Jan 28, 2025 11:55 AM - edited Jan 28, 2025 11:56 AM
I have a board for projects and one for tasks. Team members are pretty good about entering their project due dates on the project board, but we need to have due dates on the tasks as well. Id like the task due date to default to the project due date, with the ability for override. Ive created a lookup field on my tasks board to find the project due date (default date), but often the tasks need to be done before the project is due so i would like it if the field could be manually overwritten. I was thinking if i created another column in my task table with a formula that allowed team members to overwrite the lookup field this could work. It would say something like {lookup date} OR manual overrride.
Is there a way to create something like this?
Jan 28, 2025 01:08 PM
yup! you could keep your lookup field (e.g. project due date) as default, and create a new date field (e.g. Manual Due Date). Then add a new formula field (e.g. Task Due Date) to show either the manual date if there is one, or fall back to the project due date (e.g. If ({Manual Due Date}, {Manual Due Date}, {Project Due Date}).
Hope that helps! 🙂
Jan 28, 2025 01:51 PM - edited Jan 28, 2025 01:56 PM
Is there a way to do it without an additional field? We have been using interfaces and i would only like one date field to show on the task level instead of having to put the new date in a different field
Jan 28, 2025 02:22 PM
not sure how your interface is set up but you could display 1 Task Due Date only, which is the formula (e.g. if manual, manual date, else project date). The Manual Date would be the editable one so either would need to display that too or in your interface you could have an edit button to let users edit the manual date, which would then be displayed as the Task Due Date since the formula displays that date if its not empty.
or another option could be whenever a new task is created, have an automation that puts the project date as the Task Due Date if its empty, then you'd just have 1 Task Due Date editable date field
Jan 28, 2025 03:09 PM
Yes, you can achieve this in Airtable using a combination of fields. Here's how:
If this feels tricky to set up, feel free to ask, and I’ll guide you step-by-step! 😊
Jan 28, 2025 03:18 PM
Unfortunately, Airtable doesn't allow you to directly overwrite a lookup field because lookup fields are read-only. However, here's a simple solution:
You can use an Editable Field in an Airtable Interface:
This way, your team can manually change the date if needed, and you won’t need multiple fields.
If this feels hard to set up, let me know, and I’ll explain step-by-step! 😊