Link to other base

[John_Bacino]

So happy that someone finally filled the void left by Dabble DB.

One of the features I found most useful there, but can’t seem to do in Airtable, is linking to entries in another Base. Often, one will have multiple bases which handle distinct aspects of a business or project, but in which one piece of data overlaps.

Example: A political campaign may want Bases for contacting voters, managing events, and recording donations. Those are distinct domains which need their own Bases, but which could benefit from linking parts of them together. For example, it would be great to link donations to the event they occurred at, or voters to donations, or record who attended each event.

In Airtable at present one has to either cram all of those bases into one, or foregoe the linkage which makes this software so great. It may seem like a small thing, but once you can link bases, the sky is really the limit.

[Avi_Doe]

Maybe this Zapier function can help to divide certain bases from each other:

Add new Airtable records to a second base
Track data in two Airtable bases at once. Use this Zap to grab any new Airtable record from one base, and duplicate it in anoter Airtable base. That way your records are always where you need them, without any extra effort.
How this Airtable integration works

Someone adds a new record to your Airtable base
Zapier copies info from that record over to another Airtable base

Link:
https://zapier.com/app/editor/template/12917

[egordin]

This is interesting - thank you for sharing. There’s no way to keep records in sync however right - this is a one time process that wouldn’t pick up on future changes to these records right?

[Vernon_Fowler]

Thanks @Avi_Doe, I’ll try this soon.

Manually creating copies of new records in my redacted base published in Airtable Universe is painful.

It’s tempting to add a checkbox to every record and filter for records with this field checked to then Zap a copy across to the redacted base.

[Hitesh_Patel]

+1. Agreed. It will be really be a useful feature if you are managing various bases and only want to share specific bases.

[BenInDallas]

Avi, your solution is great, except (fair warning) it is handicapped by ANOTHER key weakness in Airtable: the lack of an “on updated record” event. You can use Zapier (and other tools) to call actions when new records are created. But there is no way to call an action when a record is updated. So if you change data to an existing record in one base, it won’t be reflected in the other.

[Ruben_B]

Hey @Andrew,
Your answer goes back to January.
We’re almost in Novemeber…
Can you please tell us where is this feature now ?

Thanks

[Avi_Doe]

@Ben and frozen yes, unfortunately it is only a oneway solution. An “on updated record” could help to extend the range of functions and bring the whole thing to a new level.

[Lisa_Altizer]

I love Airtable and this feature requests if it were granted would just make me love it even more!

[Bryan_Douglas-H]

My first post… 'cos I’m evaluating if Airtable is a fit for my company.

I’m looking at building an ‘agency model’ where I create the master bases, and give my clients a set of sub-bases that can link to my master bases… I’m doing it with Google Sheets - and other cloud based platforms, but wanting to consolidate onto 1 place for all my data.

#following

[Jordan_Bork]

Excel can do it, Access can do it, all databases can do it! This is extremely important feature! Upvote