Help With Automation to Find Records

Unfortunately, that is not possible in Airtable unless you know JavaScript and write your own JavaScript code to do that (or hire one of the JavaScript experts in this forum to write the code for you).

This is, unfortunately, one of the many flaws of Airtable.

However, you can automate this with no coding at all using Make.com. It’s as simple as this screenshot below:

Hello Scott thank you very much for your help! Do you know if this is possible in Make if I am unsure how many records there will be? For example, some runs there may be 3 records to copy and some runs there may be 6, it just depends. Thanks again!

Yes, that’s how it works.

Also, is there a reason that you need to do this? Perhaps there’s an easier way in Airtable to get what you want… such as using “views” instead of automations.

You can do this in Airtable using a system of automations, and a linked control table.

Your first “find records” automations finds the records and then creates a new record in the linked control table that links to all of those records. If four records are found, all four will be linked to one record in the control table. This will also fill in the backlink field in your original table for all four of the original records.

Your second automation is triggered when there is a value in the backlink field (the link to the control table). This automation has actions to creat the new record in you target table. It also has an update action to clear the backlink field to the control table.

@ScottWorld Unfortunately, I do not think the views would help because basically, I have an inventory base. In the inventory base, I have two tables that are for storing available items for my employees to add. The first has the specific items and the second has sub-items that should be in the box of the specific item.
The items in the “sub-items” table are linked to the items in the first table.
Basically, I wanted a table where I could have a form that calls the first item by selecting it from a list and then puts the sub-items in another table where they can be viewed individually. Does this make sense? The views would not work because the first and second tables are technically static/frozen and will not be changed, whereas the third table will be where the sub-assets are copied to, where the sub-assets will be their own asset where there could be several of the same items in the one box. Thanks for your help!

You can do this in Airtable using a system of automations, and a linked control table.

Your first “find records” automations finds the records and then creates a new record in the linked control table that links to all of those records. If four records are found, all four will be linked to one record in the control table. This will also fill in the backlink field in your original table for all four of the original records.

Your second automation is triggered when there is a value in the backlink field (the link to the control table). This automation has actions to creat the new record in you target table. It also has an update action to clear the backlink field to the control table.

@kuovonne How would you clear the backlink field with an automation? Is there a formula that you input in your automation? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Use an update record action for the linked record field and leave the field value blank. When you clear the link from one side, it also removes the backlink from the other side.

@kuovonne That worked great thank you! My only concern is that when the automation deletes the field, it reruns the second automation because it is watching for the field to be updated which it is when it is deleting. In other words, where I should only create 4 fields, it is actually creating 8 in total. Do you know how to solve this problem? Thanks!

You are using the wrong trigger. Do not use the “when record updated” trigger. Use the “when record matches conditions” trigger.

Yes, that’s how it works.