Comma in a field

Hey ​@SenRath,

Should the linked record field support multiple records linked through it, or only one?
It seems that you currently have this setup to support multiple links. If that is not needed, you can just toggle off the “Allow linking to multiple records” and I think that should be it and work. -see screenshot below. 

 

 
Otherwise, you can go with Adam’s suggestion above which should also work!

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation 
YouTube Channel

Just for further context. If you allow multiple links and you don’t wrap your value in quotes Airtable will understand that you are passing a comma separated list of values. As your primary field on the linked table is probably a free text field, then it is creating the value for you.

Also interesting (at least for me lol): If you don’t want your automation to create new records on your linked table, you might want to have the primary field to be a fomrula which just references a different free text field. In this way when pushing values via the automation it will not create new records if one with such name does not exist.

Sorry if this is confusing, but this might also be a workarond (and even security check) for your system!

Feel free to reach out as needed if you have any question.

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation 
YouTube Channel  

​@TheTimeSavingCo ,
 

I put “Marketing, Communications & PR” within quotes and it seems to be working. I will test some more fields.

A different challenge: every record has a City field as well. I live in Canada so it is, for example, “Toronto, ON”.

When I check the Approved checkbox in Table A, it automatically creates the record to Table B. The problem with City field is that there are times when the automation splits the city and the province. So, it could be “Toronto, ON”, or “Toronto” “ON”.

My challenge is that I cannot use the solution for Marketing, Communications and PR because the sector fields are fixed whereas the city fields depends on what the original data. We don’t have a database of all cities in Canada, so if a new record in Table A has a new city called Washington, DC, the automation just copies the data from A to B but at times splits it.

Thank you once again. Greatly appreciated.

​@Mike_AutomaticN 

Actually, what happens is that when I click on the Approved checkbox in Table A, a new record is created in Table B with the same field data. I followed ​@TheTimeSavingCo and wrapped the field within quotation marks and it is working.

I am now working on resolving the cities issue.

Thank you so much for the tips.

My challenge is that I cannot use the solution for Marketing, Communications and PR because the sector fields are fixed whereas the city fields depends on what the original data. We don’t have a database of all cities in Canada, so if a new record in Table A has a new city called Washington, DC, the automation just copies the data from A to B but at times splits it.

Hm, I’m not really following for this one, sorry.  You’re saying that even when you wrap it with quotes, Airtable still ends up creating two records instead of just one?  

Any chance you could provide some screenshots and example data please?  Would love to help but don’t fully understand the problem!

The structure is as follows: I get data from a make.com workflow. Data is fed into Table A. Once I approve a record, the automation creates a new record in Table B and copies all the data.

The “Marketing, Communications & PR” field is working fine now.

I have a similar challenge with the location/cities field. The format is “City, Province”. For example, “Toronto, ON”. But when the automation runs from Table A to Table B, sometimes Table B separates it into “Toronto”, “ON”.  Not all the time.

The difference between the Sector/Industry field and the location field is that whereas the former has a set of fixed names that allowed me to wrap them within quotations, the location is dynamic. The workflow (from make.com) can find a new city and add to Table A so wrapping is not a solution.

I created a temp solution by converting the Location field from multiple select to text field and am currently testing it.

Attaching two screenshots of how Table A correctly displays the field while Table B takes the same data but splits into two.

Thanks a lot.

Ah the two screenshots didn’t attach properly I’m afraid

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The difference between the Sector/Industry field and the location field is that whereas the former has a set of fixed names that allowed me to wrap them within quotations, the location is dynamic. The workflow (from make.com) can find a new city and add to Table A so wrapping is not a solution.

Hm I think this is the bit that’s confusing me, sorry!

When pasting values into a linked field, Airtable attempts to create / link the records, and so even if the values are dynamic there shouldn’t be an issue?  Specifically, if we pasted in the following via an Airtable automation

"Toronto, ON"

It would either:

1. Create a new record in the linked table with `Toronto, ON` as the value
2. Link itself to a record in the linked table with `Toronto, ON` as the value

And so it would work whether it’s dynamic or not?

Mind if we get on a quick free call to discuss this?  I think it’ll go much faster with a screenshare and call!