Create a new linked records directly through a form

Hey ​@madmills123,

You cannot do that natively using Airtable forms. You’ll want to (a) setup some automations to handle the record creation and linking on the back after submission, or (b) use Fillout forms which allow for linked record creation and have a simple Airtable integration (and their free plan is super generous). 
 

The latter would be cleaner in my opinion!

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation

Hey there!

Unfortunately, Airtable forms are very limited when it comes to linked record fields. I’d recommend checking out the miniExtensions Form for a fully-featured alternative! You can allow your users to create, edit, link, unlink or even delete linked records, preview and display them in different ways and a lot more! It also has full support for all field types in Airtable, including formulas, rollups and lookups. Definitely worth a look!

If you’re open to third party solutions I’d say just use Fillout and call it a day (https://www.fillout.com/), their free plan has 1k submissions a month

If you want to keep it within Airtable, my usual go to is to provide a link to another form within that form, and I’ve set it up here for you to check out.  That way users have the option of initially selecting a linked record if it’s available and creating one if not

Use a separate form to capture new contact details and then automate linking the submitted contact to the company using Airtable Automations.

​@madmills123 

Unfortunately, that is one of the major limitations of Airtable. It is not possible to create new linked records from a form.

You have 3 workarounds for this limitation:

1. On the first form, give the user a link to ANOTHER FORM which will allow them to add new records to the linked table. Then, they can come back to the first form to continue their data entry.
    
2. On the first form, in the linked record field, give the user an option to choose from that is called "new record" or something like that. Then, conditionally show additional fields where they can type in the new information. Then, use an automation to add the new record into the appropriate table.
    
3. However, your #1 best bet for this is to use Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable, which already has this functionality natively built into its forms.
   
   Fillout is 100% free and offers hundreds of advanced features that aren’t natively available in Airtable’s native forms, such as adding new linked records from a form, updating existing Airtable records from a form, the ability to create custom PDF files from a form submission, accept payments on forms, display Airtable lookup fields on a form, customize the style and theme of your form, add a login page to your form, perform math or other live calculations on your forms, collect signatures on a form, create multi-page forms with conditional paths, and much more.
   
   I show how to use a few of the advanced features of Fillout on these 2 Airtable podcast episodes:
   
   - Using Fillout to create an order entry form with line items.
   
   - Using Fillout to update an existing Airtable record & create an eSignature approval process with PDF file creation.

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