I want to revive this request and voice my wholehearted support. When searching for a record in a target table to link to the record in question, it would be extremely valuable (and awesome) to be able to enter search values that are looked up in other fields.

Generally, I would normally have to go to the target table, locate the record, note the value of its name field and then go back to the first table and use that info (in my head) to find the record. Or create the link directly in the target table which in many cases it’s not convenient nor preferable, and may involve back and forth review and look up (or a second browser tab). Definitely time consuming and awkward, but worse, error prone.

I hope this is pretty simple, you see my request, and implement it

Agree: I want to revive this request and voice my wholehearted support.

Some people have requested filter views be made applicable to the pop up box on the linked fields columns:

Filter on linked fields https://community.airtable.com/t/filter-on-linked-fields/507

What is being requested in this post (a search expansion) is a simpler solution than adding a filter for the linked fields pop up. Additionally this Search Expansion may help placate (for a little while) those who are waiting for filter views to be made applicable to linked fields (me included).

I would love to see this happen! It would make linking information a simpler process.

Ditto. Truly odd that it was programmed this way. This inefficiency is jarringly counter to the wonderful intuitive ease of the rest of the program. I assume it was simply overlooked. +1 for simply searching all fields for now.

Being quite a new user I just stumbled across this problem and I’m a bit shocked that this is already discussed here for such a long time and no one from airtable even reacted to it.

Somehow basic functionality that is missing.

I would also like to throw my support behind this feature. It would be great to have all the fields of a record involved in the search query when linking to said record. This would make finding the appropriate record much easier.

I’d use this most to link to donor records in a base managing my nonprofit. I keep the donor names private, connected to a donor ID. That donor ID is currently the only thing I can search for so to find a specific donor I have to go to the donor page and find their number first…not terrible but very inefficient.

Thanks!

This would be a really nice Feature.

I would Like to Filter the records in The search. F.e.

Link to customers

Customer ID

Gender

Location

Would be awesome to Filter trough it by Just typing:

Gender: male Location:us

Shows all man from us…

I agree a 100%!!! We desperately need to extend the search when trying to find an existing record from a lined table. Only searching for date in primary field is not enough.

For example: I have an “inventory” table with hundreds/thousands of line items. The linked table is my “shipping” table where I select items from the “inventory” for individual shipments. But sometimes I don’t know the PO (primary field in the inventory). To search for vendor name or other would be a great help to find the correct line item to be shipped. I guess there are many similar situations like mine.

Thanks for you attention! Airtable is great!

K

This would be a really valuable feature to add.

It would:

1. Speed up finding the record you need


2. Reduce manual error from checking the table, locating the record, going back to the link field, entering the number

Would love to see a response on this from the Airtable team

Any updates on this much-needed feature?

Very frustrating oversight in an otherwise awesome software. Searching by the key number field is not helpful at all. Thats about like searching the internet without DNS and having to remember all IP addresses. The search needs expanded somehow and soon! Please!

Does anyone know if this has been solved? Any work-arounds that might help? I keep coming up against this. I’ve been using a process of elimination to identify the correct record with which to link. There must be a better way. Expanded search view? Filtered search?

…re-ordering the columns in the table your linking to. This brings up the key info in the search box. This actually seems to have solved it for me. I’m only searching against 3 different parameters to find the correct record.

What I do to work around this is I use my Primary field as not only a unique id, but also a conglomeration of any information I might need to use to search the records.

So, for example, I have this formula in my Primary field of a table:

IF(

   {Next Eval Completed?}=TRUE(),

   " \n ",

   IF(

      IS_AFTER(

         {Next Due},

         TODAY()

      ),

      " ",

      " "

   )

) 

& {Person Initials} 

& " - " 

& {Certification} 

& {ASTM} 

& IF(

   OR(

      {AASHTO}=BLANK(),

      {ASTM}=BLANK()

   ),

   "",

   "|"

) 

& {AASHTO} 

& IF(

   OR(

      {AASHTO}=BLANK(),

      {ADOT}=BLANK()

   ),

   "",

   "|"

) 

& IF(

   AND(

      {AASHTO}=BLANK(),

      COUNTA({ASTM},{AASHTO},{ADOT})=2

   ),

   "|",

   ""

) 

& {ADOT} 

& " (" 

& DATETIME_FORMAT(Date,'M/D/YYYY') 

& ") " 

& ID

And here’s the resulting primary field:

You can see that at the very end of it I have a unique ID, for those instances when I know the ID of the record I am looking for. But usually, I need to pare it down by searching for a {Person Initials} first, then searching for the particular {Certification} I need, and by then I can get a visual indicator from the red, green, and blue emoji symbols I use to point to me which record I am looking for.

Works pretty well for me:

+50 Please take care of this.

This will be critical for our continued use of AirTable

Any update on this request?

4+ years since this request and hasn’t been answered.

Come on Airtable, this thing here is key for all types of scenarios.

One of the most important features!

Agree.

The lack of this feature will be the reason for not using airtable.

Yikes, this may be the difference between our entire company using this and use going with a completely different program. Why is this not implemented after 4 years???

I also desperately need this feature. I want to to create a share view without having to reveal sensitive information (which is my search criteria), thus my sensitive information has to move to another column.

Yes please!!! We are unable to use formulas in our Primary Field as we are replicating the data structure of another database (WooCoommerce) - would be really helpful to be able to search for products to link to without having to know their IDs off by heart!

Surely not the best way, but this worked for me - but it’s primarily useful as a one off:

1. Duplicate table (incl. “copy records”)


2. Go to duplicated table


3. Duplicate the primary field - create a copy of it


4. Copy the column with the records you want to search for and paste it over the primary field column


5. Create a linked record column based on your new primary field


6. Add lookup fields as desired


7. You can now paste values you want to be looked up into your linked record column


8. Then, your lookup field columns will populate


9. If you add your duplicated primary field as a lookup field, you can copy the column back to a linked record column in your original table, and it will do a lookup based on the original primary field

To be clear, this is of limited use, but it may work for certain limited use cases.

This is basic, BASIC functionality that is shockingly absent. Since yesterday, I’ve sunk about 10 hours into learning Airtable, but this oversight means it is time to look at other options.

A little baffled to see this issue unresolved by Airtable.

My inventory is grouped by order # and then numbered upon receipt.

Feels a little ridiculous looking up item #, making note and then scrolling through Linked Record options to select the correct record amongst all of the records with the same item # (but diff order .

+1!!!