Creating a daily summary table - conceptual question

[John_Beaudoin]

This is a rookie db question posed to more experienced users.
Scenario: Every day I collect a fair amount of disparate data into several different tables using either forms, automatic integrations or a combination of both. While almost all the data in each table is unique to that table (which is why I use multiple tables), all tables have some summary numerical data that I want to collate daily in a single linked summary table.
Current suboptimal solution: Right now, the summary table uses the current date as the name field. If I want to link a record from a data collection table, I use a link field to manually select the appropriate date from the summary table. This would be acceptable if I only needed to link one collection table to the summary table, but not when I’m using five or six collection tables – the repeated need to link is depressing!
Goal: What I would love to do is simply use a formula – like today() or now() – in my collection tables and automatically establish the connection to the summary table by matching dates. Is this possible in Airtable? If not, how would you accomplish this?
Thanks for any suggestions or insights you can offer!
JB

[Tuur]

I don’t think so. It would be possible with something like default values, but the current implementation is a bit limited.

For stuff like this I’m using a custom solution. If you want to know more, please send me a private message.

Best, Arthur.

[Julian_Kirkness]

Hi John

One thing you could probably do (if you haven’t found a solution already) is to use Zapier multi stage zaps to read the data from your tables. perform any calculations you need (you may need to use a little Javascript for this in the Zap) and then post a new record for each day. The zap itself would be set up to trigger once a day.

Hope this helps a little.

Julian

[John_Beaudoin]

Thanks for your responses. I think the most straight-forward solution at this point is to use Zapier to copy only the relevant data into a master summary table within the base. I hope that the great folks at Airtable someday consider adding “rules” – conditions, triggers and actions – that could automatically copy/move data between tables (and bases!). I’ve written elsewhere that adding “views” and “rules” capabilities to an app increases its possible functionalities in an exponential fashion – and Airtable is halfway there already!