Welcome to the community, @clement_desrues!
If you enable the typecast parameter by making its value true, then Airtable will automatically translate the text string into the appropriate Record ID value for you.
It’s not described too well in the Airtable API documentation, but that’s what the typecast parameter does.
Currently, the API documentation says this for typecast: “The Airtable API will perform best-effort automatic data conversion from string values if the typecast parameter is passed in.”
In real-world language, what this means is that enabling typecast will allow you to do 3 things:
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Post text to a linked record field, and Airtable will automatically convert it to the appropriate Record ID (if the linked record already exists), or Airtable will automatically create a linked record (if the linked record doesn’t already exist).
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Post text to a single select field, and Airtable will automatically add a new option if it doesn’t already exist.
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Post text to a multi select field, and Airtable will automatically add a new option if it doesn’t already exist.
Alternatively, remember that you can always search the other table for the record that you’re looking for, which will then return the Record ID for you that you can use for your API calls.
And, if you don’t want to write your own API calls at all, you can always use Integromat, which is a no-code/low-code environment for communicating with Airtable’s API.
Integromat is an easy point-and-click environment, and they have integrated the typecast parameter as an option entitled “Smart Links”.
(Note that I am a professional Airtable consultant and a Registered Integromat Partner, and the Integromat link contains my personal referral code. If you have a budget for your Airtable project and you’d like to hire an expert to help you, please feel free to contact me through my website at ScottWorld.com.)
