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Form providing multiple record creation

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Howard_Cohen
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

I have an Hours table that records for each member (identified by email address) the number of hours they participate in an organization event.  The table consists of email address, event category, #hours, date, and two optional fields, event name and event id.  When members go to input their hours, they typically have more than one activity to report.  I want to create a form such that the member inputs their email address only once and then can input multiple instances of {event category, hours, date}.   I saw one possible solution that added another table linked to the hours table and allowing multiple records, but I'd prefer to not have to create another table for just this purpose.  Any help, guidance, direction would be greatly appreciated.

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ScottWorld
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

If you want to do this with a form (instead of using Airtable’s interfaces or data layer), you won’t be able to do this with Airtable’s forms because Airtable doesn’t support this functionality. 

Instead, you would need to use Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable, because this is one of the built-in features of Fillout. 

Fillout is 100% free and offers hundreds of features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer, including the ability to add an unlimited number of linked records to a master record, which is what you're looking to do.

Note that in order to set this up, you would need to have a "form submission" table in Airtable where they would type in their email address, and then that table would need to be linked to your "hours tracking" table.

Then, in Fillout, your form would be based upon the "form submission table", and you would allow people to add unlimited linked records to the "hours tracking" table through your linked record field (which would open a sub-form in Fillout for each hour tracking record).

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

Hmm, if your members are paid Airtable users, then you could use an Interface for this I reckon.  If not, then you'd need to use a third party form software like Fillout (https://www.fillout.com/) or miniExtensions (https://miniextensions.com/miniextensions-form-for-airtable/)

I'm assuming the Hours table is linked to a Members table?  The idea would be to create a form that edits the Member's record, specifically the linked field to the Hours table, which would enable them to add multiple Hours records within the same form submission

Sachin_191
8 - Airtable Astronomer
8 - Airtable Astronomer

Hey @Howard_Cohen 

You can achieve this without creating an extra table by using repeating sections in an external form tool like Jotform or Typeform, then sending the data into Airtable using automation. Here’s a streamlined approach:

Airtable’s native form doesn’t support dynamic row additions, but you can use Jotform/Typeform with a repeating section to collect multiple event entries at once.

When the form is submitted, automation (via Make.com or Zapier) can split the multiple entries and create separate records in the Hours table, keeping the email consistent across all rows.

If you prefer to stay within Airtable, you can collect all responses in a long text field (structured as JSON or CSV) and use an Airtable automation script to parse and create multiple records.

Kenneth_Raghuna
8 - Airtable Astronomer
8 - Airtable Astronomer

You have two options:

1. Use one of the third-party tools that others in this thread have mentioned.

2. Create an automation that uses the scripting action to create multiple records from one form submission.

Option 2 does not require using any third party tools, but does require you to know Javascript. You'd need two separate tables. One for accepting form responses, the other for parsing the form responses into distinct records.

Thank you (and Sachin_191, The Time Saving Company, Scott World) for the suggestions.  Does each commenter see this reply?  Since two of you mentioned the "FIllout" product, I am exploring that first.  But I am also interested in the reference to Jotform/Typeform and not needing an extra table.   I prefer to write as little code (airtable script, javascript) as possible to minimize the learning curve for someone else to support this.

To answer a couple of commenter questions:  (i) the members are NOT airtable users and (ii) yes, the Hours table is linked (email address) to a Members table.

If you have any further suggestions as to how to come up to speed on these approaches, that would be greatly appreciated as I find the initial learning curve somewhat daunting.

thanks again   

 

Howard_Cohen
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

I created a form in fillout that accepted email address and then added a subform to that form that accepted hours and date and allowed me to submit multiple {hours, date} multiple times.  The records added to the hours table are correct but incomplete because the email address is blank.  There was an option to have values from the parent form pass through to the subform but that did not seem to work either.  There is probably something obvious I am missing?