New Script: Same Table Linked Records Backlinks

[openside]

Explainer Video:

Base:

Airtable

Same Table Backlinks - Airtable Universe

Title: Same Table Backlinks License: MIT Author: Openside (Team behind On2Air products and BuiltOnAir community) Sites: https://openside.com - Openside...

Code:

gist.github.com

https://gist.github.com/on2air/b68450a877ab99fe4a93ef7f9c387568

same-table-backlinks.js

/*****
 * Title: Same Table Backlinks
 * License: MIT
 * Author: Openside (Team behind On2Air products and BuiltOnAir community)
 * Sites:
 * https://openside.com - Openside Consulting Services
 * https://openside.com/#products - On2Air Products
 * https://builtonair.com - All things Airtable Community
 * 
 * Reach out for all your Airtable needs

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[KoenS]

Maybe one suggestion:

Suppose you have 3 columns: organizations, is_funding, is_funded_by

They are populated like in picture 1.

Then you make some manual changes, resulting in picture 2.

Then you run the script with is_funded_by as Original Link and is_funding as Back Linked Field, expecting the dependent field of both of your changes to be populated automatically.

But the result is picture 4

And if instead you had done 'is_funding as the Original Link and is_funded_by as the Back Linked Field, the result would have been

But the result you’d want is:

With either solution you lose data. It is possible to avoid this problem by running the script every time before you make a change in a field that is dependent on a field that you just made a change in, but this is inconvenient, especially when lots of changes are made in short periods of time.

Maybe the script could give a warning if it detects that you are about to make changes that would overwrite unsaved changes in dependent fields. But this could get annoying fast. So maybe at the start the script could temporarily create an extra column in which it pastes the unsaved changes from one side of the mutually dependent columns, and then once the script has done its thing it adds the unsaved elements that got overwritten but a copy of which was saved in the temporary column, and then it automatically deletes that temporary column before finishing.

(it’s also possible that the script already solves this problem but that I am just not using it properly)

[kuovonne]

KoenS:

it’s also possible that the script already solves this problem but that I am just not using it properly

The button script that I posted in this thread is not designed to deal with manual changes in both fields. It is designed to have one field as the authority on the relationship.

If you want to be able to manage the relationships by editing either column, you can buy my same table back link scripts and set it up the automation script in two different mirroring automations.

[Ed_Goble1]

Thanks for this script which is great. In my case I input the Parent relationship, and use the script to auto-generate the Child relationship as a separate linked field.

I wondered, is there a way to use a similar technique to populate a single linked field with the children of "all generations" (i.e. grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc.) rather than just the "direct" children as currently?

[Hidro01]

I think this was mentioned but not adresses.

Would it be possible to slightly change this script to instead update all sibling records. E.g. I have a table that looks like this:

Given that both projects B and C are related to Project A. I would like to indicate that also in the Records of project A, like this:

This is similar to the parent-child records script except here we would like to link all records both ways in one field. Is this possible?

[alybsch]

What is the extention that shows the family relationships in a chart at the beginning of the video?