automatically create multiple linked records from 1 record with merged values from different tables

[stenkate]

Hello Airtable community,

I'm trying to build a light personal content management tool, and I would really value your help. I've tried to explain the situation and questions as clear as possible below, and appreciate your help. Please let me know if you'll need a clarification.

Situation

The database consists of (among others) the following tables:

• Industries: each record is an industry such as [IT] and [HR]
• User: each record is a user with basic user info, and also fields like [language] and a linked field [industry] (from table [Industries])
• FeedPosts: each record is a content item from a rss feed, with fields such as [title] [text] [image]  and a linked field [industry] (from table Industries)
• Content: this is the table where I need help for: see below

Challenge

My challenge for the records in the table [Content]:

• Multiple records should be created: for each user with the same value for [Industry] which matches the value [Industry] from the [FeedPosts] table a record should be created
• Each record should contain:
  • the [title] [text] [image] from the [FeedPosts] record
  • a linked field to an user
  • lookup values such as [language] from the [Users] table

Example

One clarifying example:

• 7 users with [Industry] value = IT
• I create 1 [FeedPost] record with [Industry] value = IT
• ==> this should automatically lead to 7 news records in table [Content] with:
  • the [title] [text] [image] from the FeedPosts record
  • a linked field to the user from table [Users]
  • lookup values such as [language] from the [Users] table

Help

Can the above be done? My preference would be a non-coding out of the box Airtable functionality such as automations, but if you can help me with another solution such as Airtable scripting or make.com automation I'm also very greatfull.

Thanks for coming this far with reading, and thanks in advance for thinking along.

[ScottWorld · Accepted solution]

Sure, you would just create an automation that performs a find for the industry in your users table.

Then, you would use a repeating group to loop through the found users, which is where you would then create each new record in the content table.

What you’re probably missing in your automation — and which is probably where you’re getting stuck in your automation — is that you may not have realized that the “find records” automation action allows you to have dynamic find conditions.

When setting up your find condition, you have to scroll all the way to the right in order to see the little “gear” icon, and then you can choose “dynamic” from there.

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 

[TheTimeSavingCo · Accepted solution]

Yeap it's possible!  Here's how you'd set it up:

You'd use a Find Record to grab all the Users that had the same industry and then you'd use a Repeating Group to create one record per per User (https://support.airtable.com/docs/repeating-groups-of-automation-actions)

And so assuming this was what your Users table looked like:

Then this is how it'd look running:

Link to base

You'll notice I'm triggering the automation with a checkbox, and I did that as I was thinking that's the best way to know whether you've finished filling up the Title and Text fields!

[stenkate]

Hello @ScottWorld & @TheTimeSavingCo  thank you both (as I probably can say for this whole community 'thank you again').

The 'dynamic gear' icon was well hidden on my 14" screen resolution in the right side bar of the automation. But I found it, and together with your explanation, screenshot and demo base I was able to get this feature working. My explained situation was a bit simplified (e.g. I'll try to get FeedPosts in via an RSS automation and I also want each unique content record to be rewritten by AI), but that simplification helped me to understand this feature. For now I'll dive further into the documentation and polish my current working automation.

Thanks again both!