Many to one relationship? Staff training base

[Leslie_Rimmer]

I’m very new to AirTable and am trying to build a base to track employee trainings. One table has employees and the other has events. Each event table record uses a multi-select field for selecting the staff who took the training. Now I want to produce a “report” for each employee. I’ve linked the events in the employee table but can’t figure out how to create a view that gives me info in a format that I can share with each staff member. Any input would be appreciated!

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

ah, ok… from your description, it sounds like you maybe are trying to combine the “link to another record” and “lookup” functionality into a single field. That’s not quite how it works.

First, you need to set up the link to the Employees table. You need that link as a pathway for a Training Log Record to access the data in an Employee Record. Then, link an Employee in there.

Next, create another field that is a Lookup field, that points at your Employee linked record field, and the “Supervisor” field from that table.

[Leslie_Rimmer]

I’m definitely missing something here. How exactly do I make the link? I’ve done it successfully in Training Log table with the Events table. So when I add an observation to the Training Log table and select the event, it looks up all the other details, like date, duration, etc. I just can’t seem to make it work for bringing in data from the Employee table.

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

You set up the link by creating a linked record field that points to the Employees table. And then you link to an employee by selecting the employee you want to link to for that Training Log record in that linked record field.

[Leslie_Rimmer]

Can you help me with the steps because it’s still not working for me? The employee name is in the primary column of Training Log. The Supervisor is in the Employee table.

1. insert new field in Training Log --> name it Supervisor
2. For new field Supervisor --> Customize Field Type/Link to Another Record–>Employees–>Save
3. For same new field Supervisor --> Customize Field Type/Lookup --> Employee table is not an option

I must be going wrong somewhere. Right?

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

So back from the beginning, my understanding is that you should have 3 TABLES right now:

1. Events (1 record for each Event)
2. Employees (1 record for each Employee)
3. Training Logs (1 record for each instance of an Employee attending an Event)

Your Training Logs table should be serving as a JOIN TABLE For Events and Employees – it’s where an Employee meets an Event (in terms of the records).

This means you need to have two separate linked record fields (columns) in your Training Logs table – one that links to Events, and one that links to Employees.

Once you have that field set up that Links to employees (not just typing in an employees name in a text field, but actually selecting an Employee from a list of records that exist in the Employees table), then you will be able to create an additional field to LOOKUP the Supervisor of the Employee that you linked.

[Leslie_Rimmer]

Got it! In the Training Log table, I created a field that links to the employee table then selected the employees from the list of records, as you said. Then I created a Supervisor field that is a lookup and it works.

I made the primary field equal to the EmployeeName field (don’t know what else it should be) and the weird thing is that some of the results have quotation marks and some don’t. Do you know why that would be? It doesn’t seem to be an issue but I’m trying to understand it.

[Kamille_Parks]

The quotes appear because whatever data its reporting contains a comma. AirTable puts quotes so the field isn’t read as an array.