Filter Multiple Select Linked Records the same as Multiple Select Fields

[Joel_Andrews1]

I want to be able to create filtered views using the values from a multiple select linked records field in the exactly the same way that I can with a regular multiple select field, including “is any of” and “is none of” with the little drop-down of toggle switches and everything. But currently if you filter by a multiple select linked records field, the only options are “contains”, “does not contain”, etc.

I know I’m not the first to post about this, but I can’t find the other posts in the forum to see what others have done.

My imperfect solution has been to create a helper multi-select by duplicating the linked field then converting it to a regular multi-select which I can then use to create my filters. This works, but I have to update the values in the helper field manually if there are any changes, which is less than ideal.

I need to be able to create a filter view that I can easily modify on the fly just by toggling values on and off, so setting up a complex formula that would have to be modified to select/deselect would not work for me.

I’ve reached out the the CS team at Airtable, but they weren’t able to provide me with a solution and suggested that I check here. Have any of you found a way to deal with this situation?

TIA!

Joel

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

Another workaround you could try is this:

Create a formula field for each “has any of” combination of linked records you might want, or at least your regularly used ones.

Supposing you had 5 linked record values you were using, and they were named Option 1, Option 2, etc, one of the formulas might look like this:

FIELD NAME: FILTER_1or4

IF(
   OR(
      FIND("Option 1", {Linked Record Field}&''),
      FIND("Option 4", {Linked Record Field}&'')
   ),
   TRUE()
)

That field would return the value 1 if your {Linked Record Field} were linked to either Option 1 or Option 4. Now you can filter on just this field in your filter menu:

Where [Filter_1or4] [contains] [1]

And this would be equivalent to a filter of:

Where [Linked Record Field] [has any of] ["Option 1", "Option 4"]

Follow that pattern for each “Has any of” combination you might need in a new formula field, name the formula fields clearly so you know what you will get when you filter on it, and then just filter on those formula fields.

This strategy is admittedly cumbersome, and potentially unusably so if you have a ton of Linked Record options that are frequently changing… but if you data in the Linked Record field is mostly static, then it could be a viable option. Just thought I’d throw it out there as a possibility.

---

Note: the &'' after the name of the linked record field is necessary to convert the linked record field’s return value from an array to a string, since the FIND() function can only work on strings

[Joel_Andrews1]

Yeah, unfortunately that solution is a bit unweildy for my situation. Too many things are changing and too many different variations to be able to create a duplicate view for every scenario.

Thanks though!