Unique assignment of linked records

[mirkolando]

Hi Airtable Community, 

I have the following problem. I have a table with tasks and a table with projects.

If a task is delayed by x days, I want to display a timing risk in the project. The tasks are linked to the project. However, the tasks are repeated for each project. Therefore, they always have the same names and are not unique. If a task is now delayed, the automation cannot know which project the task belongs to. Do I really have to assign each task a unique name or can I use the record ID somehow?

Thank you and best

Mirko 

[Databaser]

I would consider using a junction table and take it from there, as it will solve the current difficulty of having many-to-many relationships and extra data to store with only 2 tables. 

More info via this support page. 

[TheTimeSavingCo · Accepted solution]

Is each task linked to a single project?  If so, yeah, you can use the linked Project record in your automation to update the Project record.  If not, there's no way to distinguish a specific task's status for each project, and so you'd need to utilize @Databaser 's recommendation to use a junction table where each task is linked to a single Project instead

You could also try handling this without an automation maybe?  Have a formula field that'll display said alert if TODAY() is 14 days pass the end date and the status isn't complete, then display that formula field's value inside the Projects table via a lookup?