Problem with record selection with an automation

[Claudio_Brenni]

Hi Everybody!

since start of the year I've noticed a change in the behaviour of one automation, that is causing me a lot of trouble.

In a table I've a formula field that generates the ID necessary to link the record to another one in another table. The automation copy this formula field in the link field and the association is done. The link field as the selection limited to a specific view. Up until recent, this automation as worked very well, but now is not selecting the linked record only in the specific view, but outside of it.

Sadly in the table that need to be associated, there some ID that are identical, so the association is not correct anymore. For this reason the selection on the link field on the first table was limited to a specific view, and it worked just fine, but now is not the case anymore.

I know that the better solution would be to change the formula that generates the ID of the second table, so that they are unique, but this have implications on all the base, and it is a really complex one. So before I start to change everything, I'd like to ask if someone as encountered this situation and found a workaround or a solution.

Many thanks,

Claudio

[Alexey_Gusev · Accepted solution]

Hi,
That's a first challenge I've met when started here. Limit to a specific view can be considered as a record selector helper when user choose where to link. When you paste or auto-update link field value, it ignores such setting. This settings, same as 'allow multiple links' (in the case it disabled) are not maintained at base/table level. When it worked before, it was coincidence - the correct link was first in the search order.

I would maybe use 'Find records' step, where Condition = name match formula ID AND other settings, according to a view. And then put the list of founded  record IDs (it supposed to be a single ID, but it's array with 1 element) into link field.

[Claudio_Brenni]

Thanks Alexey for your reply. Good to know it was a coincidence. I'll adapt my ID policy or my automation in order to select the right record.

It is a shame that it didn't work out of the box, because it would be really easy to program it like that.

Many thanks,

Claudio