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Hi there

I’m planning a conference and I’m using airtable to manage my speakers. I have two ways of acquiring speakers: submissions from the speakers, and manual additions by myself.

Here’s my workflow:

I have three tables, as below:

  1. Speakers from me = my manual additions
  2. Speaker submissions = submissions by speakers via a form
  3. Canonical speakers = record of all selected speakers containing only unique speaker names

The ‘Canonical speakers’ table contains three columns:

  1. Name Canonical= formula field that compares the other two columns and selects the cell that contains a name. IF({Name Submissions Link}=BLANK(),{Name Speakers Link},IF({Name Speakers Link}=BLANK(),{Name Submissions Link}))
  2. Name Speakers Link = linked field to speaker names from ‘speakers from me’
  3. Name Submissions Link = linked field to ‘speaker submissions’

I have hundreds of rows of speaker entries from my two speaker tables.

My goal is to automatically fill in the columns in the linked fields, so that all my speaker names can be compared, and I can get one canonical list of speaker names.

Is there a way I can auto-fill or auto-populate the columns in the linked fields?

Thanks!

I don’t think what you’re requesting is possible.

However, why not just combine all speakers from you and speaker submissions into one table? You could have a single-select field that has two options (“submission” and “manual”), or even a checkbox to indicate ✓ = manual submissions.

Then you could have another field within the same table, a checkbox for “Selected Speaker” to differentiate speakers who’ve applied and those who will actually have sessions at your conference. You could create a view with a filter that only shows Selected Speaker = true (the box is checked)

I don’t think what you’re requesting is possible.

However, why not just combine all speakers from you and speaker submissions into one table? You could have a single-select field that has two options (“submission” and “manual”), or even a checkbox to indicate ✓ = manual submissions.

Then you could have another field within the same table, a checkbox for “Selected Speaker” to differentiate speakers who’ve applied and those who will actually have sessions at your conference. You could create a view with a filter that only shows Selected Speaker = true (the box is checked)


Thanks… That’s a sensible way to do it. The main reason is because the speaker submissions form is super long with 30+ questions. The main ‘speakers’ workflow has another 12+ columns, for a total of 40+ columns if both are combined. Is it a good idea to combine both and manage with different filters/views?

Thanks… That’s a sensible way to do it. The main reason is because the speaker submissions form is super long with 30+ questions. The main ‘speakers’ workflow has another 12+ columns, for a total of 40+ columns if both are combined. Is it a good idea to combine both and manage with different filters/views?


Well that is a lot of columns. But I would still recommend having one table for speakers and many views:

View 1: Speaker submission form. hide 12 additional “selected speaker” fields.
View 2: A grid view of speaker submissions. copy View 1’s field visibility settings.
View 3: A grid view of your manual entries. If you use a checkbox to indicate “manual” entries, one of the properties of this view could be a filter where all entries have the checkbox. That way when you input speakers in this view they will automatically get the check. hide 12 additional “selected speaker” fields.
View 4: Selected speakers where there’s a filter to only show Selected=✓, and only the speaker name and additional 12 columns are visible

Well that is a lot of columns. But I would still recommend having one table for speakers and many views:

View 1: Speaker submission form. hide 12 additional “selected speaker” fields.
View 2: A grid view of speaker submissions. copy View 1’s field visibility settings.
View 3: A grid view of your manual entries. If you use a checkbox to indicate “manual” entries, one of the properties of this view could be a filter where all entries have the checkbox. That way when you input speakers in this view they will automatically get the check. hide 12 additional “selected speaker” fields.
View 4: Selected speakers where there’s a filter to only show Selected=✓, and only the speaker name and additional 12 columns are visible


Awesome. I’m going to try it out and let you know how I get on… Thanks!

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