Taking over from another colleague ... need to clean up

Ask the community Base design
#1

Hello, this is my first post, and to be honest, my first time with airtables. I do have extensive experience in excel, so that’s a start, right? hahah

I am taking over for a colleague who organized the information, but after spending 3-4 hours of looking at all of the “tables” and then reviewing some of the webinars, I’m pretty sure I need to start from scratch.

This is what we have … it’s a rescue for animals … (one table) and then we have people (the second table)

There are many different tables for each of the roles that people play. And then there are many many tables for the animals.

I want to have two tables - one for people, one for animals, and then I want to put all the people info in the people table, and all the animal info in the animal table.

The tables will be quite wide and have lots of data (about 1400 records of people and close to 500 of animals.)

Here’s my problem - all of these many many tables are linked records all over the map to other many many tables … I am trying to figure out how to take all of this data and put it into two tables, and maybe somehow keep some of these links.

I’m not sure if that is feasible, unless I go through them one by one.

My other option is to download all of the many tables into excel, and then upload everything back and format it afterwards with the links

Any input / advise / suggestions are welcome,

Thanks

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#2

Welcome to the Airtable community!

It sounds like you are off the the right start–analyzing the data that you currently have and seeing what makes sense.

If you are on a Pro plan, I suggest using the Base Schema app to get a better handle on all the linked relationships.

You might have to experiment. a bit before you find the tables and fields that work best for you. You say that the tables will be quite wide–keep in mind that Airtable has a limit of 500 fields per table, and if you have anywhere close to that many fields, you might want to have an expert look at the data and see if there is a better way of handling the data.

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#3

Thank you for the response. I am on a Pro Plan, how do I get the app? I found the information about it, but not how to install it.

Greatly appreciated,

#4

hi @Judith_Tennant,
once you are in an Airtable base, on the top right you see two options: Automations and Apps. You should click on Apps, then create new app. From here you will be able to search the app you want by name to install it.
Hope it helps!

Alessio
Website: alessiomonino.com
Email: alessio.monino@gmail.com

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#5
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#6

Hey @Judith_Tennant

Welcome to the wide world of Airtable! Once you start tinkering with it, you’ll find you want to use it for all kinds of things.

Can you post some screenshots of your tables?

That will help get a better grasp of what your base looks like.

1400 records plus 500 records really might not be too bad to export everything and add back into Airtable in the correct way.

Especially since you’re good with Excel. While structuring IS different than Excel, you could definitely do some copy/paste and make it work!

#7

Thank you for replying. I will get back to you later on Sunday. Just wanted to touch base to let you know that I will!

#8

This is the “main login screen”

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so these are all bases - but I have read that you cannot link bases

within each base are about 5-6 tables, and a lot of the info is repetitive.

So under parrot records we have these tables and then under “birds” we have similar information

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What I am trying to do is have one base for people and parrots and then a separate base for HR / CRM / Calendar, etc.

I just don’t know how / where to start, am a bit overwhelmed.

Thanks for any guidance, tips (feel free to post links!)

#9

Correct, you cannot link bases. However, you can sync a table from one base into another base.

It looks like the people and animals should be linked together, so I suggest trying to put everything in one big base rather than two different bases. If you find that there aren’t links after all, you can then separate them into different bases.

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#10

Hey @Judith_Tennant,

Yeah, Parrots probably should have been in the Birds base and then used single or multi-selects to properly tag info. You can then add a ‘Species’ single-select field or a linked record field and label it Parrots and change it for other bird types.

As Kuvonne stated, it does sound like having the Animals and People in a single base would make sense, so you can easily add a linked field to each other. Maybe just name the base Rescue Operations.

My question is this:

Are you tracking multiple animal species or just Birds/Parrots at your animal rescue?

You’ll probably find Linked Records and Lookups will help you also.

#11

Hi Hannah, we are only tracking parrots.

What we need to track is this:

people - volunteers, boarders, relinquishments, donors, adopters, phone messages

birds - the tables that you saw

HR - staff / conflict resolution - this should be separate from the other people as they are employees, not volunteers)

Communications - logo, branding, events

Calendar - from the communications - linking events to the calendar

Also - moving forward I would like to have automations set up with survey input. We will have a survey / adoptions questionnaire and the info would automatically populate into the people table.

I see all of these in one base … do you think this is feasible?

Thank you very much

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#12

@Judith_Tennant - It sounds like you’re on the right track.

Yes, you could do this all in one base. For HR, you may want that one as a separate base and limit access. It’s best to think about what would be good to link together and also, who will need (or should/should not have) access.

It’s hard to say exactly what you should do without knowing your organizational structure and operations.

It sounds like you’re off to a good start.

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