I would love to be able to have a record appear in two groups when using a multiple select field, rather than having the record create a new group that is the combination:
i.e. Record 1 — A Record 2 — B Record 3 — A,B
Group A Record 1 Record 3
Group B Record 1 Record 3
Current functionality creates a new group called Group A,B and each group then only has one record.
Following this thread as our team is also in need of this type of feature. We need to be able to easily have the data be grouped and have records display twice in some cases, to be able to export to a PDF for photo shoots. This would be a huge time saver for the team. Any updates on if this will be on a future roadmap? Thanks!
I also need this feature. Creating easy to make visual user interfaces is what sets Airtable apart from a program that is only a database, and easy grouping is a key part of that.
I posted another response to this but for some reason, it got flagged as spam but I would love to see this feature.
Secondly, Justin, your explanation above doesn’t foot. As I understand it, VIEWS are independent of data, so there is no need for multiple records if the View technology is designed to read the data, then create the view with pointers to the record. In other words, the view doesn’t present actual database records, just data read from the records.
This is a feature that isn’t new. I’ve attached a link to a video of how it works in a database application written in an OLD system (Lotus Notes). This was an extremely powerful feature with many advantages. I really hope Airtable takes a deeper look at this and figures out a way to deliver this capability.
In the context of the demo that you showed, you’re correct. However, as currently designed, Airtable views are dependent on the data, and they’ve been that way for a long time. While some long-time features do change on occasion, there’s no telling if this one will (mainly because Airtable is notoriously mute when it comes to talking about their development roadmap, with the upcoming Table Talk session where they plan on doing so being the only exception that comes to mind since I signed up). I’m not saying that it won’t ever change, but my gut says that it’s very unlikely.
Hi Justin, thanks for the reply. I didn’t mean to suggest that Views aren’t dependent on data - all views should be, it’s just that they are independent structures that reference and read data.
The reason I believe this capability is entirely “doable” within the current design of Airtable is because we can create copies of Views. These View copies do not duplicate the data, as changing a record in one View is reflected in any other View of that data. So each View is referencing a common data structure independently of others.
I hope this makes sense. As indicated by others on this thread, this is a feature that would be met with resounding acceptance…and in my case…“joy”.
You know what’s funny here? If you look in the “Chart” block and specify an X-axis field that’s a multi-select, you’ll see an option to “Split multiple values”. So clearly, Airtable knows the importance of this feature in visualizations – but not enough to implement it the Group mechanism for Grid views.
All we’re asking for, is an option to “Split multiple values” for each selected Group field – that’s it. It can be done; it’s already been implemented – it’s just a matter of Airtable surfacing this functionality better in Grid view.
Agreed that this would be incredibly valuable for me as well. It’s unfeasible for us to look for a different tool or development team to build this view.
