Hyperlinks in rich text won't transfer in linked records?

[GrahamW]

Hi there, 

We have a questionnaire for our clients to fill out where they deposit links to their corporate materials (decks, etc). These are hyperlinks in the table where we collect them, but we would like to be able to reference these on another table (via a linked record). Problem is... when we link those records, they appear on the second table as plain text, without hyperlinks. 

Am I screwed? Or is there a workaround that someone knows and can share? 

[ScottWorld]

Unfortunately, lookup fields, rollup fields, and formula fields all eliminate rich text formatting. Only rich text fields themselves retain formatting, so you could probably workaround this limitation by creating an automation to copy and paste the contents of the rich text field from one table to another. 

[GrahamW]

Hmmm... interesting... Like an automation that, if they've filled out the questionnaire, produces a hyperlink/button on the 2nd table which we can click to transport us to the Questionnaire Responses in the other table? 

[ScottWorld]

Oh, you could do that, too... that's probably the better way of handling it.

[Michael_Kruse]

I have an inverted but related use case - we have a form where course instructors are requesting a video to play in their class from a pre-set list. We have a table with these video options, and one rich text field in that options table has the link to the video plus some other text.

An instructor will fill out a form to request a specific option (selected from a linked field list), and we have an automation to send them the materials after they submit this form.

So, I need to setup an automation to copy the rich text field from the options table into the record just created in the instructor form table. I am thinking there is an intermediate step where AT needs to find the specific option linked in the new record from the options table, so if they choose video #2 they get the link to video #2.

Am I thinking about this correctly? Any advice on the structure of the automation?

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Hm, if they're already selecting the video they need from a linked field, could you use a lookup field to display the rich text field instead?

If that's not possible and you need to copy the rich text field values for historical purposes, you could try using a lookup field to display the rich text field and have the automation copy the value from the lookup field and paste it into the text field

[ScottWorld]

@TheTimeSavingCo As I previously mentioned above, lookup fields, rollup fields, and formula fields all eliminate rich text formatting. Only rich text fields themselves retain formatting, so a possible workaround to this limitation would be to create an automation to copy and paste the contents of the rich text field from one table to another.

Of course, an even better solution would be to use Make’s Airtable automations to do this.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld 

[Michael_Kruse]

After posting I spent 1/2 a day troubleshooting it and figured it out:

1. Course instructor fill out the resource request form, which creates a record in Table 2. This triggers the automation.
2. First, the automation does a 'Find Records' on Table 1 (the home for the various resource options) to pull up the option that the instructor requested in step 1.
3. Next, the automation updates the text field in the new record from step 1 to copy+paste the data pulled up in step. This copies over the whole text field, with URLs and formatting intact.
4. Finally, the automation emails the instructor a confirmation, including the specific text field from step 3.