Linking information between two tables

[Amy_Cusack]

Hi all,

I’m looking for a solution to an issue I’m having. Our business consists of running training courses and I have a client management base which contains an Organisations table, a table for individuals as well as a Courses table. What I’d like to do is be able to have the Participant field in Courses update with a name when I enter the Course History on the individuals record. Am I trying to solve a problem that can’t be fixed? Surely there’s a way to get the field to recognise that the Course Code has been entered in the Course History field in the People table. My hope is that I won’t have to enter each one manually every time. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ScottWorld]

Amy_Cusack:

What I’d like to do is be able to have the Participant field in Courses update with a name when I enter the Course History on the individuals record.

Your screenshot shows that the Participant field already shows the names after you’ve entered the course history on the individual’s record.

If you had to do that manually, then you created additional linked record fields that you didn’t need to create. Airtable automatically creates reverse linked record fields so that your relationship between tables goes both ways. I see that you have hidden fields — I would unhide any linked record fields, and you will probably see what you’re trying to see.

[Amy_Cusack]

Thank you for your reply. I’ve unhidden the field that is drawing from my People table however it is listing the names but doesn’t actually link them to the People record as it did when I manually entered them.

[ScottWorld]

Wherever your lookup field called “Name (from Participants)” is blank, that is because nothing is linked in the “Participants” field. When you link people using that “Participants” field, the lookup field will show you the names.

In your People table, you will see the reverse linked record field to that “Participants” field — it might be called “Courses”. If you don’t see it, you might have to unhide it there as well.

In other words, it seems like you have multiple extra linked record fields that you don’t need to have. You will need to delete all the extraneous ones, and just stick to one pair of linked record fields.

[ScottWorld]

p.s. You would probably benefit from taking my free Airtable training course, which explains linked record fields in detail:

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Learning Airtable Online Class | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

Learn the basics of Airtable, a spreadsheet-database platform, including how to create tables, use different types of fields, leverage views, work with records, link tables, and more.

[Amy_Cusack]

Thank you, that’s really helpful. I’m taking the course too, just wish I’d found it earlier!

I have one more question. We are in the process of switching from Salesforce to Airtable as our CRM. The exports from Salesforce are in CSV format but are encoded with ISO 8859-1. When I then import them into Airtable, the data isn’t all usable. Is there a way to import in a format that Airtable will decifer?

[ScottWorld]

I have no idea what ISO 8859-1 is. I would try to get your data in normal text, not encoded text.

p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you create your Airtable system, please feel free to contact me through my website:

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