Hi All
My apologies if this is too simplistic - I’ve only got six months or so experience with Airtable…
I suspect use case doesn’t matter here, since my “issue” is at the record and field level. Here is the scenario:
- a form with some fields pre-filled is sent to a Client for additions and updates, is submitted by them, and creates a new record in an UPDATE table, separate from the main, “real” table; Clients often have no regard for “garbage in, garbage out”…
- a manual review of the two tables “side-by-side” is performed to make sure data in each field is the type of data expected - both in text and attachment fields
- an automation does an “Update Record” on the main table, using the data from the UPDATES table record, hence moving the new data to the Client's existing record in the main table
The result is that blank fields in the UPDATE table overwrite existing data in the main table. BAD RESULT! At present, ALL fields are included in the update record automation, since there is no way to know what data will be updated by the Client.
Writing a separate automation for each field is not possible, given ONE table has 50-60 fields and Airtable’s 25 automation per base limitation (seems restrictive…)
I think I have seen an “entire record to list” buried somewhere in the field selection part of the automation area, but it has always been greyed out. Not sure how/if that would help…
Is there a methodology, automation, or script that anyone has developed that they would be willing to share that would address the “don’t overwrite the field if it is blank in the source data” issue?
Thanks in advance. Again, my apologies for the “newbie-ness” of this.