Need a two-way link to other records in the same table.

Hey @mutleybones!

What you are describing is what is called a backlink. This is currently not supported by Airtable when linking a table to itself (which is actually a widespread need).

However, a workaround for it would be to have a script that will do the work for you living within an automation.
You can implement this specific script that was previously shared on the community.

If you need any help setting that up, I'd be happy to help out. Just grab a slot from my calendar.

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation

Hi @mutleybones ,

Love your use-case 🙂

If this is an option for you, you can make this work by adding a separate helper table to record the Avoidance relationship; with two Link fields.

Then you can make a Lookup on the Vegetables table on the Avoided in Avoidances, and tada 🙂

And another lookup field to see which are the veggies this one is avoiding.

If you prefer not to use a helper table, this would be possible with a script triggered on the Avoid field change. But it's both more complicated to set up and - depending on your package - automation runs are limited.

Hope this helps 🙂

-- Best, Milan - Automable.AI Free Airtable consultation

Okay, thanks, I'll give the script a whirl 👍

Okay, I'm going to try the script above, but I'll bear this in mind, thanks.

@mutleybones 

Two scripts that do this are available here and here,

For a no-code way of doing this that doesn’t require writing any scripts at all, you can create your own custom automation to create your own backlinks.

You can do this with Airtable’s automations, now that they have added the ability to “find records” in their automations.

However, I often recommend that people use Make’s advanced automations for Airtable, which gives you much more power & control than Airtable’s automations. But there is a very steep learning curve with Make (i.e. it could take days or weeks to learn), which is why I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread.

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