Auto-fill lookup values when new records are created

[papparaziz]

Hello! Here is my situation and what I would like to get accomplished:

I have three tables, 1,2,3. T1 has a list of candidates, who will either pass or fail (based on my selction of a single select value). For those who pass, I want to add their data to T2. Now this is simple using a Linked record in T2 that points to the record in T1. I am using T3 to host values. I consume these values in T2 as lookups in order to make some calculations. (eg. if score<T3 score then “expert”)

My question is, when I add a new person from T1 to T2, such that they appear in t2 thanks to the linked reorc functionality, how do i also call the records from t3 in order to keep doing the calculations? It seems every time there is a new record in t2 i have to also copy paste the linked records from t3 for them to show up in their respective lookup columns for the calculations to make sense. I tried filtering by those t3 linked record values thinking that any new record will auto-populate the corresponding lookup values but that doesn’t work, all new records are empty and get filtered out.

Is there a way I can auto-populate a linked record column with a certain value? In this case that’s t3 so that the t3 lookup values make sense in the formula.

[Justin_Barrett]

Create a group that’s based on the field with the link. Because that link is required for any record that’s part of the group, adding a new record in that group will automatically add the link.

[papparaziz]

Thanks but I was looking for something more automatic becuse the database we use is really big and not convenient to do manually. I tried using an update record Zap but that doesn’t work if there are multiple records that need to be updated either :frowning:

[Tucker_Webb]

Hi Airtable community!! I am a contractor running a construction business. I am trying to solve the most basic principle of organization (nesting). It seems absolutely ridiculous that I’ve tried so many apps and I’m either limited to a certain number of levels of hiearchy or I cannot create a hierarchy at all. It’s 2019… Anyways, onto my question.

In order to keep things clean, I would like to categorize my process of the following. I have:

Project
Task
Sub task 1 (child of task^)
Sub task 2 (child of Sub task 1^)

I need to create the above hiearchy and I want to view all of these tasks and task children in one table, so I would think that linking all of these items together and than creating one table for viewing and for ENTRY of anything else. What’s very important is that I need to be able to obviously work out of one space instead of jumping around, I want to create entries from one table or view and view from one table or view. This also has to work on my phone so that when I’m out in the field I can quickly input data. Since Tasks are the main components of every project, I’m fine with viewing a list of tasks for one project, but I would like to be able to than click on any task in an expanded view of a cell and than when I click on that task it takes me to it’s related sub tasks.

To summarize, when I am looking at a task I want to only see the related items to that task, I don’t want to see all sub tasks level 1 and all sub tasks level 2. I’m looking for the easiest way to make this hiearchy so that it will work for mobile and I can quickly see all tasks and jump into the related tasks by clicking on the task record in expanded view upon opening a task record. How can I do this? Oh and I also want to avoid double entering things in, like customer name, type whether it’s a task or sub task, etc, I just want to be able to jump in once this system is created and start making tasks and sub tasks in their respective parents and categories.

Hope to get help with this soon as this is seriously stalling my progress on the logistics of my business.

Thankss!

• Tucker

[Malakai]

Hi, @papparaziz. I am facing a similar issue with my table. Did you ever find a solution? I was expecting a behavior closer to that of a spreadsheet when I signed up :-/.

[Malakai]

I'm not sure if this helps, but @pressGO_design helped me solve this / a similar issue on another post, that might be of value to you folks: https://community.airtable.com/t5/other-questions/autofill-lookup-fields/td-p/140491/page/2#M45864 

[Lillian_Lin]

@papparaziz @Malakai 

This might be years too late, but I just found a way to do this! I was struggling with the same issue. Hope this solves it for someone else!

The way to solve it is to use the Airtable's automation feature. In automations, you can set something like:
- When a new record is created or updated
- Set the value of the lookup field column to equal the value of another field of that record

This magically inserts a linked record into that field! 

[Melinda_Lee]

Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for.

I have one slight variation - how would you auto-populate the lookup field with multiple values where each value is based on certain conditions within that one record?