challenges succeeded by the student but when I want to choose the ID of the student, it is impossible to click !

kuovonne
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  • kuovonne
  • Brainy
  • 6002 replies
  • July 27, 2022
Olivier_N wrote:

I tried this but I could not do it. It don’t know if there is a problem with Airtable or if it is just me : I tried to search for all the challenges succeeded by the student but when I want to choose the ID of the student, it is impossible to click !


Did you test all prior steps in the automation?

Also, I would do a search for the student record and get the value from there, not a search of the challenges table.

O
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  • Olivier_N
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  • July 27, 2022
kuovonne wrote:

Did you test all prior steps in the automation?

Also, I would do a search for the student record and get the value from there, not a search of the challenges table.


Yes I did.
Yes I tried to get the student record but same problem… I don’t understand why

T
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    tgrier
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  • tgrier
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  • December 12, 2022
Olivier_N wrote:

Yes I did.
Yes I tried to get the student record but same problem… I don’t understand why


Bumping this as I have wondered how to do this. In a similar case, I have a form submitted from staff detailing an incident. I or another supervisor compiles a report on a second table. If I want to send the completed report and insert data from the original report, seemingly I have to use lookups or rollups to bring that data to the report table. Seems like an inefficient solution. Would love to be able to automate with "Find Record" and connect without having to muddy up a table.

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  • aclayton
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  • 3 replies
  • January 10, 2023

Bumping this too. I'm trying to add the previous values along with the new value but Airtable is giving me permission errors - probably because I am trying to add a list of values which don't exist in the linked record table. If anyone knows how to split the list into individual values so they're recognised by the base, that would be super.

 

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