Hey ​@Elaine G,

Unfortunately there is no native easy way in which you can do that. As mentioned, search feature only works at a table level.

I guess you could build a more robust and custom solution using n8n (or other automation tool -more on these here). As soon as you scan the id, the automation could search the record on each of your tables, and re-direct you to the record’s url.

Would be interesting to see if anybody else has a different solution/approach.

Feel free to grab a slot if you’d like to go through this together! I’d be happy to help.

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation

Thanks Mike! I have scheduled a time to get more details from you.

Best,

Elaine

Hm any chance you’re on a Business plan?  If so, maybe you could try using multi source syncing and syncing all of your tables into one mega table and working off that instead

What’s your workflow after the record pops up?

Thanks! I love the idea of working off of one mega table, but when I tried to merge the tables using instructions online, I ran into difficulties (over 50 fields, not uniform across tables; formula fields that are different in different tables etc). 

However, I’m not familiar with syncing tables at all, let alone multi source syncing.

No particular workflow after a record pops up. Whoever has scanned the QR Code to access the record should be able to read through the record, edit anything if needed, and that’s about it.

Hmm, yeah the main issue will be the fact that the tables each have different fields.  You’re going to need to ensure that each table has the same fields, even if they’re not used in that table I’m afraid.  Once that’s done you’ll be able to sync all the tables to a single new table

Here’s Airtable’s docs on it: https://support.airtable.com/docs/multi-source-syncing

The docs should sort you out, but if you need some help just DM me and I’ll see what I can do

​@Elaine G,

Adam’s approach is interesting as well. If you want to give that a shot, I would not suggest syncing all fields from all tables if schema on each table is really different. Instead, I would suggest having very lean Sync Views on each table. Each Sync View would contain: ID, Record Url, and only any other really needed field.

On your target base (base receiving the syncs from multi source) you will only have such fields. 
When you scan a given code, the synced version of the record will show up (with limited fields, BUT with a url to the actual record (original record) with all data for it.

We can further discuss this on our call!

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation

Hmm, yeah, I think I wasn’t clear, sorry.  Not saying you need to do this for every field, only for the fields you need to see and modify

Like, if Table 1 has ‘Size’ and you need to modify that, and Table 2 doesn’t have a ‘Size’ field, then you’re going to have to make one for the sync to work

Thanks Mike and Adam! I think I mostly get the idea, but need to drill down further to figure out if it would work in this case...

Airtable mobile app doesn’t support searching across the entire base—only one table/view at a time. As a workaround, create a unified “Master View” with all records and no filters, or use a synced table to consolidate key data. Then scan/search from that single view.

Thank you HannahMaya. I think for that solution I would need to create a table with linked records (from all the other tables) and then a view from that?