Lookup without linking tables

[JonathanBowen]

It would be great to have lookup functionality without needing to link table first, essentially a VLOOKUP function. Let’s say I have a table of products:

And I have another table where my salespeople enter customer orders (let’s say they are scanning barcodes using the mobile app)

I want to look up the scanned barcode in the products table without making an explicit link between the two. The way this works at the moment is that you have to link the two tables and search for the product record you want. For speed, I want my team to simply scan a barcode and have Airtable do the lookup in the background. This would need some error handling in case the scanned barcode does not exist in the products table. I could use a formula to, for example, “VLOOKUP” the product name into the orders field to show whether or not the scanned barcode exists.

Just one use case, I can see lots more examples where a VLOOKUP-style function would be really useful.

[Kamille_Parks]

Unless I misunderstood your request, wouldn’t your problem be solved if Airtable let mobile users link fields using the barcode scanner instead of only allowing typing? Its still a feature request but a far easier thing to implement.

[JonathanBowen]

Yes, that would work for the specific use case, although more generally I think a generic VLOOKUP formula could be used in other ways. For example, I’ve got single select field and the values in the select are also in a reference table. If I select “Whatever” from the select, another attribute in the ref table is populated for me. I could see this being useful where the first input field is barcode, single line text, single select, date, maybe others too.

JB

[Dean_Lutrin]

I really would love this tool as well. It would make our lives so much easier!

[Nate_Rivera]

Anyone know if this was ever solved? I’m also interested in this function as I have a use where;

We provide items for the homes we manage. i.e. Toielt paper, paper towels, kitchen spices, etc.

We are looking to purchase all items in bulk to have in our warehouse so that they can be readily available for when needed at a home. Each property has it’s own P&L so it’s important that we retroactively allocate the cost of each item to the property so it’s recorded.

If we could use the scan barcode function to simply scan the barcode for the item being pulled, let’s say toilet paper, and then the remaining fields are auto-populated with the appropriate information.

Example: I am in the warehouse and I am needing to pull one toilet paper, two paper towel, and some soap; I simply scan the bin’s barcode and the record fills in the cost/item name/etc.

Is this doable?

[Daniel_Simon]

I agree with the request - my Base has a number of lookups that are inherently more complicated because of the forced creation of Linked Fields. Being able to perform something similar to a Vlookup would be much easier, especially considering that my Base is basically a migration from a complex Excel spreadsheet that was nothing but Vlookups and other formulas.