Write total row count of 1 table to another table

[VoodooGuru]

Beginner here, first post - certainly not the last.  What I am needing seems like it should be simple, but the solution is evading me.
What I'm looking to implement is a way to find the total number of rows (volunteers) from table A and write that into table B once a week so I can track the total number of volunteers over time.

I have linked both tables but no matter what field I try to run the COUNTALL on, the result always seems to come back a 1.  Ideally, I'd like to use an automation so that this total is pushed to the history table once per week.  Sure could use some help here.

TIA,

Dan 

[TheTimeSavingCo]

If you have a Pro plan and know scripting, the simplest solution would be to create an automation that runs once a week, gets this number, and creates the record in that history table for you

Otherwise, if the number of volunteers will never exceed 100, you can create an automation that runs once a week, has a "Find Record" action on a view in Table A, and then has a "Create Record" action that will create a record in the history table with the length of the result from the "Find Record" action

If the number of volunteers will exceed 100, then this gets slightly trickier.  You'll need to create a table called "Rollup" or some such, and you'll need to make sure that all the records in the Volunteers table are linked to a single record in that "Rollup" table (preferably via an automation).  This'll let you create a "Count" field in "Rollup" that'll output the number of volunteers you have

Then, you'll have an automation that'll run once a week that'll have a "Find record" action that finds that single record in the "Rollup" table, and then will create a record in the history table with the value from the "Count" field from that record in the "Rollup" table

[ScottWorld]

The easiest & best & quickest solution would be to make sure that all of your records in your table are linked to the SAME RECORD in another table that you can call your “Control Table” or your “Admin Table”. (You could create an automation to make sure that all new records automatically link to this control table.)

Then, in your control table, you can create a field of type “count” that will give you the count.

[VoodooGuru]

I really appreciate the responses.  It just seems strange to me that I would have to duplicate the data in one table then link them in order to accomplish this.  Is there really no other way to capture the "Filled" data seen in the attached picture?  I'm not familiar with scripting unfortunately and this is a side project not my main job - I think it may be easier to just look at this Filled number and enter it into the History table so I can move on to more important stuff. Thanks again!

[ScottWorld · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, not. We've been asking Airtable to add this functionality for almost 10 years now, and we've made no progress with them yet. If you'd like a no-code way of doing this that doesn't require scripting, you could use the 3rd-party integration tool Make.

[VoodooGuru]

Ugh, this seems to be a recurring theme here ... many new features being pushed out but few past requests coming to fruition.  Customizing forms is not fun either with many past requests falling on deaf ears.  Yet another platform built with workarounds throughout, but in the end it's the community around it that makes it worth the pain points, lol.  Thank you everyone for your input and help 💯

[ScottWorld]

Yes, sadly, Airtable is a platform of limitations. Lots of 3rd-party products and workarounds are typically needed to get the most out of Airtable. (And sadly, Airtable doesn't typically respond to customer feature requests.) 

For truly advanced forms that can integrate with Airtable, many of us are turning to these 3 excellent form products:

1. Fillout which natively communicates with Airtable in real time, and gives tons of advanced features that are all Airtable-specific.

2. JotForm is possibly the most feature-rich form software on the Internet, although it doesn’t natively communicate with Airtable. It has some basic record creation ability in Airtable, but it’s not very full-featured. The best thing to do is to send the data from JotForm to Airtable using Make’s JotForm integrations.

3. Cognito Forms has some great features than even JotForm doesn’t have, such as unlimited line items. And you can send data from Cognito Forms to Airtable using Make’s Cognito Forms integrations. 

[ScottWorld]

Oh, and yes! Community is key when it comes to Airtable! Two more great Airtable communities are TableForums and the BuiltOnAir Slack Workspace.

[VoodooGuru]

Wow, thanks for the Make solution ... made quick work of my original historical data problem.  I'll be looking into the form solutions you suggested as well.