I have spent conservatively 3 hours reading posts and watching videos on linking records, lookup fields, etc. It seems that an enormous number of Airtable users are facing something similar - the need to automatically relate to tables but pulling data from one into the other. I have two tables, (Table 1) A table of submitted results/answers and (Table 2) A table that pairs each potential answer with a "response." So as a new record is created in Table 1 (through API with Typeform) with user email and user ID, the answers are now available in Table 1 - and each answer has an empty field next to it for a "response." I want Airtable to take each "answer", look it up in Table 2, and return the "response" - populating it in the designated field adjacent to each "answer" in Table 1. I cannot do this manually, where I create a link and then go clicking plus signs, finding the answers etc. I need this to just happen. I have found a workaround where I can create an automation triggered on record creation that (1) finds a record in Table 2 matching a field in Table 1 and (2) updates a record in Table 1 based on the result from the first step in the automation, but I would have to do this for every answer - there are 49 answers. When I test it with just two, there is a 5-10 second delay in the automation. Doing that across 49 would kill this process. I am sure there MUST be some easier and more straightforward "Vlookup" style answer here but for the life of me I cannot find it. Thanks in advance.
Another VLookup question (no solutions working)
+2
+35Airtable doesn’t natively support VLOOKUP functionality, but the answer is pretty easy:
In Table 1, just convert your 49 answer fields into linked record fields. Then convert your 49 response fields into lookup fields… each one would be based on its associated answer field.
Note that the trick to making this work is that you need to temporarily make the Answer field become your primary field in Table 2. (After the conversion, you can change the primary field back to whatever you’d like.)
If you’d like to learn more about linked record fields and lookup fields, you can check out my free Airtable training course, which you can take for free by signing up for a trial membership with LinkedIn Learning: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/learning-airtable/
Also, if you’re using TypeForm, you may need to use Make’s TypeForm integrations to get the data from TypeForm into Airtable’s linked record fields by turning on Make’s “Smart Links” option, which lets you send text into linked record fields. If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread.
However, your much better option than using TypeForm is to switch to Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable because it communicates DIRECTLY with Airtable, so it feeds directly into Airtable’s single-select fields, multiple-select fields, linked record fields, attachment fields, etc.
Even better:, Fillout is 100% free, and it offers hundreds of features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer, including the ability to update Airtable records using a form, create custom PDF files from a form submission, accept payments on forms, pre-fetch dynamic data from an Airtable record, customize the style and branding of your form, customize a theme for your form, display Airtable lookup fields on forms, create new linked records on a form, add a login page to your form, perform math or other live calculations on your forms, collect signatures on a form, create multi-page forms with conditional paths, connect a single form to dozens of external apps simultaneously, add CAPTCHAs to your form, and much more.
I show how to use a few of the advanced features of Fillout on these 2 Airtable podcast episodes:
- Using Fillout to update an existing Airtable record & create an eSignature approval process with PDF file creation.
- Using Fillout to create an order entry form with line items.
p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld
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