I am trying to create a form to make it easy for a user to enter inventory for a list of items in another table. The goal is to make it easy for them to enter inventory for all the items without missing an item. It is possible to make a form for the inventory that lists each item in the items table as form items? Thanks.
+16yes you can, it should be a link to a record from another table (invetory) which you will include it in the form.
The problem with this solution, is that you are going to see only the first field of the record you chose. So if you need more details. i suggest you make the first field , in the inventory a formula to concanate more info.
for example: 1 Electric Chair , 2 Cupboards Etc.
Hope this helps
+2I added a link to another record, but it only seems to be read only. I want to show the item with a textbox beside it to take the current inventory. I am probably misunderstanding what you are suggesting. New to AirTable, so I don’t know where everything is. Thanks.
Wade
+13Hello @William_Wade ,
If I understand your scenario correctly, then no, this is not possible in Airtable.
Here’s what I think you are asking:
- You have one table of inventory items, perhaps we can call this Items. Each row of this table represents a distinct item type in your inventory.
- You want to “take inventory” periodically, which means filling in a quantity for each item.
You could certainly have a “quantity” column on your Items table and update that column whenever you take inventory.
But when you make an Airtable form, the form’s job is always to create and enter 1 new record (row) into a table. In this case, you aren’t looking to enter a new row, you are trying to update a particular column for every row in the table and that isn’t how Airtable forms work.
As a workaround, you COULD represent your data “sideways.” I don’t recommend this. But you would have a table called “Inventory” and each column of the table would represent one of your inventory items. In this design one row of your table represents a “count” of each items taken at a particular time. So all the rows together represent the history of item counts. Then, in your form, since each inventory item is a column, you could have a form field for each one of them.
BUT, whenever you need to add an item to inventory, you’d have to create it as a new column in the table. Further, this design doesn’t allow you to associate any additional metadata with each inventory item (such as the manufacturer, the unit cost of the item, etc).
Ultimately, I think the weak point here is that Airtable’s built-in forms are fairly basic. You might have more luck using a 3rd party forms extension but I don’t know enough about those to suggest one that would solve your scenario.
+2Hello @William_Wade ,
If I understand your scenario correctly, then no, this is not possible in Airtable.
Here’s what I think you are asking:
- You have one table of inventory items, perhaps we can call this Items. Each row of this table represents a distinct item type in your inventory.
- You want to “take inventory” periodically, which means filling in a quantity for each item.
You could certainly have a “quantity” column on your Items table and update that column whenever you take inventory.
But when you make an Airtable form, the form’s job is always to create and enter 1 new record (row) into a table. In this case, you aren’t looking to enter a new row, you are trying to update a particular column for every row in the table and that isn’t how Airtable forms work.
As a workaround, you COULD represent your data “sideways.” I don’t recommend this. But you would have a table called “Inventory” and each column of the table would represent one of your inventory items. In this design one row of your table represents a “count” of each items taken at a particular time. So all the rows together represent the history of item counts. Then, in your form, since each inventory item is a column, you could have a form field for each one of them.
BUT, whenever you need to add an item to inventory, you’d have to create it as a new column in the table. Further, this design doesn’t allow you to associate any additional metadata with each inventory item (such as the manufacturer, the unit cost of the item, etc).
Ultimately, I think the weak point here is that Airtable’s built-in forms are fairly basic. You might have more luck using a 3rd party forms extension but I don’t know enough about those to suggest one that would solve your scenario.
Good enough, I will try another way. Thanks for the answer!
Wade
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