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Re: Help with linked tables automation

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Gchoto
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Hi everyone,

I'm new to Airtable and I'm trying to automate the process of updating fields in a primary table based on records filled out in a secondary table. Both tables share the same ID for each record. The primary table serves as my master record, while the secondary table contains five fields that will be completed via a form. I'm pre-populating the ID in the form to ensure consistency across tables. However, I'm struggling to find a way to automatically reflect the updates from the secondary table in the master record table as soon as a new record is created. I feel like there should be a simple solution, but I haven't managed to figure it out yet. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

2 Replies 2
Dan_Montoya
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hello,

Best practice is to not keep the same data in two tables.  It introduces data consistency issues like you are experiencing

Using a linked table you can use a lookup or rollup field to present the data in the other table.  

 

In this example, you can see that data from Donations Received table are "rolled up" and shown in the donor table. 

In your use case your form would create data in table 1 then linked to table 2 where you could "lookup" or "rollup" data in table 2.

Screenshot 2024-02-23 at 9.50.36 PM.pngScreenshot 2024-02-23 at 9.50.04 PM.png

Adding on the Dan's answer, once they're linked and you've added the lookup field, you could just limit the number of items shown to the last 1 so it's always displaying the data from the new record?

Screenshot 2024-02-24 at 3.27.32 PM.png