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Color Records based on Lookup Single Select Field

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Cameron_Kaiser
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

We cannot color by lookup fields. Even if “Allow linking to multiple records” is disabled on the Record Linker, the option to select Single Select Lookup fields is disabled in the record coloring menu. This makes no sense, and is a real hamper on operations that make use of Airtables Sync feature to integrate multiple bases with each other.

I understand that the option is probably disabled because lookup fields are arrays, but there is absolutely no reason it should be disabled when the linker field is restricted to only allow the linking of one item. This is an oversight that forces users to spend a huge amount of time drafting custom color rulesets.

3 Comments
Gary_Kavanagh
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

I’m currently evaluating Airtable for broader adoption on my team, and this limitation on top of other limitations with color is really giving me pause and is close to being a deal breaker. Color coding information in consistent ways is vitally important, especially working with art disciplines, and I don’t want to have to have all information in one giant table in order to ensure a consistent single select array of color coded entries, or rely on hacky automations duplicating lots of information & that can become out of sync later if original single select list changes, which in my use case it would because it’s for a list that is constantly added to. Conditional color coding works for some things, but for some use cases you want a color to mean a specific thing, and stay that way wherever it is used, and for large lists that are more than handful of options, conditional color coding is extremely clunky if you want to maintain it across tables.

I don’t understand why a look up connection to a valid single select shouldn’t be usable for color, the color information is right there. This is especially important for things like the timeline view where legibility of information is highly color dependant and assigned record colors fill bars in the chart.

Calvin_Young2
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

Yeah this one has been annoying me for a while, so I should probably resurrect this thread.  Even if it just looked up the color of the first member of the array--that way you don't have to worry about handling conflicts.  And if the data type changes, or the color is removed from the lookup field?  Just go back to default gray...

I reaaaaally don't want to sit there and make a new rule for the 40 different colors.  But here I go...

Will_Henderson
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Yeh this is infuriating given how much synced bases have been pushed as an amazing feature.