Find last entry

Here’s my two cents:

First, if your definition of ‘last’ is the record with a maximum value of an automatically generated number, then you can make this work but it requires a work around.

1. You can use an Auto Number field in Airtable which will create a column/field with an autogenerated number for each record starting at the number 1.
2. Now to get the maximum. Are all records in ‘table2’ linked to another table somehow? If not, you may need to create a new table, for example ‘Calculations’, which you have a single record in. Then, link all ‘table2’ records to this single record in ‘Calculations’. Now you can use a Rollup field in ‘Calculations’ to get the Max(Values) for the Auto Number field in ‘table2’.
3. Then, in ‘table2’ create a Lookup field which references your ‘Calculations’ table Rollup (the maximum auto number).
4. Create a formula in ‘table2’ which checks if the record’s auto number equals the Lookup field (step 3 above), and if so, displays the record’s price.
5. Now, you can create another Lookup field in your desired table (linked to ‘table2’ records) which looks up the single value displayed in your step 4 column/field (the maximum, or in this case ‘last’, record’s price).

Long winded but basically, you are moving the data back and forth across 2-3 tables to filter/calculate the values you need.

Good luck!

Thanks Alex- that is basically the way i was thinking of doing if but was getting stuck. I think i need to use 2 helper cols to do this, as you say, one to accomplish the max value, and another to display the desired result, then do the lookup. Will reply back if i’m successful

I am unable to accomplish what seems like a simple request for a database. I’ve put a sample book here and would appreciate any assistance that can be offered. this is quite simple in excel and in other applications like fieldbook, but baffling me in airtable.

Basically, i want a vlookup to find a value contained on a related table where another value on the related table is the maximum. The scenario is quite simple- inventory may be owned by many investors over time, each delineated by an increasing integer (eg, owner 1, owner 2, owner 3, etc), and i want to look up the last (or max ownership number) investor’s price.

the book is here:

Airtable: Organize anything you can imagine

Airtable works like a spreadsheet but gives you the power of a database to organize anything. Sign up for free.

I am unable to accomplish what seems like a simple request for a database. I’ve put a sample book here and would appreciate any assistance that can be offered. this is quite simple in excel and in other applications like fieldbook, but baffling me in airtable.

Basically, i want a vlookup to find a value contained on a related table where another value on the related table is the maximum. The scenario is quite simple- inventory may be owned by many investors over time, each delineated by an increasing integer (eg, owner 1, owner 2, owner 3, etc), and i want to look up the last (or max ownership number) investor’s price.

the book is here:

Airtable: Organize anything you can imagine

Airtable works like a spreadsheet but gives you the power of a database to organize anything. Sign up for free.

Here are a few sample bases that use the same mechanism that @Alex_Wolfe described. You should be able to life code from them relatively easily.

Oh for heaven’s sake - this should be as easy as arraylast(value)! Shouldn’t have to jump through hoops and create multiple calculated fields to extract a single linked value from a database. Airtable Tech???

Yep – array functions are high on my list of most-desired features…

In the “Latest Note Demo” base (https://airtable.com/shrC0EP2qexnGNqMN/tbllOIbDj5gH1yfCL/viwPGxCYBzB0qR0O3?blocks=hide), could you share how you did the field “latestNoteDate” for each separate company?

The lack of basic functionality is more than a mild inconvenience at this point. I’ve only been using AirTable for a couple of months and am continuing to stumble upon these limitations. Should I expect them to rollout any new features in this arena, or are we stuck with what we’ve got?