Copying certain data from a Parent record to a Child record

[BTB]

TLDR: A table with parent-child relationship among the records. I want child records to inherit certain data from its parent. I am trying to do this with Automations, without success.

We have an AI process that identifies individual Documents contained within a PDF file, and then extracts certain information from each Document. An example would be a 100 page legal contract with several Exhibits, Addendums, etc.

That data is imported into Airtable.

Some rows represent a File and some rows represent individual Documents that are part of that File.

I would like to set up an automation that will allow the Documents to inherit certain information from the File record.

Each Record has a FileID that is globally unique for each File, and a DocID that is globally unique for each Document. I can also identify the first Document in the file based on Page#, and the number of Documents in each File based on a Count from a linked table.

When a DocID has the same FileID as another DocID, I want the all records with matching DocIDs to be populated with a few different fields from the first Document in the File.

Is this possible? I can’t seem to see how to do it in Automations.

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Hi BTB, is there any data that’s unique to the first Document in the File?

If so, we might be able to accomplish this with:

1. Automation triggers when a record’s File ID is not empty and a field that we know for sure we’re going to put data in is empty
2. Find Record action that finds a record with the same File ID and has the data that’s unique to the first Document in the File
   • Thus getting the data form the first Document in the File
3. Update Record action that updates the triggering record with the data that we pull from the second step

There’s a whole bunch of assumptions here about how your data’s set up etc though, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this suggestion doesn’t work for you heh

If you could provide some example data that would be great as it’d help with establishing a pattern that would help with the creation of the automation (if it’s even possible, of course)

[BTB]

Adam, thanks so much for your help.

Oh yeah, great question. There is no field that is globally unique in the Record containing the first Doc of each File.

However, within a set of Docs that comprise a File, there is one, which would be the existing First Page of Doc field, where that field will always (barring a few edge cases) be = 1.

But to use that I think I would first need to know that a child set of DocIDs belong to a parent FileID, the logic of which would maybe be something like:

Create new

Doc FamilyID for RecordIDs having the same FileID (one automation?)

then

Flag (checkbox?) every

First Doc in Doc FamilyID where First Page of Doc = 1 (another automation?)

then

Copy e.g., Effective Date from First Doc to every DocID in Doc FamilyID (another automation?)

Okay, now I have a headache. Ha.

EDIT
My first step is dumb - I already have the equivalent of a Doc Family ID, which is just the existing FileID field, which of course is the same for every DocID that is part of the same File.