Linking two types of data in one table

Welcome to the community, @missy_goldberg! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes: Can you tell us a bit more about the data that you’re collecting? Are the volunteers choosing from a predefined list of tasks, or are they filling in text fields freeform? How are they entering/choosing the dates they can perform those tasks?

Also, I’m not sure that I understand your end goal of seeing “who can do which tasks on which dates”. Could you be more specific, perhaps giving an example of how you’d like to use the data that you’re collecting?

Yes, volunteer A is choosing to work on 6/6, 6/13 and 6/27; on those dates will hang signs and direct vendor to parking; and can work from 11-3 on all those date.

Volunteer B will work on 6/13 and 6/20; will hang signs and direct vendor to parking; and can work from 10-2.

Volunteer C will work on 6/6, 6/13, 6/20 and 6/27; will hang signs, direct vendor and sell tokens; and can work 8-3.

So I would like to see a final view that shows on each of those dates, which volunteer can work which task at what time.

Hope that’s clearer, thanks.

Thanks for the update. The way I see this working the most efficiently is with each record representing a single date that someone is available, along with their task choices (multi-select) and desired work hours (two single-selects for start and end times). That’s fairly easy to collect via form if someone can only work one day. If they want to pick the same tasks and work hours across several days, it becomes trickier from a data collection standpoint.

The brute force method is to build a form where the volunteers will need to fill out the form once for each date they wish to work. For example, Volunteer A will fill out the form three times—once each for 6/6, 6/13, and 6/27—choosing “Hang Signs” and “Direct Vendor to Parking”, and also choosing a start time of 11am and an end time of 3pm each time.

To reduce the headache for the volunteers, the form could be designed with a series of date fields—let’s say 5—that are conditionally revealed based on the number chosen in another field; e.g. if the volunteer says they can work 3 days, only 3 date fields are revealed. All of those date fields are only temporary, though, because the form would be submitted to either Zapier or Integromat for processing, with each of the entered dates leading to the creation of a new record with the same tasks and work hours. So the user fills out the form once listing three dates, and the integration system makes three records, one for each date. It’s the same end result as above, a little trickier to set up, but easier on the volunteers.

Once you’ve collected all the data, you can sort and/or group by date to see who’s working each day.

Thanks for the update. The way I see this working the most efficiently is with each record representing a single date that someone is available, along with their task choices (multi-select) and desired work hours (two single-selects for start and end times). That’s fairly easy to collect via form if someone can only work one day. If they want to pick the same tasks and work hours across several days, it becomes trickier from a data collection standpoint.

The brute force method is to build a form where the volunteers will need to fill out the form once for each date they wish to work. For example, Volunteer A will fill out the form three times—once each for 6/6, 6/13, and 6/27—choosing “Hang Signs” and “Direct Vendor to Parking”, and also choosing a start time of 11am and an end time of 3pm each time.

To reduce the headache for the volunteers, the form could be designed with a series of date fields—let’s say 5—that are conditionally revealed based on the number chosen in another field; e.g. if the volunteer says they can work 3 days, only 3 date fields are revealed. All of those date fields are only temporary, though, because the form would be submitted to either Zapier or Integromat for processing, with each of the entered dates leading to the creation of a new record with the same tasks and work hours. So the user fills out the form once listing three dates, and the integration system makes three records, one for each date. It’s the same end result as above, a little trickier to set up, but easier on the volunteers.

Once you’ve collected all the data, you can sort and/or group by date to see who’s working each day.