[SOLVED] Adding a Photo via a Form

[Amy_Van_Riper]

I am using Airtable with a new nonprofit. One of my bases is all about the Volunteers. I have successfully set up the tables to track contact info, training completed, hour tracking and more. I was even able to figure out how to set up a form for the Volunteers to fill out using a wall mounted iPad to do the data entry themselves for their hours worked.

On that form, they are able to choose their name from the existing list because I have linked it to the main table. It works perfectly and allows me to create reports to track hours by person, role, date, etc.

But then my boss asked that we have a photo for each Volunteer attached to their information in AirTable. OK. I can do that with an attachment field. But then I decided that I wanted the Volunteers to do that data entry as well. So I created another form that works satisfactorily and allows them to use the same iPad to take a photo. They have the ability to choose their name because it is linked to the main table, and then do an on the spot upload of a photo taken by the iPad.

But here’s the thing… I can’t figure out how to get the photo from that form/table into the main table that has all their other info. Because I can only link to the primary key, when I try to link the main table to the new table with the photos, what links is the primary key (an autonumber)… not the photo.

So… any advice / instruction on how to get the photo into the main table of info? Preferably by still having the Volunteers take their own photo at the iPad using a form… and without me having to download each photo to my computer from one form and upload it as an attachment in the field of another form. Is there a way to have a field from the main table “grab” the image from the photo table?

Thanks for your help! I appreciate your time!

[Mac]

Have you tried using a lookup field on the main table?

[Amy_Van_Riper]

Goodness gracious. That literally took me 20 seconds to solve after reading your response. I’m such a newbie! Thank you so much for your time.

[Mac]

No worries, we’ve all been there!

[HannesK-ME]

Hey there,

Hannes from the miniExtensions team here. While a lookup field does work in this case, it's not really the ideal way to set things up, I think. Ideally, you'd want the actual attachment stored in the main table, to have the actual data all in one place (much cleaner if you need to change anything in the future). The miniExtensions form could help with this in different ways: One easy way would be to have a login form where each volunteer could log into/look up their existing record in the main table to update any data about themselves, including adding or replacing their photo. We have options to ensure that no unauthorized access takes place as well (e.g. email verification, or login with a username and password would be the most common options).

You could also set up this same form to log the hours, since our form allows for creation of new linked records. So your form would live in the main table and have a linked record field to the time log table. If they need to log hours, they could just log into their record and do that right there and it would be linked to them automatically. This would make for a pretty slick setup!

You can try all of this out with a free account right now 🙂