How to copy a record with NEW linked tasks?

[Ariana_Marshall]

I create books, and when I create a new Title, i would like to automatically have 5 new tasks (another table in same base) created.

Is there really no way to do this within Airtable?

I’ve tried the very simple copy/paste of a phantom / placeholder TITLE record but then the original 5 placeholder TASKS remain associated with COPY TITLE, when I need 5 NEW (identical) tasks to be associated.

Any other options? I have a single user Pro Paid Plan.

[Justin_Barrett]

Ariana_Marshall:

I create books, and when I create a new Title, i would like to automatically have 5 new tasks (another table in same base) created.

Is there really no way to do this within Airtable?

Not without external help. Most setups that do this kind of thing—including this one created by @W_Vann_Hall—use an integration service (Integromat in this case) for the creation of the new tasks. There are lots of other cool things that can be done with services like Integromat and Zapier, so it’s good to get to know them. They both have free accounts, and you can do quite a lot without needing to pay a penny. If you want some guidance on setting up such a system, let us know.

[W_Vann_Hall]

@Ariana_Marshall

Just to be precise, while the integration framework @Justin_Barrett referenced was designed to be used with Zapier, it doesn’t require use of a SaaS integration service. In fact, development and texting was all performed using ‘pure’ Airtable.

Justin is correct, though, in saying that such things — that is, the creation of new records triggered by the creation of a record in another table — can’t happen automatically in Airtable “without external help.” However, in this case, “external help” can be a manual process in Airtable: In your case, you would create a {Title} record. Based on the template you have developed for new titles (which could be hard-coded into a formula in your [Books] table), a {TaskNames} field would be automatically populated in [Books]. You would then copy the value in {TaskNames} and paste it into {LinkedTasks}, which would be a linked-record field connecting the [Books] and [Tasks] tables. The act of pasting these values into the linked-record field would automatically create new records in [Tasks]. The Zapier integration simply automates this copy-and-paste action.

Integration with Zapier helps make the framework more foolproof, as the creation of a single master task record may trigger several recursive copy-and-paste actions; by letting the integration service handle that part, you don’t run the risk of forgetting to do so manually. However, the framework also includes an alert mechanism that provides visual alerts through either an alert field or conditional record coloring (the latter requiring an Airtable Pro plan), which can help prevent overlooking such a step.