What's your best workaround for bulk-linking hundreds of records?
Hi everyone, I’m hoping to tap into the community's wisdom here because I feel like I'm missing something obvious. I'm currently working in a base where I frequently need to link a large number of records from one table to a single record in another. For example, I just added 75 new [Tasks] for a marketing campaign and needed to link all of them to the one [Campaign] record. My current process involves either manually clicking the '+' and finding the record 75 times, or setting up a fairly clunky workaround with automations that feels like overkill. It’s incredibly time-consuming and prone to errors. This got me thinking about building a simple extension to solve this once and for all. Before I dive in and spend time building it, I wanted to ask if this is a common pain point for others too. Here’s how I imagine a simple tool could work: * Open the extension and select the table and view you want to work on (e.g., the Tasks table and the New Tasks view). * Use checkboxes to select all the records you want to link. * Choose the target record from the other table (e.g., the specific Campaign record). * Click one button, and it instantly links them all for you. So, my questions for all you Airtable experts are: * Is this a significant pain point in your workflow, or have you already found a great solution I'm unaware of? * If a simple, clean extension like the one I described existed, would you find it useful? * Are there any obvious features for a tool like this that you'd consider "must-haves"? Genuinely curious to hear your thoughts and learn from your workflows.
Thanks!
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If I’m understanding you correctly, after linking it the first time, you should be able to copy it, select that column in all of the other records, and bulk paste it in. If the dataset is huge, I’ve found that it tends to hang if I paste too many at a time. I’ve got one table that’s about 17,000 records that I do this on, and it takes a half dozen or so batches, but works.
(Of course none of that would be necessary if you could do a link and lookup, or a query, of another table directly into a formula field, rather that creating all kinds of extraneous lookup columns with 17,000 identical data points, but here we are.)
Hey @TheSquire,
For linking multiple records to the same linked record I would just apply a filter on the view that will show only records that should be linked. I would then link one of them, copy such linked value, click on the header of the field to select all cells under such field, and paste the copied value! That should solved the issue.
However, I’m curious why your tasks are not being linked by the time they are created. Wouldn’t that be the actual issue you would want to solve? Either manually or automatically. Would you mind sharing some more context on your use case? I’d love to help you find a better workflow!
If I’m understanding you correctly, after linking it the first time, you should be able to copy it, select that column in all of the other records, and bulk paste it in. If the dataset is huge, I’ve found that it tends to hang if I paste too many at a time. I’ve got one table that’s about 17,000 records that I do this on, and it takes a half dozen or so batches, but works.
(Of course none of that would be necessary if you could do a link and lookup, or a query, of another table directly into a formula field, rather that creating all kinds of extraneous lookup columns with 17,000 identical data points, but here we are.)
Thanks so much for this – this is super helpful!
Ah, the classic copy/paste method. I've definitely tried that, and just like you said, I've also found it tends to hang and get sluggish with larger datasets, forcing me to do it in batches. It's what made me wish for a simple "select records > link" button that could just handle the batching cleanly in the background.
And I completely agree with your point about formulas/lookups – if only! Thanks again for sharing your process.
Hey @TheSquire,
For linking multiple records to the same linked record I would just apply a filter on the view that will show only records that should be linked. I would then link one of them, copy such linked value, click on the header of the field to select all cells under such field, and paste the copied value! That should solved the issue.
However, I’m curious why your tasks are not being linked by the time they are created. Wouldn’t that be the actual issue you would want to solve? Either manually or automatically. Would you mind sharing some more context on your use case? I’d love to help you find a better workflow!
Thanks so much, Mike! I really appreciate you taking the time to detail that copy/paste method. It's a great workaround.
That's a fantastic question about why the records aren't being linked at creation. You're right that in a perfect world, they would be. My most common use cases for this are actually the "messier" scenarios:
After importing a CSV: For example, importing a list of 200 new tasks and needing to assign them all to an existing project.
Restructuring a base: Deciding to link a whole backlog of existing records to a new category or project that didn't exist before.
So while I try to solve for it at the point-of-creation where possible, I keep running into these "post-creation cleanup" and batch-processing situations.
Does that make sense? I'd be curious to know if you run into those kinds of scenarios too. Thanks again for the help!
Hey @TheSquire!
Thanks for sharing. I see how that could be an issue.
Re: After importing a CSV. For this specific case, and assuming all of those records would correspond to the same project, I would highly suggest to include the Project name on every row before actually doing the import. If you do so, by the time you do the import the records will become automatically linked to your project! Right? -make sure to be using Airtable’s CSV Import extension :D
Re: Restructuring. Yes, this is kind of a pain lol. If copying and pasting does not get the issue solved given lags, you might want to create a simple automation: Find records (within the view that you set up), repeating group (meaning for each record do the following...), Update record (assign corresponding project, hardcoded on your automation). Given the find records and the repeating group (which do have a limit to the amount of records they can handle, but it is still huge) you would not have e.g. 10,000 automation runs for 10,000 records, but just one run for 10,000 records. Does that make sense?
Let me know if you’d like to go through this together on a quick call (you can grab a slot using this link). I’d be happy to show you around.
Hi, No, it’s a very simple task, doable within seconds, and you don’t need any scripts or automations.
(Update: now I see that you have same answer already, but I cannot delete my answer, only edit, so be it)
just filter the table with 75 records, so that only these 75 are visible. Select random single record. Don’t use “{Link field} is empty” in filter or use it like this:
link this record to a single record where you need to link other 74. Copy linked cell and paste it to the whole field (i use Ctrl+C , Ctrl+V for that)
