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Selecting a primary key

  • September 3, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 26 views
E

I’m at PBS NewsHour. I’m helping design a base for a media program in which we keep track of assets (videos, clips, release forms, fonts, photos). We’ll be making submission Forms for each. What would be a good primary key for such a table? Do we need each form to include that field or can it be left blank or somehow automatically filled by airtable?

Cheers Eli

    2 replies

    K
    • Kris11
    • Inspiring
    • September 3, 2020

    Hi Eli,

    In terms of a primary key, its not quite the same as a relational DB in that you have to create your own index. Each record will generate it’s own ID.

    In my own small business we needed an Order Number, and what I did was use 2 fields to create it. The first was the autonumber field, which will autoincrement on each new record. The second field (which I used for the Order Number) was a simple formula that added 10,000 to the autonumber, resulting in 10001,10002,10003, ect. You could probably do something along those lines if you needed, but depending on how you access/utilize this data, you may not need one at all.

      E
      • Eli_Kintisch
      • Author
      • New Participant
      • September 10, 2020

      Hi Eli,

      In terms of a primary key, its not quite the same as a relational DB in that you have to create your own index. Each record will generate it’s own ID.

      In my own small business we needed an Order Number, and what I did was use 2 fields to create it. The first was the autonumber field, which will autoincrement on each new record. The second field (which I used for the Order Number) was a simple formula that added 10,000 to the autonumber, resulting in 10001,10002,10003, ect. You could probably do something along those lines if you needed, but depending on how you access/utilize this data, you may not need one at all.


      Thanks so much! Appreciate it

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