any suggestions for creating flexible post-surveys base

What you're describing is a normalization problem and Airtable can handle it, just not with the single flat table approach you have now. The way I'd structure this is three tables: a Questions table (the question text, question type, category), a Trainings table (each training as a record), and a junction table called something like Training Questions that links which questions were used in which training. Your form then pulls from the junction table filtered by training. The 144 hidden fields problem goes away because you're no longer storing answers as fields, you're storing them as records. The tradeoff is that your reporting gets a bit more complex since answers live in rows instead of columns, but it's way more scalable and actually searchable.

If you want to keep forms native to Airtable this works fine. If you need more flexibility on the form side, pairing this structure with a form tool that reads from Airtable via API gives you even more control over which questions surface per training.

thanks for this suggestion! give me a little more info about how to set up the Junction table? here’s what i’ve got so far (just playing with concept):

Yes, setting it up as a junction table would be the way to go.

However, Airtable won’t give your users a way to edit those linked records from a form.

To do that, you would want to use Fillout (which is 100% free), and it gives your users the ability to view/edit linked records from a form.

Hope this helps! :)

- ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant

Hey ​@cori_parrish1!

Building on top of what ​@ScottWorld mentioned, this is the exact use case I built on Zite (Fillout’s “AI APP” product) a few weeks ago. See a couple of screenshots below. 

 

My AT architecture handles Skills and Skill Submissions.

My Zite app will show for the corresponding Imapctathon, the only the corresponding skills, and for each it will create Skill submissions records linked to the user signing up.

 

Feel free to grab a slot if you need any help setting this up! I’d be happy to show you around.

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation 
YouTube Channel ​​​​​​​

i still don’t get how to set up the junction table. can one of y’all give me just a couple more sentences on what the fields are in that table? thanks & sorry to be dense!

I don’t have the full picture, so you might want to tweak the following a bit, but I’d suggest the following structure of tables:

Contacts
Training
Signups
Questions
Answers

Contacts is linked to Signups
Signups is linked to Training
Questions is linked to Training (this is you “list of questions”)
Answers is linked to Signups and to Questions (this is you junciton table. You get one record per answer per question for each training).

You can check out the video below for more info on junction tables!

 

Does this make sense?

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation 
YouTube Channel 

this is great, thank you all so much! i made my junction base & now i’m confused about how to get it into a form, either within Airtable or in fillout. (i’m not sure if this is too much help i’m needing, so open to feedback if so)

if not, any other ideas to better keep track of the questions we’re using for each survey?

You could try using a script extension for this!  You’d create a new table where each record represents a single field, and then use the table.fields model to grab all the fields and create one record per field

https://airtable.com/developers/scripting/api/table#fields

I’ve set it up here for you to check out

let settings = input.config({
    title: "Create one record per field",
    items: [
        input.config.table("questionsTable", { label: "Table that contains the questions" }),
        input.config.table("fieldsTable", { label: "Table that contains one record per question" }),
        input.config.field("nameField", { parentTable: "fieldsTable", label: "Field to put the name of the question" }),
        input.config.field("typeField", { parentTable: "fieldsTable", label: "Field to put the field type of the question" }),
    ],
});

let { questionsTable, fieldsTable, nameField, typeField } = settings;

// get all fields from the source table
let sourceFields = questionsTable.fields;

// build records to create
let recordsToCreate = sourceFields.map(field => ({
    fields: {
        [nameField.id]: field.name,
        [typeField.id]: field.type,
    }
}));

while (recordsToCreate.length > 0) {
    await fieldsTable.createRecordsAsync(recordsToCreate.slice(0, 50));
    recordsToCreate = recordsToCreate.slice(50);
}

Hey ​@cori_parrish1,

Great! You have the first step. For the form creation I would highly suggest: Avoiding Airtable custom forms (you will not be able to get this done via native forms). Use Zite.

Open Zite.
Create a new App.
 

Connect your airtable base and table.
 

 Prompt the system what you need using their “Plan” mode first.
 

Then use “Build it” when the plan looks good enough!

Important note:
You can decide to have (i) generic url, and heve the contact provide their email address and then you set up an automation or manually map the corresponding person to the feedback record, or (ii) have dynamic urls which include a url parameter such as “?person={person record id}” and to pre-populate the person field on the back. 

If the latter, you’ll have to create a formula in airtable to construct this.

For sure your url will need to capture training parameter, as depending on which training we are talking about which questions should be asked. Also discuss this with Zite.

Additional suggestion: You might want to have some back and forth with Claude before pushing your initial prompt to Zite as not to spend too many credits nor messages (limited on the free plan) just brainstoriming!

Feel free to reach out as needed!

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation 
YouTube Channel 

thank you everyone for the suggestions! i may follow up with folks who have offered it in the coming weeks as i have a chance to try to work more on this project. i deeply appreciate you all!