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Re: How do I automatically generate a name

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Really_ReallyRu
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

I have a single line text field as a primary key “name” field.

if it is blank when I save the record, I would like to automatically fill in the name as a concatenation of three other fields that are in the record.

How can I do this?

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Justin_Barrett
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

There is no specific action for “saving” a record. When a record is first created, it’s automatically saved. Any time you edit any field in the record, those changes are immediately saved as well. Watch the upper-left corner of the Airtable UI, and notice how it shows you that it’s saving data even before you’ve finished editing a given field.

If you’re always going to use those three fields to create the primary field name, you could turn the primary field into a formula that always concatenates those other fields’ values. However, this will prevent you from manually editing that field. Fields can be automatically driven (formulas, lookups, rollups, etc.) or manually entered (text, number, email, etc.), but not both.

Another possibility is to use an automation to take those three pieces to create the primary field name. However, setting up a trigger might be tricky, because you could easily get incomplete data. Then again, if you’re always adding records to your table using a form, an automation could work well. In the end, the effectiveness of an automation would depend to a great degree on your desired workflow for entering new records.

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2 Replies 2
Justin_Barrett
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

There is no specific action for “saving” a record. When a record is first created, it’s automatically saved. Any time you edit any field in the record, those changes are immediately saved as well. Watch the upper-left corner of the Airtable UI, and notice how it shows you that it’s saving data even before you’ve finished editing a given field.

If you’re always going to use those three fields to create the primary field name, you could turn the primary field into a formula that always concatenates those other fields’ values. However, this will prevent you from manually editing that field. Fields can be automatically driven (formulas, lookups, rollups, etc.) or manually entered (text, number, email, etc.), but not both.

Another possibility is to use an automation to take those three pieces to create the primary field name. However, setting up a trigger might be tricky, because you could easily get incomplete data. Then again, if you’re always adding records to your table using a form, an automation could work well. In the end, the effectiveness of an automation would depend to a great degree on your desired workflow for entering new records.

i feel that the “automation”, if done well, offers more flexibility than a formula.