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I have a many to many relationship within Airtable and trying to link them.

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autowithjahid
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Hi, I have a many to many relationship within Airtable and trying to link them with the "Linked To" Field.

One distributor can be associated with either multiple manufacturers, or other distributors. A manufacturer can also be associated with another manufacturer.
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My goal is to find the most commonly used manufacturers between distributors.

The manufacturer is for Packaging Automation equipment, namely a manufacturer who has a machine that can fold up a box automatically, around 20 per minute.

There are many distributors though, that sell a box folding machine, but also with some sensors, some conveyor belts, and then maybe a machine also at the end that can fold the box, or stack the boxes, etc.

In my example (real life), there are manufacturer names Syntegon and Econocorp. And then there is a distributor called "Bay Pack." Bay Pack uses both Syntegon and Econocorp machines. And they also use another distributor who specializes in Conveyers, called SLR Systems.

I decided to keep everything in one table, but maybe best in multiple tables.

Assuming it's okay to have everything in one Airtable table, I want to add Syntegon and Econocorp to the Linked Field in the Bay Pack row. And if I do so, I want the Linked Field in the Syntegon and Econocorp rows to show Bay Pack.

I also want the reverse...if I added Bay Pack to Econocorp, then Econocorp would show up for Bay Pack.

And then if I delete, say Syntegon from Bay Pack, it would delete Bay Pack from Syntegon.

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Assuming it's okay to have everything in one Airtable table, I want to add Syntegon and Econocorp to the Linked Field in the Bay Pack row. And if I do so, I want the Linked Field in the Syntegon and Econocorp rows to show Bay Pack.

I also want the reverse...if I added Bay Pack to Econocorp, then Econocorp would show up for Bay Pack.

And then if I delete, say Syntegon from Bay Pack, it would delete Bay Pack from Syntegon.


Ah if you want this functionality I would suggest you separate them into two tables, one for Manufacturers and one for Distributors.  Links between tables will have the functionality you're looking for automatically, but links within the same table do not. 

You also mentioned that manufacturers can be linked to other manufacturers and that distributors can be linked to other distributors, but for the purposes of your original question of identifying the most commonly used manufacturer having two tables would solve this pretty quickly