Formula to show yes/no based on data in a different table

[Karen_Bailey]

Hello! Newbie on Airtable, so I’m pretty sure this is a really daft question, but after looking through the help and this forum for about 2 hours and not finding anything, I’m now starting to wonder if my goal is even possible!

I have 2 tables:
An Authors table has name/contact details/author image fields.
A Content table, which had a load of fields, including a ‘link to another table’ field to display the ‘author name’ field from the Author table.

What I want to do is to have a field in the Content table with a tick (or yes/no or some sort of indicator - I kind of don’t care what it is!) which shows based on whether there is or isn’t an image uploaded in the ‘Author image’ field on the Author table. So kind of this (which I know isn’t actually a formula, just trying to lay out what I’m trying to achieve!):

if field ‘author image’ in table ‘author’ is not blank, then show :white_check_mark: in field ‘got author image’ in table ‘content’

Any ideas? Is it possible? Or am I trying to make it do something it’s not supposed to? Is there something other than a formula that’s needed instead??

Thanks so much in advance for any help!

Karen

[Nick_Dennis · Accepted solution]

I would create the “got author image?” Formula in the Authors table, something like:
IF({Author Image}, “ :white_check_mark: ”)

Then on the Content table, it sounds like you already have the link to the Authors table. So you just need to add a lookup field to the Content table, configured to link to the Author table, and “got author image?” as the field you look up.

Then you could hide the “got author image?” field from the Authors table, so you only see the checkbox after you select an Author on the Content table.

Hope that helps.

[Karen_Bailey]

Hi Nick

Yeah, I was starting to wonder if that was the only approach - have tried it out and it works, so I’ll stick to that! Thanks!

The formula I’ve used (in case it’s useful to anyone else!) is IF({Author Image}=BLANK(),“ :x: ”,“ :heavy_check_mark: ”) - apparently the !=BLANK option doesn’t work that well in Airtable for technical reasons above our paygrades :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks!

Karen