Introducing Dynamic Filtering of Linked Records

[carla]

Hi everyone, I’m Carla – a software engineer at Airtable and I am really happy to share that we’ve added the ability to dynamically filter results in linked record pickers!  You can now limit the records that can be selected on a linked record field by configuring a filter based on the value from another field from the same record. 

For example, when assigning People to a Task, instead of browsing through the full table of People, you can now filter the linked records available for selection based on another field on the Tasks table, in this case we can use the value of the Skills Required field to filter the list of People to only those that have the relevant Skills:

How to configure

1. On a linked record field configuration, toggle on the option to Filter record selection by a condition.
2. Select a linked record field from the linked table and click the cog on the right to switch to a Dynamic condition.
3. Select a linked record field from the current table, and Save.

We’re rolling this update out over the course of this and next week; if you don’t see it reflected in your base just yet, hold tight, you will get the update very soon! This feature is available for Teams, Business, and Enterprise Scale plans. 

Check out this Help Center article for more details and instructions on how to configure dynamic filters on your base.

Let us know your feedback in the comments!

[Calvin_Young2]

Holy cow, this is SUCH a welcome feature.  Big thank you to finally addressing the community's need. 🎉

However, I'm going to hold off on implementing it across my bases until we can get support for single/multi-select fields and the other limitations that prevent this from being as transformational as it should be.  Relying on static string matching is not a robust solution and I'd rather not introduce new failure points.

Will the team focus on implementing these features or should I not hold my breath?  

[ScottWorld]

@Calvin_Young 

For those of you who have been struggling with Airtable’s limitations on dynamic filtering of linked record fields — such as no support for formula fields, no support for single-select fields, no support for multi-select fields, no support for date fields, etc. — I wanted to let you know that there are at least 2 external products that can solve these problems for you:

1. Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable.

Fillout is 100% free, and it is an advanced form replacement for Airtable that offers hundreds of features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer, including the ability to dynamically & conditionally filter linked record fields based on ANY field type in your Airtable base and any data that was typed into your form.

Additionally, Fillout gives you the ability to update Airtable records from a form, the ability to display Airtable lookup fields & Airtable rollup fields & Airtable attachments & formulas on forms, the ability to perform math or other live calculations on your forms, the ability to accept payments on forms, the ability to have multi-page forms with conditional paths, the ability to create new linked records on a form, the ability to display as many fields as you want to see in a linked record selection list (including attachment fields), the ability to connect a single form to dozens of external apps, the ability to limit the number of linked records that can be chosen, the ability to upload an unlimited amount of attachments simultaneously, and much more.

2. Noloco’s advanced interfaces and portals for Airtable.

Noloco is an expensive product, but it offers extremely advanced interfaces and customer portals for Airtable, and every part of the entire product — from linked records fields to views to buttons to reports — can all be dynamically & conditionally filtered based on any Airtable fields that you would like. Noloco even offers conditional coloring of cells.

Personally, I love using Noloco with my Airtable consulting clients.

I give a brief demo of Noloco on this Airtable podcast episode, and I gave an entire one-hour webinar on Noloco called Building a Client Portal on Noloco powered by Airtable. The CEO of Noloco also gave a demonstration of his product on this BuiltOnAir podcast episode.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

[Kelly_OShaughne]

As always, really appreciate the kudos, thoughts, and feedback on our newly released features! The product team is taking this all as input into our roadmap to make Airtable a more holistic and robust solution for you all.

[DavidTangier]

Hey all -

This is welcome news to see that this went live, and I had basically stumbled upon the Filtering when trying to:

1. have a "link to another record" (single line text type) called "category" to then display text items based on that "category" value in another "link to another record" - all the same types, but in the list of fields in the dynamic filter anytime the field is: single select, multi select, AND LINK TO ANOTHER RECORD - it doesn't show those fields. Why? The docs and this article clearly say LINK TO ANOTHER RECORD of same types is allowed...

2. I can do the same above and simply have a single line text field, manually type in the category values, and use that in the dynamic filter (which does appear as an option in the dynamic field area) and it works - YET THE DOCS say SINGLE LINE TEXT is not supported like that..

Is something broken?

I then went to use the Airtable Templates to try the above maybe using the RESOURCES template, but the dynamic filtering is not even where it appears in my bases...

NOTE: MY USE IS EXACTLY THE SAME EXAMPLE DEPICTED IN THE EXAMPLE POSTED HERE! THAT IS WHAT IS VERY BAFFLING e.g. Pick something from a list, then show options only related to that selection

Help...

David

[DavidTangier]

UPDATE 4/28

So, I tried a new base and new tables and the example works as easily as the above example depicts!

There must be a bug in that what I originally was using -

1. table built from sync'ed data = not supported I found out later = and doing the example w fields in sync'ed tables = fail 😉 so ok.... see #2

2. then I unsync'ed the table of data in the base from the original tables in the other base thinking it would UNDO the sync or remnants of the original sync'age - so thus making it like standalone table data in the new base, but it obviously when it comes to the DYNAMIC FILTER fields available, still thought it was a sync'ed table or something = fail ... but as I found with a fresh from scratch example per above, it worked, so must be something with unsyncing originally synced data...

But, this works - skills in it's own table, driving to people, driving to tasksthen setting assignee only shows options based on "skillsrequired" here in tasks! Cool stuff!

[Karlstens]

Thanks @Kelly_OShaughne 

Has there been any news on when further refinements to dynamic filtering might be publicly available for use?

Also, is there a beta program available to test/comment on said refinements before going public?

[Kelly_OShaughne]

@Karlstens additional improvements to dynamic filtering of linked records are currently in development and will be available in the next couple of months!

We won't have a Beta for these new features, but we will update the Community when we launch and keep an eye out for related product feedback. 

[ScottWorld]

@Kelly_OShaughne 

One of the top 5 problems with this feature as it currently exists today is the inability to mix & match field types.

You can’t even mix & match a linked record field with a plain text field or a single-select field.

So if you want someone to choose the make of a car in one linked record field, and then have them dynamically choose the model of the car in the next linked record field, Airtable forces us to create two additional tables (instead of one additional table) to make this happen… for a grand total of THREE TABLES just to make dynamic linked records work properly.

Airtable requires us to create one table for car makes, and then Airtable requires us to create a second table for car models.

Then, Airtable requires us to link both of those new tables together.

All of this extra work & extra clutter to simply get dynamic linked records to work in the original (3rd) table.

What we should be able to do is simply have ONE ADDITIONAL TABLE (instead of two additional tables) that lists all the car makes & car models.

In this one additional table, one column would be a single-select field that lists car makes, and another column would be a single line text field that lists car models.

In other words, you would just have one additional table that is simply a flat list of all the car makes and car models: car makes in one column (single-select field) and car models in another column (single line text field).

As you scroll through this flat list of records in this one additional table, you would see the car makes repeated over & over again, but the car models would be different.

Just one flat list in one table.

Then, back in the original table, somebody would be able to choose the make of a car from the first linked record field, and Airtable would let them dynamically choose the model of the car from the second linked record field.

All of this would be controlled by the ONE additional table (the flat list) instead of TWO additional tables.

Even better, back in the original table, the first field shouldn’t even need to be a linked record field at all, but a single-select field itself., meaning that we could compare a single-select field in one table against a single-select field in another table, and then have one linked record field be filtered based on that.

This is the methodology that all other database & spreadsheet apps use: Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Apple’s FileMaker Pro, SQL, Coda, Notion, Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable, Noloco, Glide, JetAdmin, MiniExtensions, etc.

Hope this helps!

— ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant and Enterprise Database Programmer for 30+ years