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Question

Need Help with Two-Way Sync Between Tables in the Same Base

  • May 13, 2025
  • 5 replies
  • 122 views
J
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I'm struggling to set up a two-way sync between two tables in the same Airtable base: Clients and Campaign Management.

Here's the Setup:

  • Clients Table: Contains a full list of clients and their program levels.

  • Campaign Management Table: Used to track each client's active campaign status without cluttering the Clients table with extra columns.

What I’m Trying to Achieve:

  • When a client is marked as active on a specific campaign (e.g., Facebook) in the Clients table, that status should automatically appear in the Campaign Management table.

  • If the campaign status is turned off in the Campaign Management table, it should also reflect as turned off in the Clients table.

  • Essentially, the campaign status should be mirrored and editable between the two tables in real-time.

The Issue:

  • The "Sync Linked Tables" feature under "Share and sync" seems like it should work, but it's greyed out and unavailable when I try to use it.

Question:

  • Is there a way to achieve true two-way syncing between these tables without creating duplicate records or a manual workaround?

  • If "Sync Linked Tables" can't do this, are there any recommended automations, linked records, or third-party solutions that can help?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

    5 replies

    DisraeliGears01
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    Two-way sync is a feature utilized between bases, not tables. To link two tables in the same base together you use a Linked Record field. You'd just make a linked record field in your client table linking to the campaign. Then over in the campaign table you can create lookups as necessary to push information from client into that table (or vice versa.)

    ScottWorld
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    • ScottWorld
    • Genius
    • May 13, 2025

    As ​@DisraeliGears01 mentioned above, you would use linked record fields and lookup fields.

    If you’d like a deep dive into 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 free 30-day trial with LinkedIn Learning.

    Note that the course is very outdated because it was created 5 years ago, but the core concepts about linked records fields and lookup fields remain the same!

    Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

    BuildForAT
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    • BuildForAT
    • Brainy
    • May 14, 2025

    Hello ​@JessMayo!

    As the above two have noted, it would be best to use linked record and lookup fields in your scenario. Just so you know, the result of using lookup fields is that you won’t be able to directly change the campaign status in the in the Client. In the Client table, you would have to click on the linked Campaign, opening up the Campaign Management record detail, and then mark it as active. This is somewhat inconvenient but you always have the option of directly editing in the Campaign Management Table!

    ScottWorld
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    • ScottWorld
    • Genius
    • May 14, 2025

    However, one thing to note is that if you set this up on an interface page, you can actually view your linked record fields as a grid or a list, so you can edit the data (such as changing the campaign status) right there from the same client screen… no need to switch away from the client screen to another screen.

    - ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant

    Mike_AutomaticN
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    Hey ​@JessMayo,

    Answers above are correct! You’ll want to use linked fields and lookup fields (for more info on lookup fields you can read this article).

    As you seem to be just starting out, let me also suggest you take a look at this Airtable Best Practices Checklist. I find it specially useful for building nice and neat interfaces (if you follow Scott’s suggestion above, which I would suggest you do).

    There are plenty of additional resources, and Youtube videos out there that you should be able to find to further understand how Airtable works. e.g. even if on this video I show how to build a different use case (Project Management system on Airtable) I believe that it will still be super helpful as I discuss basic data base architecture, as well as linked record fields and lookups.

    Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation

    ScottWorld
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