Script to add new data to an existing list
Hi Mike, interesting challenge. I’m not pitching a solution; rather just thinking about the relationships between companies and investors because relationship binding is a useful learning topic for all Airtable users and applications.
I think this is good advice at the core of this challenge. I’ve often written about CSV imports and the typically flawed expectation that the data will magically organize itself and ingesting new data is a simple button click. This is rarely the case and using a custom Script Block to add the level of intelligence required to sanitize and normalize the content is crucial to a problem like this. It also offers you the ability to enhance the inflow of new data shaping it in flight rather than using formula fields and other adjustments that only add complexity to the process. You want your ingest process to be elegant and able to function when developers are not in the room.
Perhaps a Little Much :winking_face:
… but I’ll toss it out there anyway.
Visualizing relationships in a grid is often difficult. Airtable’s grouping and roll-up features are generally helpful, but even these views may leave you without the ability to discover things about your data that aren’t so obvious. If you anticipate only simple A -> B relationships, save yourself some time and stop reading any further. :winking_face:
Your goal sounds like it might benefit from a data visualization; not a chart or graph, but a concept known as edge-bundling. You basically re-interpret the grid data to interactively visualize the connected “tissue” between the companies and investors. In a solution like this, you can take it to any depth with a little data model planning. For example, subclasses of investments in tech, aerospace, logistics - could be exposed by simply running the cursor over class or subclass of interest and all the relationship lines will magically light up. Adding links to the discrete records in Airtable is a simple step that could provide an advantage as you browse for opportunities.
Vega-Lite Block
The edge-bundle shown above is currently not possible in the recently added Vega-lite Block, however many other data visualizations are possible as evidenced by these examples. Rather, this example is Vega (heavy) but every bit as compatible with Airtable data using the API or a script block to drive a web-based chart.
Good luck on your project and looking forward to seeing a snapshot of the solution.
