Possible to filter records in "Link to record" field?

[David_Marks]

I'm trying to determine if its possible to have a "link to another record field" show you filtered options.  Right now when I select "Test Building" I see all the records (Buildings), within the "Buildings" table which is GREAT!  However, when I click the "link to another record field" labeled Suites, it shows me ALL the records within the "Suites" table.  Is there a way to be able to show me only the records/"suites" that are assigned to whichever building I select?

To Summarize, all my buildings are in the building table.  All my suites are in the suites table. I'd like to be able to see filtered options based on which building I select, as opposed to ALL the suites in the table.  Is this possible?  Thanks!

[ScottWorld]

Unfortunately, no. That has been the #1 feature request from all Airtable users for the last 6+ years, but Airtable has refused to implement it. It is a real shame that Airtable ignores its customers like this.

This can only be done with 2 external apps that I know of: Fillout and Noloco.

p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you setup Fillout or Noloco, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld

[ScottWorld]

p.s. You could send this as a feature request to support@airtable.com, but it probably won’t do much good. Everybody has been emailing them this feature request for years.

[Sho]

I really wish there was a filter like Rollup or Lookup in the Link to record field

[ScottWorld]

There actually is a filter for linked record fields, but it’s not dynamic. It’s static. And everybody really needs a dynamic filter.

[pressGO_design]

The low-rent cheaty workaround for this is to somehow use something that relates to the Building Name in the Suite Name. For example, let’s say you have 

Buildings A, B, C and Suites 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Suites 1 & 2 are in Building A, Suite 3 is in Building B, and Suites 4 & 5 are in Building C. In the Suites Table, the make the Primary Field a formula that (for example) concatenates buildingName dot suiteNumber. So Suite 1 has the primary field of A.1, Suite 2 is A.2, Suite 3 is B.3 etc etc etc. Then, when you go to link the fields, you type “A.” in the search bar at the top and you’ll see only A.1 and A.2.

If you need the Suite Name without the Building Name prefix, you have that as a lookup. Sometimes it’s a terrible schlocky way to solve this problem, but other times it works surprisingly well. 

[ScottWorld]

Yes, this is the best workaround that we have for now! Thanks for posting this, because I forgot to bring it up earlier!

[David_Marks]

Thank you for the feedback! Good to know.  Unfortunate that this has not been implemented.  

I'm OK with this at the personal level for bases, but not at the enterprise level. 

[ScottWorld]

Yeah, it’s a real shame. Most other database apps — and even basic spreadsheet apps like Excel — have this functionality built into their apps.

If you’re open to leaving Airtable, your best bet would be to switch to a truly professional database app such as FileMaker.

I used to do FileMaker development for 30 years, but now I only focus on Airtable consulting. However, if you need a referral to some top FileMaker developers, feel free to contact me through my website.