Looking for recursive link

[Arnaud_Merle]

Hello

When building a simple base of entities (Let’s say Peter, Paul & Jack), i add a column to indicate there’s a link between two (or more) of them. Doing this, i use a Link to another Record in the same base.

So when i’m linking Paul to Peter, i see Peter in the “link” column of Paul.

But no link appears with Paul appearing in the Peter entry.

Is there a way to link two entries in a simple bidirectional way ? It sounds so pretty simple, i can’t believe i have to do it twice for each link between entries.

Or should i use a graph tool instead of Airtable maybe for this kind of analysis ?

Regards,
A

[ScottWorld · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the community, @Arnaud_Merle!

Unfortunately, this is one of the current missing features in Airtable.

Airtable automatically creates the recursive link for you when you link to ANOTHER table, but as soon as you try to link to THE SAME table, you don’t get any recursive links.

The first thing to do would be to email support@airtable.com and let them know how important this feature is to you. The more they hear from us, the more hope there is that they will address this issue.

Secondly, you can automate this with a JavaScript. There are several different JavaScripts floating around out there that you could modify for your needs. Here’s one of them, created by Dan at @openside: Same Table Linked Records Backlinks | BuiltOnAir

Alternatively, you can also automate this with Integromat, which is a no-code automation platform.

[Arnaud_Merle]

Thank you very much for your time and this useful answer !

A

[ScottWorld]

You’re welcome! Glad I could help! :slightly_smiling_face:

[JonathanBowen]

@Arnaud_Merle - you can also use an Airtable automation to create the reverse link - have a look at this post which is on the same/similar topic:

Handling Spouses in CRM Base design

Hi @Marketing_Team - I would recommend option 1 where joint donors are separated and you can track them as individuals. But, to keep track of the fact that they are related I would have a linked column from the table to itself - like this: [Screenshot 2021-03-13 at 17.09.20] What you can also do if you have access to Airtable automations is “complete the circle” so that when you link Jenny to Jim, the link reciprocal link is automatically made: [spouse-link] There might be some work to do …