Skip to main content

Newbie in need of help

  • October 30, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 15 views
K

have recently signed up Airtable and have been watching videos on youtube trying to work out of what I am trying to do is possible but more important easy to do.

I would like to create a database that consists of 120+ trainees. All of the trainees work through 4 classes, Junior, Senior 1, Senior 2 and Senior 3. Each class has a 20 week syllabus and trainees complete one syllabus before morning onto the next one. I need to be able to track progress through the weekly syllabus and also to be able to keep a record of trainees achievement.

Would it be possible to do this with Airtable, and if so can you give me some idea of where to start.

2 replies

Justin_Barrett
Forum|alt.badge.img+21

Welcome to the community, @Kevin_Franklin! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:

Absolutely! :thumbs_up:

If you haven’t already started, I recommend starting by breaking down the problem into the discrete things that you need to track and making a table for each, though some data points might be combined with others in some cases depending on what you want to do with the data.

For example, you have trainees, so a [Trainees] table is obvious. Next you mention classes, so a “Classes” table is probably a good choice. Even though this table only needs four records—Junior, Senior 1, Senior 2, and Senior 3—I’d probably still make it, as there are likely things about each class that could be stored in those records for later reference.

For the 20-week syllabus for each class, my first impression is to create a [Syllabuses] table (or [Syllabi] if you prefer), with each record representing one week of one class and linking to the appropriate class from the [Classes] table. I’d probably use a formula for the primary field to combine the class name (from the class link field) with a brief summary of the week’s topic (a {Summary} field could hold this) so that the record names are brief, yet unique and descriptive.

To track each student’s progress, I’d probably build a junction table named [Progress]. It would contain a link field to a single student, another link field to a single entry from the [Syllabuses] table, and fields for any notes or other data that you want to keep regarding the student’s progress each week. (If you feel like breaking weeks down even further, you might consider inserting another junction table to track daily progress.)

All of these tables could also contain rollup and/or lookup fields to pull in data from the linked records, which would allow you to do things like see each student’s overall progress directly on their student record without delving into the other tables.

Hannah_Wiginton
kuovonne
K
  • Kevin_Franklin
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • November 6, 2021

Welcome to the community, @Kevin_Franklin! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:

Absolutely! :thumbs_up:

If you haven’t already started, I recommend starting by breaking down the problem into the discrete things that you need to track and making a table for each, though some data points might be combined with others in some cases depending on what you want to do with the data.

For example, you have trainees, so a [Trainees] table is obvious. Next you mention classes, so a “Classes” table is probably a good choice. Even though this table only needs four records—Junior, Senior 1, Senior 2, and Senior 3—I’d probably still make it, as there are likely things about each class that could be stored in those records for later reference.

For the 20-week syllabus for each class, my first impression is to create a [Syllabuses] table (or [Syllabi] if you prefer), with each record representing one week of one class and linking to the appropriate class from the [Classes] table. I’d probably use a formula for the primary field to combine the class name (from the class link field) with a brief summary of the week’s topic (a {Summary} field could hold this) so that the record names are brief, yet unique and descriptive.

To track each student’s progress, I’d probably build a junction table named [Progress]. It would contain a link field to a single student, another link field to a single entry from the [Syllabuses] table, and fields for any notes or other data that you want to keep regarding the student’s progress each week. (If you feel like breaking weeks down even further, you might consider inserting another junction table to track daily progress.)

All of these tables could also contain rollup and/or lookup fields to pull in data from the linked records, which would allow you to do things like see each student’s overall progress directly on their student record without delving into the other tables.


Thank you so much for your most welcome reply. I am going to have a go at creating this following your excellent advice. Once again I thank you for your assistance and knowledge.

Regards

Kevin

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement