Lookup field re-creating entire table and matching to Row ID

[Naomi_Wentworth]

Here is the use case:

I have barcodes that are scanned to match data from Sheet 1 (Bins) to Sheet 2 (Pickups). Barcodes are in rotation, but only one barcode is scanned at each Pickup and Bin on the same day - giving us ability to match the data from each location.

I have created a formula to create “Barcode - Date” in both sheets, then copy/pasted them as I read on this forum that you cannot link formulas.

Issue is: When I go to link them and pull data from Sheet 1 to Sheet 2 it cannot find the data I am looking for (a dropdown of “customers” from “pickups”). Instead, Airtable seems to copy/paste my entire table, add it to the top couple thousand rows with no data pulled except for the Row ID (a long string used as a unique identifier) and matches that to the customer. So all other columns are empty, it is matching it to the wrong column from Sheet 2, AND in the table I have in the bottom couple thousand rows, it cannot lookup the data I want. Is this a bug?? Am I doing this wrong?

This video walks through the issue:

Thanks all!!

[Karlstens]

I’m thinking that, barcodes are like a dictionary, so you’re creating a barcode dictionary that then other tables can refer to and look up?

I may be mistaken, but I believe you’ll be needing to create a table called “Barcodes” within this base called “daily processor” and then refer to those Barcodes within both your pick-ups table and your Bins table via a Look-Up field.