Find a Record to Link - Search Expansion

[Jason_Woltz]

The ability to input a new record into my maintenance table requires choosing a record to link from my assets table. The issue of using auto number Unique Id’s for each table means the linked record search is not very useful. I have a table of more than 100 assets of different types. The “find a record to link” search function only lets you search according to the unique id, without being able to thin the search down by using the other columns like Type, or Asset Designation, or Manufacturer or Serial Number.

I believe a suggestion was made to allow a user to create a filter for the “find a record to link” search, but I think simply expanding the search capability beyond the first column would be ideal.

[Josh_Lee]

Very frustrating oversight in an otherwise awesome software. Searching by the key number field is not helpful at all. Thats about like searching the internet without DNS and having to remember all IP addresses. The search needs expanded somehow and soon! Please!

[Johan_Bradley]

Does anyone know if this has been solved? Any work-arounds that might help? I keep coming up against this. I’ve been using a process of elimination to identify the correct record with which to link. There must be a better way. Expanded search view? Filtered search?

[Johan_Bradley]

…re-ordering the columns in the table your linking to. This brings up the key info in the search box. This actually seems to have solved it for me. I’m only searching against 3 different parameters to find the correct record.

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

What I do to work around this is I use my Primary field as not only a unique id, but also a conglomeration of any information I might need to use to search the records.

So, for example, I have this formula in my Primary field of a table:

IF(
   {Next Eval Completed?}=TRUE(),
   "✅ \n ",
   IF(
      IS_AFTER(
         {Next Due},
         TODAY()
      ),
      "🔵 ",
      "❌ "
   )
) 
& {Person Initials} 
& " - " 
& {Certification} 
& {ASTM} 
& IF(
   OR(
      {AASHTO}=BLANK(),
      {ASTM}=BLANK()
   ),
   "",
   "|"
) 
& {AASHTO} 
& IF(
   OR(
      {AASHTO}=BLANK(),
      {ADOT}=BLANK()
   ),
   "",
   "|"
) 
& IF(
   AND(
      {AASHTO}=BLANK(),
      COUNTA({ASTM},{AASHTO},{ADOT})=2
   ),
   "|",
   ""
) 
& {ADOT} 
& " (" 
& DATETIME_FORMAT(Date,'M/D/YYYY') 
& ") " 
& ID

And here’s the resulting primary field:

You can see that at the very end of it I have a unique ID, for those instances when I know the ID of the record I am looking for. But usually, I need to pare it down by searching for a {Person Initials} first, then searching for the particular {Certification} I need, and by then I can get a visual indicator from the red, green, and blue emoji symbols I use to point to me which record I am looking for.

Works pretty well for me:

[Anty]

+50 Please take care of this.

[Btbml]

This will be critical for our continued use of AirTable

[Daniel_Matranga]

Any update on this request?

[Goce_Ristov]

4+ years since this request and hasn’t been answered.

Come on Airtable, this thing here is key for all types of scenarios.

One of the most important features!

[ken_izumi]

Agree.
The lack of this feature will be the reason for not using airtable.

[Stephanie_Conra]

Yikes, this may be the difference between our entire company using this and use going with a completely different program. Why is this not implemented after 4 years???