How to customize the visible fields when previewing linked records

[alberto_lia]

Hello everyone.

I have a link field with a one-to-many relationship.
The linked records have over 100 fields. I need to customize the 3 visible fields in the preview

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in order to make it usable.
By customize, I mean that I want to be able to select which fields to display in the card preview
Is this possible at all?
If not, this would be a very important new product feature as otherwise, the power of linking records is very much diminished.

Thanks for your help!

[ScottWorld]

The first 3 fields in your linked table are the ones that will show up there. Reorder your fields to make the right ones show up there.

[alberto_lia]

Hey Scott,

thanks for the quick reply.

I have 12s of views. Which view should I update?

[ScottWorld]

That’s a fantastic question. It only pulls from the very first view in your linked table. You can reorder your views to put the one that you want first.

(What this also means is that no matter how many tables/views of yours link to that “other table”, you will always see the SAME 3 FIELDS from that “other table” across your entire system. Which is kind of strange, because when setting up linked tables, Airtable even gives you the option to limit the record selection to a specific view. But when it comes to displaying those first 3 fields, it’s always the same 3 fields: first 3 fields from the very first view.)

[alberto_lia]

The first view I ever created?
I have no clue…is it there a way to see when a view was created?
Or should I simply guess based on the fields sorting?

Thanks again

[ScottWorld]

Like I said above — you can reorder your views to put the one that you want first. Click on the down arrow to the left of the views.

[Gabriel_Beaudo2]

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work that way anymore. Here are some observations:

1. Creating a new view with different fields in the 3 first spots and moving it at the top will not make any changes to the fields shown in other tables' linked table fields.
2. For some reasons and for certain fields, even you move them to one of the first 3 spots, Airtable won't use them to display information in other tables' linked table fields. This is the case, for me at least, for Lookup fields that contain a lot of information in at least one record.

Gonna have to take that back 😄

Airtable actually does use the first fields, but it also uses the view configured in Limit record selection to a view parameter now. 

Edit: also hiding a field does hide it in the selection view of the other linked table later.