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Oct 20, 2023 09:26 PM
Is it possible to create a new record from within an interface's form lookup field?
I'm running into an issue where I need to be able to use a lookup field in my form, but often need to create a new lookup field record on the spot. See below image with what I need, but must not be an option.
Oct 21, 2023 03:39 AM - edited Oct 21, 2023 03:39 AM
No, but you have 2 other ways of doing this:
1. You can place text on that form which gives them a link to click on, which will open up a new form in a new tab.
2. You can use Fillout, which is the world’s most advanced form tool for Airtable. It gives you the feature you’re looking for, along with hundreds of other advanced Airtable-specific features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer. I just gave a demo of Fillout on this episode of the BuiltOnAir podcast.
p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld
Oct 22, 2023 12:10 AM
Thank you, Scott! Appreciate the feedback.
Oct 22, 2023 04:00 AM - edited Oct 22, 2023 04:01 AM
FYI: Also, note that that field is called a “linked record” field, not a lookup field.
You can learn more about linked record fields & lookup fields in my free Airtable training course, which you can take for free by signing up for a trial membership with LinkedIn Learning: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/learning-airtable/
Oct 22, 2023 04:23 AM
Also, as I mentioned in your other post on this exact same topic, there is also a clunky workaround for this — but I do not typically recommend this method because of all the clutter it adds.
You can add a fake linked record called “CREATE NEW RECORD” or something like that. When the user chooses that item, you can conditionally show a whole bunch of other temporary fields on your form for the user to fill out. Of course, when the form is submitted, all the data will go into the same table, so you would then use an automation to copy & paste all of the values from the temporary fields in the first table to the real fields in the other table.