Merge a Group of "Single Select" Columns into one "Multiple Select" Column

[jlsheard]

Hi all,

Hoping to get some advice on something I just cant figure out a workaround for.

Have a series of Single Select Columns I had from an Excel spreadsheet for a variety of different HABITATS.

They were originally a YES/NO option for each e.g. every single record had a YES or NO for ARCTIC.

I entered these as their own column “ARCTIC”, have converted the YES to the ARCTIC title and deleted the NO, and repeated for all the other habitats.

So for each column, they are either filled with the option “ARCTIC” or blank.

Likewise for each other column “DESERT” or blank. “MOUNTAINS” or blank.

I want these combined into one, single, Multiple Select Column called “HABITATS”; where a record can return the habitat “ARCTIC” and/or “MOUNTAINS” and/or “DESERT” etc.

However if I manually go through each single-select field and copy-paste the result, it overrides the existing record rather than merging them.

Any pointers?

Note: As I do want these to be a separate table i.e. to be a searchable or group-able field, therefore combining the results as a concatenate function won’t achieve what I’m after.

Thanks to all in advance!

[David_Skinner]

Try concatenating them as comma separated values in Excel using

=CONCATENATE(A1,",",B1,",",C1) or similar

So that you have 1 column like this

ARCTIC,MOUNTAINS,DESERT,
,MOUNTAINS,
ARCTIC,MOUNTAINS,

etc.

When you copy and paste that column into the multi-select field it should put them in as separate options. You may need to copy and paste into a plain text file first.

[David_Robison]

I was able to make this work more directly from Excel to a Multi-Select:

1. CONCAT as @David_Skinner suggests
2. Save As .CSV
3. Import to AirTable

At time of import (or after), you may need to change the Field Type to multi-select, but it did the conversion beautifully! I then deleted “Empty” as a choice to clean it up.