Base Design Help

[jherbert]

I have been using Airtable for a little while and can get the basics of what I need.  However, I'm now getting much more complex with multiple bases linked together and I'm having a hard time figuring out the best way to link my tables together.   In a perfect world I will have a table called Customers which has the name of each customer as the primary field.     

What are best practices for keeping this up to date?  If I add a new record (customer) to Customers table, how do I ensure that it will add that customer to all the linked tables?  Do I use a formula for the primary key in additional tables and then an automation that runs a script once a day to sync?  It seems like there has to be another way.  

Any help is appreciated! 

[Sho]

How about a record template feature?
Read about it here.
Using record templates in Airtable | Airtable Support

[ScottWorld]

@jherbert

Since you are new to Airtable, you might benefit from taking my free Airtable training course, which you can take for free by signing up for a trial membership with LinkedIn Learning: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/learning-airtable/ 

[kuovonne]

Are you linking multiple different bases together, or linking multiple tables within a single base?

In your [Customers] table, I recommend that you use a formula for the primary field value, in case you end up with two customers to happen to have the same name.

In your other tables, you should not be typing the names of customers. You should be linking to the customer. When properly set up, when you change the name in the [Customers] table, that change will flow through to the linked record field in the other table, and any associated lookups.

As for adding a new customer to other tables, that depends on your workflow, your data, and what those other tables are. If you always have at least one order associated with a customer, you might have an automation to create the initial linked order. But sometimes people create that first linked record manually. Other times people enter customers who might only exist in the customers table for a while without any linked records. It depends on your use case. 

I also recommend taking Scott's course.

[jherbert]

My solution here is to take Scotts course 😀

I am going to have multiple bases and multiple tables within each base that will reference customers and team members.  I am trying to figure out the best way to link it all together.