Query re Primary Field

[Richard_Hayden]

Hi I have a question - Im a neewbie so excuse my ignorance. My primary field consists of 300 sporting fixtures throughout the year which take place at 26 different venues, so the venue is repeated throughout the year meaning the ‘value’ in the primary field is not unique.(one venue could have 20 fixtures) How do I deal with this as I’m worried this will cause a problem down the line.(from my research it states primary cells should be unique) I could merge the date and venue fields to the primary field creating a unique record for each cell? However, I suspect there is a better structure? I have attached a screenshot to illustrate my query. thanks

[Soly]

Welcome to the Airtable community @Richard_Hayden !

I would suggest to swap the two fields and place {Date of Meeting} as the primary field. Each meeting take place only at one date.

As for the {Racemeeting}, changing the field type from Single line text to Single select and adding each values, will bring clarity to your table.

Here is an article to help you setting the Single select field :

support.airtable.com

Single Select Field | Airtable Support

A single select field is ideal when you want to be able to select a single option from a preset list of options. IN THIS ARTICLE...

I hope that helps :slightly_smiling_face:

[ScottWorld]

You may want to create a formula field as your primary field, which combines both the race meeting and the date together. Then, you will see all of your most important information combined together in your primary field.

[Soly]

That’s a great tip @ScottWorld ! :thumbs_up:

@Richard_Hayden , to set your primary field as a Concatenation formula, you may check out this illustrated guide :

https://support.airtable.com/docs/using-formulas-in-airtables-primary-field

[kuovonne]

You’ll also want to use DATETIME_FORMAT() or DATESTR()in the formula for the primary field to get a pretty date.

[Richard_Hayden]

kuovonne:

DATETIME_FORMAT()

Scott thank you - I just completed you Linkedin course which is great. One further query - this text follows my date (see screenshot). What do I add to the formula to format it correctly. formula is CONCATENATE({RaceCourseName}, " ",{Date of Meeting})

[Richard_Hayden]

Thanks Kuovonne. You may have answered my reply to Scott but as a newbie Im not sure how to input the formula to format the date?

[ScottWorld · Accepted solution]

Hi @Richard_Hayden,

That’s great to hear! I’m so happy to hear that you enjoyed my Airtable training course! :slightly_smiling_face: A more advanced version of that course is coming soon in April 2023.

For others who are reading this thread in the future, the link to my Airtable training course is here:

LinkedIn

Learning Airtable Online Class | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

Learn the basics of Airtable, a spreadsheet-database platform, including how to create tables, use different types of fields, leverage views, work with records, link tables, and more.

Here is the link to Airtable’s formula reference page, which will show you how to use either DATETIME_FORMAT() or DATESTR().

For example, you could use this formula to format the date portion of your string:

DATETIME_FORMAT({Your Date Field}, 'D/M/YYYY')

[Richard_Hayden]

brilliant that worked Scott thank you and I look forward to your new course in April