Is there a way to quickly add multiple rows to a linked column?

[JoelC]

Let’s say I have an “Emails” table where each email row has a “Sent to” field that can be linked to multiple entires from the Users table.

Now, I just sent out an email to 40 people in the “Users” table.

What’s the easiest way to add all 40 to that email row? Copying and pasting the primary field doesn’t seem to help. Do I have to do it manually?

[Justin_Barrett]

Not completely, but there’s a shortcut you can use that will make the process at least a little easier.

Here’s a test setup I made. In my [Emails] table you can see the emails that have been sent, and the recipients for each one. I’m guessing you’re adding new users over time, so I tried to mimic that in this setup:

And here’s the [Users] table:

I want to add “third email” to all three (or all 40 in your case), which is tricky because if I copy from one and paste it into the others, they’ll all have identical links, instead of just adding the new one.

To work around this, I’m going to start by adding a new field to [Users] that links back to [Emails], and link only the new, third email in there. This can be done by adding it in one, then drag-filling the rest:

I’ll add another new field that uses a formula to combine the collection from {Emails} with the single from {New email}, separating them all by commas. Here’s the formula:

IF(Emails, ARRAYJOIN(Emails, ", ") & ", ") & {New email}

And how it looks in the table:

I can now take the full contents of that field, copy it, then paste it into {Emails}. Airtable will convert the text back into links to the [Emails] table, so we now have this:

Now you can clear out the {New email} field and reuse it for the next email.

[JoelC]

I think this is still too complex a process to ask of the system’s users, but it’s super creative and definitely much better than individually adding users to an email. Thanks!

[Justin_Barrett]

Curious what you mean by “the system’s users”. Are you referring to Airtable users in general, or the users of your specific system where you desire this behavior?

There may be a way to pull this off with the help of integrations (Zapier, Integromet, etc), but my experience with those is still somewhat limited, so I tend to lean toward what can be done directly inside of Airtable.

[JoelC]

I mean the internal users of the Airtable system I’m building. They already have to learn a whole bunch of workflows, this one seems a bit complicated, especially when there are 40+ people collaborating on it, often simultaneously.

This did help me figure out another (non-ideal) solution, which is:

1. Copy the primary fields of all the “User” rows you want to add.
2. Paste in a text editor.
3. Search and replace all linebreaks with commas.
4. Copy resulting string.
5. Paste in the linked “Sent to” cell on a given email row.

I just wish this could be native behavior instead of this weird workaround :slightly_smiling_face:

[Justin_Barrett]

Yeah, it’s a bit of an odd workaround, but thankfully the new fields only need to be built once. From there on, they’re reusable for all subsequent uses.

Your other solution can also be done (with some tweaks) directly inside of Airtable. What if your users only had to check a box next to the name of each user to receive the new email? In another table, this would be rolled up into a single field with all of their names, which you could then copy and paste into {Sent to} field for the new email record. Let me know if that sounds like something that would work, and I’ll outline the steps to set it up.

[JoelC]

That sounds like it might be more straightforward, but could be tricky if two people are using the system at the same time w/ different views. What do you think?