Linking imported tables

[Matt_Adair]

Banging my head on the table here - I cannot seem to figure how to link tables that I have imported from another database, having converted them to Excel. I have something basically like this:

Table1
Table1_Key | Table1_Field1 | Table1_Field2...

Table_2
Table2_Key | Table1_Key | Table2_Field1 | Table2_Field2...

Data imports fine, but when I create the link, it just doesn’t work. I’m sure I’m overthinking something here, I just cannot seem to figure what it is.

Matt

[Matt_Adair · Accepted solution]

And I just figured it out. I needed to select the “Table1_Key” in Table2 and convert it to a linked field, not try to create a new linked field from scratch.

[ScottWorld]

Looks like you figured it out while I was typing this up!

Unlike other databases, Airtable doesn’t use keys.

Airtable only links entire records to each other by their primary field, and those links are performed manually by the user (not automatically by Airtable). You can have more than one link in a table, but it will always be linked to the primary field in the other table.

So if you need your records linked together between Table 1 & Table 2, you would need to make your primary field in Table 2 the Table1_Key. Then, back in Table 1, you would need to make your Table1_Key NOT the primary field. Then, you can convert that field to a linked record field that links to Table 2.