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Automatically link value from one table to another

  • August 4, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 74 views
H

Hello! I am attempting to make a furniture reuse request system for my company. I have made a furniture removal form/table that generates a gallery view with the items available for reuse, and then a furniture request form that allows users to request furniture from the gallery by unique ID number. I would like to link corresponding entries between the two tables by matching the ID numbers, and bring the destination from the furniture request into the furniture removal table, to facilitate the move from point A to point B. I have made a linked column that allows the mover to manually link them, but I would like to do this automatically. I see several other people have looked for this functionality but it wasn’t supported in 2019… has any progress been made in automatically linking two tables via a function or other logic?

thank you!

4 replies

A
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  • Aernout_de_Beau
  • Participating Frequently
  • August 5, 2020

Hi Hadley,
Perhaps I have misunderstood your use case, but it sounds to me that there is another possible approach. It may be easier if you did not use two tables, but a single table with three different views and two different forms.

The main view would contain the total inventory of furniture. The second view, the gallery, would sport a filter that shows only the furniture currently available (and would have a form attached). The third view (and corresponding form) would be used for the removal list.

If this would suit your needs, I suppose the one view would hide the ‘point A’ column and in the other views several columns would be hidden. In case you also have a table with ‘users’, it would be possible to link more than one piece of furniture to a single user.

H
  • Hadley_Piper
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • August 5, 2020

Wow this makes lots of sense! I’m a total n00b and didn’t know you could use two forms for the same table-- amazing! This is so useful!

I will look into adding multiple forms to the same table-- do you happen to have a link to more info?

Also, I’m not sure what you mean about attaching the form to the gallery view-- my intention was to embed the gallery view on a webpage that also linked to the request form-- are you saying I can integrate the form with the gallery view? Is it possible for the user to interface with the cards in order to replace furniture (currently i am requesting users remember the item ID for the furniture they would like to request and enter it in the form, but obviously that’s a little clunky. Is there any way to interface with the table for a non registered user through the gallery view? I would prefer it if everyone in my org didnt need to sign up for air table to use the form, as that would be a real barrier for use for most users.

Thank you again for your kindness and help!

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer! I really appreciate it!

A
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  • Aernout_de_Beau
  • Participating Frequently
  • August 6, 2020

Wow this makes lots of sense! I’m a total n00b and didn’t know you could use two forms for the same table-- amazing! This is so useful!

I will look into adding multiple forms to the same table-- do you happen to have a link to more info?

Also, I’m not sure what you mean about attaching the form to the gallery view-- my intention was to embed the gallery view on a webpage that also linked to the request form-- are you saying I can integrate the form with the gallery view? Is it possible for the user to interface with the cards in order to replace furniture (currently i am requesting users remember the item ID for the furniture they would like to request and enter it in the form, but obviously that’s a little clunky. Is there any way to interface with the table for a non registered user through the gallery view? I would prefer it if everyone in my org didnt need to sign up for air table to use the form, as that would be a real barrier for use for most users.

Thank you again for your kindness and help!

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer! I really appreciate it!


[Introduction you may already know] In the Airtable philosophy, every table will have a number of views and views can take several shapes, such as a grid, a calendar, or even a Kanban view. Forms are also considered a view. In all types of view, you decide which fields are necessary and which will be hidden to the user/administrator. [End of introduction]

You can find the general reference in forms here: https://support.airtable.com/hc/en-us/articles/206058268-Creating-forms-with-Airtable, though it sounds like you already know most of the concepts.

Regarding the ‘attached form’, I have chosen my words hastily. In fact, I was thinking of much the same idea you mentioned (of embedding both gallery view and request form on a web page). Integrating the two may not be possible, but how about this:
(1) you go to the ‘user’ table and add a ‘link field’ that references the furniture table (named {furniture ordered} or so). Form the user table, people can select the record with their name and then, in the {furniture ordered} field, open the popup (with the blue double arrow). Then the user can click the ‘Link to a record from Furniture’ button to display a dialogue that actually looks like a gallery. They can then select one or several pieces of furniture.
OR
(2) you could create a gallery in which a user can click on an item, which opens the default form (containing all the fields). If you make it so that the first field they see is a link field named {requesting employee}, they can select their name right there. If they need more furniture, they can repeat this procedure within the gallery.

However, if you want to allow access to non-registered users, you will need to rely on the forms view, since non-registered users can use those, but can not edit fields in gallery or grid views.

H
  • Hadley_Piper
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • August 7, 2020

[Introduction you may already know] In the Airtable philosophy, every table will have a number of views and views can take several shapes, such as a grid, a calendar, or even a Kanban view. Forms are also considered a view. In all types of view, you decide which fields are necessary and which will be hidden to the user/administrator. [End of introduction]

You can find the general reference in forms here: https://support.airtable.com/hc/en-us/articles/206058268-Creating-forms-with-Airtable, though it sounds like you already know most of the concepts.

Regarding the ‘attached form’, I have chosen my words hastily. In fact, I was thinking of much the same idea you mentioned (of embedding both gallery view and request form on a web page). Integrating the two may not be possible, but how about this:
(1) you go to the ‘user’ table and add a ‘link field’ that references the furniture table (named {furniture ordered} or so). Form the user table, people can select the record with their name and then, in the {furniture ordered} field, open the popup (with the blue double arrow). Then the user can click the ‘Link to a record from Furniture’ button to display a dialogue that actually looks like a gallery. They can then select one or several pieces of furniture.
OR
(2) you could create a gallery in which a user can click on an item, which opens the default form (containing all the fields). If you make it so that the first field they see is a link field named {requesting employee}, they can select their name right there. If they need more furniture, they can repeat this procedure within the gallery.

However, if you want to allow access to non-registered users, you will need to rely on the forms view, since non-registered users can use those, but can not edit fields in gallery or grid views.


Ooo I like both of these! The caveat is that i work for a very, very large org and getting everyone to sign up for airtable is not really feasible right now.

Currently I’m just having our manager manually assign furniture requests to the removal request, and i’ve set up several views of the table for each stage of the process as to not overwhelm with all the fields in play. I’m jcurrently ust having users type the unique item id into the form, but what I’m thinking about is implementing is a function field that generates a URL that links to the furniture request form has the item ID of the item of interest filled out by default , so the user just has to type in their own info and not mess around with the ID. Still mildly clunky but probably the best I can think of right now.

Thank you so much for your help! I hadn’t realized I could generate multiple views of the table and that really streamlined my design! I appreciate!

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