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Hello

I need a formula which can display which checkbox which was modified FIRST.

my idea was to create multiple checkboxes for multiple staff, and we need a way to see which staff ticked their checkbox FIRST and display that as a field.


So multiple checkboxes [E.G Adam, Su, Ivy]

then a last modified field for each of these checkboxes.

Then a custom formula which can see which one of these last modified fields is the OLDEST down to the second.


One problem i forsee if they happened within the same second, does airtable deal with nanoseconds?


Any help would be appreciated

With Airtable’s formulas, the only way to compare is by nesting IF() functions. If you’ve got two checkboxes, the test is pretty easy: if A is less than B then output “A, B”; otherwise output “B, A”. With each comparison to make after that, though, the number of necessary tests grows dramatically. A three-option test has six possible configurations:


IF(AND(A < B, B < C), "A, B, C",

IF(AND(A < C, C < 😎, "A, C, B",

IF(AND(B < A, A < C), "B, A, C",

IF(AND(B < C, C < A), "B, C, A",

IF(AND(C < A, A < 😎, "C, A, B",

IF(AND(C < B, B < A), "C, B, A"))))))

Want to test four options? There are 24 configurations. Five options? 120 configurations. And don’t forget that if someone hasn’t checked a box yet, you have to include logic to account for that. Long story short: it gets very messy very quickly.


TL;DR - I don’t recommend attempting this using a formula field. Look into a scripting solution—either in the Scripting app, or in a “Run script” action in an automation—where you can tap into the built-in sorting features of the JavaScript language.

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