Can I send an email to a record & button click in email updates record field?

You might try this one

Solved: Customer submits form and the new data is attached... - Airtable Community

It does require an extension which I've reached my limit right now, maybe I'll switch some things around and see if I can try this out.

You can actually do this without the extension, especially if you only want to prefill one or two fields (you can also hide the reference/record ID field).

Here's a video describing how to do this: https://youtu.be/_XPvXARpUo8.

Wow this is nearly perfect! Now I just need to figure out how to automate linking the second table back with the first and updating the record in the first table accordingly. Any ideas on how to do that?

Yes, that part is pretty simple!

After adding a linked field between the two tables, set up an automation that triggers when a form is submitted.  Choose the action, update record. Paste the value from the prefilled record ID field into the linked field and it should link automatically. 

I totally agree it seems like it should be simple! But I can't seem to figure it out and can't seem to find a good tutorial, any suggestions? Right now I putting an email field in both tables, so I could match those, but the automation process seems to look for a Record ID and I'm not sure what to do at that point, do I just pick the email field? Sorry newbie here, but a quick learner!

Another quick, but maybe obvious question: Is there not a way to do this with just one table and form? Does a form completion ALWAYS have to fill in a new row? Wouldn't it be easiest to create a form on my Contacts table that simply allowed the individual to update certain fields in their row entry?

Forms can only be used to add new records.  Check this documentation out: https://support.airtable.com/docs/use-case-update-records-via-a-form

I actually usually match by email (those tend to be more consistent than names), so you can do that. 
But I don't think you need to.  Take a look at this: https://airtable.com/shryorbYeeUnqt2x5  (Ignore the Dates table. The main thing to look at is the Automation.)

(If you do match by email, be wary of spaces inadvertently after the email. You can use TRIM() to take care of that.)

To anyone reading this!

If you have the same or a similar problem, I would like to hear from you.

I am about to launch a product to make combining emails + airtable smoother and save you and your team headache and a huge amount of records. I am actually looking for pilot users and I am in a stage where I am super open to more suggestions. 

To tackle the problem of the thread: My solution allows to just ask users to “reply to the email with YES or NO” and we would write this into the record. 


Features I am working on:
- Automatic status updates in airtable records based on email actions: emails sent, email opened, email received
- Automatically linking records to email threads in a shared inbox
- Assigning, searching, filtering inbound and outbound emails and files in shared inbox
- Updates to you and your team about inbound emails related to your airtable base in slack or discord: “User XX just replied to your email “Welcome email”, find the email here and the record here. 

If this is sth you are looking for or want to discuss, let me know!

 

Yes, you can monitor incoming emails to your normal email address — without the need for a special email address — by using Make’s advanced automations & integrations.

You can even give people button choices to click on inside of your outgoing emails by using Make’s webhooks and Make’s Airtable automations.

I give step-by-step instructions on how to set this up on this Airtable podcast episode.

If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread. For example, here is one of the ways that you could instantly trigger a Make automation from Airtable.

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

Great tipps ​@ScottWorld!