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John_Bacino
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

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.

495 Comments
Zac
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

Emanuel,
You are correct. It is impossible to link bases at the moment. This is a huge issue for many of us, and the workarounds are simply not practical.

Angela_Nostrand
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

+1 for sure.

Connecting bases is one of the first things I tried to do, and I’m so glad I found this thread before investing more time setting up tables. Unfortunately, if I want to roll this out to my team, this is a hurdle that I can’t work around.

EMANUEL_CAMACHO
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Indeed. Adding to that, that the first column of every table is not linkable either, simply does not make any sense.

I was thrown back reading the airtable guides where it literally suggested I link the second column and then use a formula in the first column. I had come to this conclusion to use existing data from one of my bases (specifically the ones in my examples above) and this felt like another huge oversight.

I’m also concerned that they are not addressing this.

linking data and making it relational is essentially the foundation, if not purpose, for software like this to exist.

I can already do it in excel, but not have the functionality that exists here for me to correlate info. Short of putting it all in one convoluted and massive base, much of what is done to keep bases separate makes no sense.

For now, I have enough use out of airtable that it works for us but without the ability to link from other bases, forcing me to continue to export/import CSV’s or copy and paste – which wastes time – I won’t be paying for any of the upgraded services until this is fixed.

Kelley_Correia
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Please help to get Airtable Bases linking to each other, thanks!

Alucar
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Yet another +1 for this feature. Would really help clean up and make my base more powerful

osulop
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

+1 for me as well. It doesn’t really matter how it’s done, as long as I can build a system where some but not all users can update info in a base, not just view it or add new entries.

Erica_Greenwood
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

+1 again for this feature. Right now I have 3 bases and in each one I have a contact list - redundant and if there are duplicates they must be kept in sync. Sigh…

Andre_Zijlstra
9 - Sun
9 - Sun

It would be nice after 208 posts if anyone from Airtable could give us just the smallest of smallest heads up on this topic. Even if it would take 3 more years or so.

Is this topic or isn’t it on the todo list?

EMANUEL_CAMACHO
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

I have 12 bases setup and each has either my team or books CSV’s imported. It’s extremely repetitive and wasteful of time for me to have to go back and constantly update. Granted, if I had all of the info available at one time, It would be easy. But business is not easy and the information is not always present at the same time.

I am baffled they’ve yet to answer these questions. I’ve been reading through the thread. It appears to me this is the largest issue and most requested piece of functionality.

merlinregis_Thi
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Hello @Andrew 2 years later… what are the updates? :winking_face:

Any devellopments? ETA?

I understand that this request DOES require much work, but also think that “PROBABLY” AirTable has a HUGE concern about this TREMENDOUSLY POPULAR feature request. Since EVEN the free plan has UNLIMITED bases, you probably think that abuse could happen IF you were to offer base linking.

In my humble opinion, and I invite everyone who agrees with me to like this response, The answer is a very simple and straight forward NO.

Why not?

Simply because if we are at a point that we feel a strong need to link bases, we quite probably are ALSO at a point where we ALREADY have :

  • A premium plan
  • Tons of data inserted in our tables
  • More than one project = different bases
  • More than one base using THE SAME TYPE OF INFOS or even EXACTLY SAME INFOS.

Therefore we ALSO ALREADY have the need to DROP our quantity of generated information by linking the tables together, thus permitting us to TREMENDOUSLY DROP the same infos that can be found in 1, 2, 5, 10 , ONE HUNDRED different bases… Yes I’m exagerating, but I’m SURE that there are SOME users here with close to that many, if not more than 100 bases in their profiles :slightly_smiling_face:

Example :

In my different bases I could have :
1 - a phonebook
2 - a list of businesses
3 - an inventory management system used my more than one business (2 )
4 - They (the businesses (2)) use the purchases manager to add their inventory (3)
5 - Once their inventory (3) is entered using the puirchase manager (4), they (the businesses (2)) chose if they want to offer it on the ONLINE CATALOG
6 - Obviously, this will produce SALES, so a sales tracking system will be required.

Now, obviously, NOT everyone will have access to the content of the different bases on the same level. The people with access to the phonebook will not have access to the businesses inventories. — BUT THEN AGAIN… In the businesses infos, there MAY be a link to view its ONLINE CATALOG. but NOT their sales nor purchases.

Why multiplicate same infos when we can link the whole shabang together???

Now I could have added very much more types of bases that can be linked together :

  • Countries
  • States/Provinces
  • Regions
  • Cities
  • Zip/Postal codes
  • Street names
  • Reports and statistics on sales
  • Demographics

Etc…etc… etc…

I DEFINITELY hope this HELPS our cause, and gives a good push for the progression of this feature which, without it, people will end up migrating elsewhere. :frowning:

Thanks in advance for your prompt follow up,

merlinregis,

The guy that could structure his WHOLE LIFE using tons of bases… IF they were linked together :winking_face: :stuck_out_tongue: