How can i link a form response from an external user to an already existing entry?

[Marco_Garzotti]

Hi everyone.
Let’s pretend that i have a table with some entries and an external person knows the name of a specific entry that he wants to update (maybe just one field).
The table might be populated with colums with name/surname/mail address/phone number, and the external user is able to add an entry by a dedicated Form.
Is there a way for an external user (which knows his email) to use this field to update somehow it’s phone number?
A possible solution, for instance, is to have a form in which an external user input his mail and a phone number, and if his mail is recorded, the form updates the phone number.
Maybe can be a form for another table, and an automation that checks at every new entry if something has to be changed.
Is this doable?
Thank you in advance.

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Hey Marco, yeah this is doable!

You’d need to have two tables:

1. People which would contain the actual contact data
2. Form Submissions which would contain the updates that users are submitting.

(To make life simple, let’s assume you’ve got at least one field that will always be unique and that you don’t let people change, e.g. their email perhaps)

The idea is that we use a rollup field in the People table on the Created Date field of the Form Submissions table with the formula MAX(values), which identifies the latest submission date. This would be the field Latest Submission for Person

We then pass that value back into Form Submissions via a lookup field (This would be the field Latest submission), and use a formula field to identify the latest submission record for that person (This would be field Is latest submission). We then use that formula field (Is latest submission) in our conditional lookups to only display the data from the latest submission

You can find it setup here

To view the setup (formulas, automations etc), you can duplicate the base by clicking the title of the base at the top of the screen, then the three horizontal dots on the right, and then the “Duplicate Base” button.

I’m available to be hired to set it up in your base for you as well!

[Julian_Kirkness]

Hi @Marco_Garzotti

Adams solution would certainly work - but would mean that all of the updates a person makes would need to be in the same Form Submissions record (and the People record would pick up all of it’s values from this latest record). I have made similar solutions to this in the past.

However, I am thinking of a different approach you may want to try (still with a separate Form Submissions table). You could use an Automation triggered by the submission of this form to update the main People table fields - and use Conditional Actions to only update fields which the user entered in the form.

Feel free to come back to me if you need more info.

Julian

[Marco_Garzotti]

Thank you all for your replies.

@Julian_Kirkness:
I didn’t understand what could be the issue with “and the People record would pick up all of it’s values from this latest record”.

[Julian_Kirkness]

Hi @Marco_Garzotti

There is no real “issue” with this approach - except that it means that most of your People data would actually reside in the Form Submissions table and be looked up from there. This means that entering any data would need to be done in the form submissions table for all those fields which can be updated by the external user through the form.

With the alternative approach, the submitted form would trigger the automation which would then update the People record.

Julian