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Hello!

How to link tables, but to include info in form of linked variants to choose from?

Here is the deal. We sell cars. And need Airtable as a database to synch to our website. Our team members add cars to the database.

The question is:

How to make dropdowns in columns from linked tables, so they would “know” the previous column and provide an option to choose from a specific number of variants?

Here is an example:

We want to add a car. It has a lot variables, some of which are: “car maker”, “model” and “specification”.

I would like to have a columns dedicated to each variable.

But so if for example I choose “car maker” Mercedes-Benz, in the next “model” column I would get only Mercedes-Benz’s models, and after I choose, for example “S-class”, in the next column, “specifications” I would only be able to choose from that model’s specifications?

How can I achieve that? Spent too much time trying to solve that problem

Thank you!

Welcome to the Airtable community!

The “sub-select” feature that you want is not natively available in Airtable. You can get similar behavior using custom scripting to select your field value instead of using the linked record field directly. If you are creating a new record, you can also use third party form systems to limit linked record selection.

I once created a sub-select system that involved the use of a lot of back and forth rollups and a filtered view. However, that system was really usable by only one person at a time and was slow and resource intensive. I do not recommend it for most use cases.

Welcome to the Airtable community!

The “sub-select” feature that you want is not natively available in Airtable. You can get similar behavior using custom scripting to select your field value instead of using the linked record field directly. If you are creating a new record, you can also use third party form systems to limit linked record selection.

I once created a sub-select system that involved the use of a lot of back and forth rollups and a filtered view. However, that system was really usable by only one person at a time and was slow and resource intensive. I do not recommend it for most use cases.


Thank you very much for your reply, Kuovonne

What is custom scripting? Is that some kind of formula in Airtable?

Could you suggest any third party form systems to limit linked record selection? How would they add info? Through API?

And if we would need to change any values inside of the table after adding it with that form, we would use Airtable dropdowns like normal, right?

Mikhail

Thank you very much for your reply, Kuovonne

What is custom scripting? Is that some kind of formula in Airtable?

Could you suggest any third party form systems to limit linked record selection? How would they add info? Through API?

And if we would need to change any values inside of the table after adding it with that form, we would use Airtable dropdowns like normal, right?

Mikhail


Custom scripting is a way to run custom JavaScript in Airtable. It is not a formula.

Some third party form versions with tight integrations with Airtable are On2Air Forms and MiniExtensions forms. i believe that both offer sub-select, but I’m not sure.

2025 Update:

You can now successfully do this by using Airtable’s dynamic filtering feature and matching the same field types between 2 tables.

If you’re trying to add this feature to a form, note that this requires you to set this filtering feature at the FIELD LEVEL (i.e. for your entire base), instead of just setting it at the FORM LEVEL (i.e. just for your specific form).

It is often easier & better to do this with Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable.

With Fillout, you can leave all your fields alone in Airtable, and just setup a form that has this dynamic filtering feature.

Fillout is 100% free, and it lets you update existing Airtable records with a form or create new records in Airtable.

You can use Fillout’s dynamic filtering features to filter your linked record fields to only show the user the linked records that you want them to see, based upon other data.

Fillout also offers hundreds of other features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer, including the ability to update Airtable records using a form, create custom PDF files from a form submission, accept payments on forms, pre-fetch dynamic data from an Airtable record, display Airtable lookup fields on forms, create new linked records on a 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, connect a single form to dozens of external apps simultaneously, add CAPTCHAs to your form, and much more.

I show how to use a few of the advanced features of Fillout on these 2 Airtable podcast episodes:

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

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