Building Packages of Equipment

[ucmavnerd]

Hey there!

I’m still relatively new to AirTable, but I have grand plans. I’ll try to explain this simply, if I can.

I have a table full of a list of rooms that I provide support to. These rooms have equipment in them that needs to be refreshed occasionally and relies on standard packages to do so. These packages often share several items across them, but sometimes in different quantities. What I have figured out:

1. Created the table with a list of items and I can link those items to another table that brings in their summed costs in the form of a package.
2. Link those summed costs to their room on another table.

Here is where I am stuck:

1. I cannot increase the quantities of items without it affecting all the items across packages.
2. I cannot seem to export the final list of equipment in any meaningful way.

I tried looking at the “Product Catalog” template, but nothing immediate jumped out as a solution. The only way I’ve been able to make it work is to create a new table for each package; which would be fine except there are around 15 or so room packages, so the tabs start getting a little unwieldy.

Is this the right way and I just have to live with it, or is there another clever way and I am just missing it?

Thanks for any help in advance.

[Mohamed_Swella1]

ucmavnerd:

Are you saying that this Packages Line Items would essentially have all the equipment for all the packages with their qty in one table?

No, without the quantities. So you have all the items in one table, then in the Packages table you add these items with the required qty.

As for the screenshots, why do you need a different table for the rooms? Why not add a Field (lets say its a single select field) that specifies where those packages are ?

[ucmavnerd]

I was like a dog with a bone with it last night and I think I got it working the way I need it to. What I keep forgetting is that views and grouping can solve problems that linking doesn’t need to. What I have now:

1.) “Master Room Table” - Has the list of all the rooms and their various other details. Has a link to the room total calculated on “Room Packages Overview”.

2.) “Room Packages Overview” - Has the rollups and calculations from the “Room Packages Table”.

3.) “Room Packages” - Has a Link from “Room Packages Overview” which generates the name of the package. I grouped it by Room Package and started adding items and their qty from the “Master Equipment List.” I then created views that are filtered by package that I can generate CSVs from to send to vendors. Without grouping I imagine it would be a mess to look at. XD

4.) “Master Equipment List” - Has a list of all the equipment that could be used in any package and it’s cost.

One thing I am starting to notice is that things are getting a little more sluggish. Not sure what AirTable offers insofar as optimization or it takes care of that on it’s own over time. I don’t have that many records in the base (less than 1000 total), so I’ll have to play with that maybe.

Thanks again for making me think through it all and for the suggestions.

[ucmavnerd]

OH! I did have another question. What do you recommend/use for your key column when you don’t have any info to put into it but still need it to be unique? I did RECORD_ID, but it doesn’t look super great and I can’t hide it. :grinning_face_with_sweat:

[Justin_Barrett]

I’ll sometimes use a formula to build a unique label based on other field data.