Automate to find record by record ID + link existing records

[Rachel_Hartley]

Hello,

I am trying to create an automation that would take a new record in my Table 2, and find the respective record in Table 1 and link the two together. For example:

1. In table 2, I have a new record, John Smith, that has been added.
2. In table 1, I should have a record, John Smith, with a different set of data.
3. I want to make sure that in Table 2, John Smith is a linked field from Table 1, to connect the Table 1 data to Table 2 data without manually having to do this each time.

I was referencing this article, but the struggle I’m hitting is that the “find record” action is never the same. It is all variable to what the Table 2 record ID is and then it should find the equivalent in Table 1.

Do i need to use a script to find record that matches the table 1 record in table 2? I’ve never used scripts before within automations, so help would be appreciated!
Any ideas?

[ScottWorld · Accepted solution]

Airtable has hidden this in a super-secret spot that 99.9% of people miss.

For your “Find Records” action, scroll to the right, and click on the tiny little gear icon (to the right of the find condition), and you can setup a “dynamic” find.

However, one unfortunate thing to note is that dynamic finds are only available for SOME field types. If you find yourself in a situation where Airtable doesn’t give you the gear icon, you’ll need to turn to Make’s Advanced Automations and Integrations for Airtable.

There is a small learning curve with Make, which is why I have assembled a bunch of Make.com training resources in this thread: https://air.tableforums.com/t/make-com-basic-navigation-tips/277

For example, to send Airtable record data to a Make webhook, check out this thread: https://air.tableforums.com/t/sending-airtable-data-to-an-external-webhook-such-as-make-com/159

p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire the world’s top expert Airtable & Make consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld 

[Rachel_Hartley]

I completely missed that little gear icon. Thank you!!