Jul 05, 2020 03:52 AM
Hi,
Thank you in advance for advise.
I have 3 department in my company.
I am creating 1 table per department. Table 1 = Product A Table 2 = Product B etc…
I want to have a quick overview on all Sum from each table.
I created a Table 4.
I want that a cell displays the SUM of column A in Table 1 ; How to do it?
Thanks
Jul 05, 2020 08:09 AM
Hello @Michael_Leidensdorf,
You’ve setup your base wrong.
You are not supposed to have a different table for each department.
All of your departments need to be in the exact same table.
Then you can do what you want to do by using grouping.
Jul 05, 2020 12:05 PM
Hi @Michael_Leidensdorf and welcome to the community!
@ScottWorld is right, but a bit terse. :winking_face: There’s no right or wrong way to set up your base; there are only ways that meet your business requirements.
With all data in a single table you can use Views and Filters to separate the product lists logically (instead of physically). This will undoubtedly provide you with some really great agility in managing your data.
Jul 05, 2020 12:31 PM
Lol, this is true! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Jul 06, 2020 05:26 AM
I don’t ask you How I had to setup the table. I asked how to get sum from different table in 1 summary table.
Jul 06, 2020 05:28 AM
We can’t have all data in same Table. Different people. Different client. Different way of calculatin margin etc…
In Excell for exemple, you can make formula like : =sum Table1(A1;A9)+Table2(A1;A9)
is something like this exist in Airtable?
Jul 06, 2020 06:18 AM
This is why it’s really important to share the business requirements with the question. I’ll circle back with some thoughts as soon as I have some time.
Jul 06, 2020 07:28 AM
Yes.
If you go the route of multiple tables (similar to multiple tabs in a spreadsheet context) I’m pretty sure you want to start by learning about Roll-Ups.
But… how are you able to use Excel given the requirement that different clients and people need to be segregated from a universal view of the data?
Let’s now circle back to the known requirements.
If these are the key requirements, there is a way to do this in Airtable with a single table using views and filters and security settings.
Certainly, without deeper insight into the nature of the solution and the scale of users and data, it’s unreasonable to assume this approach is best. However, in almost every case where Airtable users attempt to carry the schema baggage of an Excel sheet into a database-like tool such as Airtable, they achieve vast data management benefits by embracing a data model that leans into a unified database architecture while delivering on requirements through logical views and filters.
I recommend you at least explore the idea of a single “products” table where Grouping gives you the sums you want (literally an instant’s worth of effort) and where Views and access settings keep users and their data separated.