Adding or pasting a linked record into multiple cells with pre existing records

[Shelly_Fearer]

I need to add a linked record to several hundred rows, without deleting the existing linked records. When I try to paste the new record into the rows, it deletes everything that’s already in that cell and replaces it with only the pasted record.
Doing this by hand would obviously not be time effective. Please tell me this is a feature and I’m just not seeing how to do it!
Deleting a linked record from multiple rows would also be helpful!

[Diego_Angel_Hak]

Hello everyone,

For a perhaps less intuitive but still very automatic way of doing it, please see this post:
Bulk Add a Linked Records to Fields that have existing linked records

I used the “By select” option but modified the code a little bit to my needs so that the selected record was added to only a filtered view of, in my case, “Main Table”:

let CatTable = base.getTable('Taxonomy landscaping');
let CatRecord = await input.recordAsync("Enter the Category you'd like to add to sected view",CatTable)
let FillTable = base.getTable('Main table').getView("Power Generation");
let TableQuery = await FillTable.selectRecordsAsync();
let TableRecords = TableQuery.records;

let d = []
TableRecords.forEach(c => d.push({id: c.id}));
await CatTable.updateRecordAsync(CatRecord.id,{
    
    'Main table': d

}
    
);
output.markdown('# Done 🚀, please double check it is right')

Since I have many different filtered views that would need adding different linked records, the only hassle now is to edit the code every time and change the .getView("…") for the filtered view I want to modify. But it’s much better than adding 1 by 1.

Hope it helps!

[Rachel_Rohr]

I have a simple way of handling this for tracking attendance at training sessions. Instead of trying to link the new training session by pasting it into the attendees table (the attendees are linked to many other training sessions, so this would overwrite their past attendance), I instead go to the record for the new training session, which is not yet linked to any attendees. I copy/paste the list of attendees (e.g. from a dedicated checkbox column) into a Google Sheet with a concatenate formula that puts all the attendee names on a single line with commas in between. I then copy/paste that single line with commas into the linked record field for the training session. The commas allow it to recognize and link to each record. Side note: The first time I did this it created some duplicate attendee records. That’s because the record names weren’t an exact match as a result of some blank spaces at the end of the record name. I fixed that using Airtable’s TRIM formula.

[Alexey_Gusev]

I think, that’s not so hard. You can either link from ‘the other side’ or add formula helper field.
Example - table with 147 recors, linked to table with 800 records with different numbers. Imagine i have new record 3232, and wish to add it to all records having 2 and 3 in their name.

Filtering:

linking to new table

in new table you’ll see 1 record with 2 fields. put any word in first and copy to link field

Now, gather your ‘harvest’ and put it into your record

Task done. ‘New table’ and link to it can be removed

A long time to explain (depending on a person ability to work with tables), but it can be done less than a minute.

Second way, even easier

clean our links:

create simple formula, add string

paste into link field. task done. I think this action can fit into 20 seconds