Can I Import a Spreadsheet That Includes Link to Another Record Fields?

[bendickey]

Hi,

Can I import a spreadsheet (via Google Sheets or Excel) that includes "Link to Another Record" fields? When I try using the importer, it says the field type is not supported, but it's an important workflow step for how I'm using Airtable.

Thanks!

[Andy_Lin1]

I had to do this a couple of time and my workaround for it, IIRC, was to import the sheet into a "spare" table (one I kept just for import purposes), and then copy the data over to the intended table. Janky, but works.

[bendickey]

For example, say there's a Link to Another Record field in AT that needs to ultimately display "Los Angeles, Chicago, New York" (the city names are the three pieces of data pulled from another table in the same base). In my Google Sheet, it lists "Los Angeles, Chicago, New York", in a cell. Are you suggesting I import that cell into a field in another table that isn't of the type "Link to Another Record", just to get "Los Angeles, Chicago, New York" into the base in some way, and then copy and paste that cell into that original record of type "Link to Another Record", and it'll format the three cities separated by commas correctly?

Does that make sense?

[Andy_Lin1]

In theory, yes, what you're saying is the expected result. You'll want to double-check that Airtable has correctly parsed your "city" field – while commas are usually correctly interpreted by the import tool, there's a chance that your example will be interpreted as a single item ("Los Angeles, Chicago, New York") instead of three ("Los Angeles", "Chicago", "New York").