Multi Select Checkbox Best Approach

[Ahmed_Elagami]

Hi Everyone,

Is there a way that I can have multiple select checkboxes, I read through the community and I guess there is isn’t and people are using a formula as a workaround. However, I can’t figure a formula works on my case:

I have 1 table with 3 different views, let’s say View1 “Stage1”, View2 “Stage2” , View 3 “Stage3”
View 1 has a multi check field “Move to Stage2”, by defaults records in stage 1 is considered “Stage1”
View 2 has 2 multi check field “Move to stage 3” and “Back to stage 1”
and View 3 has “Move to stage 2”
So they are
Stage1 “Default”
Move to stage2
Move to Stage 3
Back to stage 1

So, I want when the checkbox “Move to stage 2 “, “Back to stage2” ticked and Not Back to stage1 , nor default stage1 nor move to stage 3 gives me “Stage2”
The checkbox “Move to stage 3” ticked gives me “Stage 3” not ticked Stage1 nor move to stage 2 nor the default stage 1
The checkbox " Back to Stage 1” or “Stage 1” ticked gives me Stage 1, and not ticked " Move to Stage 2” nor “Back to stage 2” nor" Move to Stage 3"

Hence my service provider doesn’t recommend the checkboxes as they don’t want to go back and untick checkboxes, and if Stage 1 is ticked and Move to stage 2 is ticked, so how will they tick a checkbox if it’s already ticked before.
Is there a more logical approach to handle that case?

Thanks, Guys in advance, you are always a great help.

[Kris]

If I’m understanding correctly, you want to use a series of checkboxes to move your records through different views. If so, I believe you can simply this quite a bit by eliminating the ‘back to stage X’ checkboxes.

For example,

• Record is created and placed in “stage 1”. In the stage 1 view, filter records that do not have “Stage 1 Completed” checkbox checked.
• Within stage 1, you hide all checkbox fields with the exception of ‘Stage 1 Completed’ which you can check when that stage is completed. It will then be removed from the stage 1 view.
• In Stage 2 view, filter to only show records with “Stage 1 Completed” checked. In the view have “Stage 2 Completed” and “Stage 1 Completed” checkbox fields showing. If you complete stage 2, check that box. If you need the record to go back to stage 1, uncheck the “Stage 1 Completed” checkbox.

Repeat with as many stages and checkboxes as you want.

Does that work for your use case? It would simplify your flow quite a bit.

Cheers,
Kris

[Ahmed_Elagami]

Thanks Kris for your quick response, yea I know that logic and that’s actually what I am using at the moment , however that actually came as bad workflow from our service provider , as they don’t want to tick and search again for other checkboxes and untick , they just want a button to click or a checkbox they can select to move to another stage , Is there another approach to do this ?

Having multiple select Checkbox for me is a solution, because they will have to open that field to tick and untick whatever stage they want at a time.

Thank you for your time

[Kris]

What they are asking for is not something efficiently built in Airtable (to my knowledge at least). It’s also not very future-proofed. (For example, adding in additional stages will exponentially increase the number of buttons you need to display).

Is it limited to 3 stages? And do you have access to the scripting block?

I think your particular challenge may be best solved in Airtable using a scripting block to change an integer field for the stage number, and triggering the script to run using the Airtable buttons.

If I were you, I might try explaining the challenges with this solution to your service provider. Is a minor convenience (which in my opinion is actually more confusing to use) more important than their data integrity? Or are hours of your time making that change worth ‘potentially’ saving them a few seconds?

Beyond that however, maybe dive in to the scripting block if you need to make it work that way. I don’t have a script for you though, haven’t spent much time with that myself.

Good luck and sorry I couldn’t be of more help, maybe someone with more experience will suggest an alternate approach 😃

[Ahmed_Elagami]

Thanks Again Kris for your concern, I actually appreciate you take the time and reply to me,They are limited to 3 stages, No more will be added. I tried a lot to explain that to them , however they consider that as a system not a database thing.

I am still looking for a soultion " Multi select checkbox" or other approaches to handle the ticking and unticking in one time .