Making an autofill zap

[Expatica_Team]

Hi,

I have a table linked to 12 other tables. Every time i enter a new record in the first table, I need to create a new empty record in each of these 12 tables. I’ve tried to use Zapier to do that but it won’t function properly - I can’t seem to make it understand that i need it to create an empty record in each of these 12 fields. Maybe I’m using Zapier wrong, but I’m hoping some kind experienced soul will be able to tell me how to get this done! It seems pretty straightforward, but I’m not getting it.

Thank you so much in advance.

[Andrew_Johnson1]

Whats the “type” of your fields in the linked tables?
If its of type “single line text” you could set the value for these fields to “” i.e an empty string

[Expatica_Team]

Hi Andrew,

They’re the primary fields of each table, which are indeed single line text. My problem isn’t so much making them empty fields (I just manually create a new record then type a dash because I don’t want to see “unnamed record” in the first table). What I want to do is create these new empty records (with a dash) automatically.

Table 1 is a list of topics of articles. The other 12 tables contain the list of articles published on my website for 12 different countries - about the topics in table 1. When I come up with a new topic, the articles haven’t been written yet, but I’d like to see the topic in the country table (so I know it must be written.) That’s why I need to create that empty record.

To help you understand, I’m attaching screenshots of the topics table and of a country table. You’ll see in the first one that “Cuisine” in Germany has no article, so there’s a dash in the corresponding field. Then you’ll see the corresponding article (or lack thereof!) in the second table (the Germany table).

What I’d like to do is this:
When I think of a new topic, I add it to the topics table. Instead of having to manually create these 12 empty records in the other tables (which I do by clicking the + button and then “add new record” from the topics table), I would like to have a zap automatically make them for me.

My attempt at a zap is triggered by the creation of a new record in the topics table. But instead of filling out the fields in that row, the zap creates a new blank record. I think I am just not so great at zaps :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:

I hope my explanation was clear!

Thank you…