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I am trying to create a master editorial calendar to manage my organization’s newsletters, and I suspect I’m getting stumped by both the limitations of the primary field and how to properly use the lookup field when it comes to linking records between tables.

I want both an overall view of the entire newsletter production process in one table as well as separate tables for each newsletter and its respective issues. But I need the tables to talk to each other. The issues, deadlines and story lists should populate between the master production schedule and each newsletter’s production schedule. If a staff member changes a date or story in the newsletter tables, it should automatically be updated in the master list table. But every approach I try fails and/or creates a bunch of duplicate fields in a table that I don’t understand. Sometimes I can get tables to link and sync, and later it turns into a configuration error.

I feel like I need someone else to look at my extremely simple base to see what I’m doing wrong.

What am I missing to make this work?

Hi @Julie_Wittman. Let me clarify if I understand the structure of that you are trying to achieve. It sounds like it has a hierarchy something like this:

Master Schedule
_Newsletters
__Stories
__Deadlines
_Issues
__Stories
__Deadlines

If you could make a dummy table for the master list using ‘single line text’ or other ‘dumb fields’ (ones other then ‘linked’, ‘rollup’, and ‘lookup’) it’d give me a better idea of what our goal is.

Hi @Julie_Wittman. Let me clarify if I understand the structure of that you are trying to achieve. It sounds like it has a hierarchy something like this:

Master Schedule
_Newsletters
__Stories
__Deadlines
_Issues
__Stories
__Deadlines

If you could make a dummy table for the master list using ‘single line text’ or other ‘dumb fields’ (ones other then ‘linked’, ‘rollup’, and ‘lookup’) it’d give me a better idea of what our goal is.


Sorry, I don’t understand what you’re asking, as I’m not technically proficient with spreadsheet programs in general. Do you mean make a list of the columns in each table within the base?

Sorry, I don’t understand what you’re asking, as I’m not technically proficient with spreadsheet programs in general. Do you mean make a list of the columns in each table within the base?


Yep! That’s pretty much it.

Even more basic is ok though. Imagine you were explaining it over coffee and you only had a napkin to draw it on. This shallow level of depth is really helpful.

Yep! That’s pretty much it.

Even more basic is ok though. Imagine you were explaining it over coffee and you only had a napkin to draw it on. This shallow level of depth is really helpful.


I asked a colleague to take a look at my actual base, and she set up a number of views within one table that negated the need for multiple separate (but connected) tables that I had previously created. I think this approach will do the job well enough.

Thanks!

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