How to get data in one cell in one table, to populate another cell in another table

Databases work different than you describe, in a more structured way. I recommend you to read the getting started guide.

If you have Events table and Venues table, you can relate them using a Linked Record field (events are celebrated in venues). Then you can show the address of the venue in the event record, for instance, with a Lookup field.

In a database you have Entities (items of the same type), represented by tables here. This elements have Properties, represented by fields here. These Entities may have relationships, that you can make with Linked Record field here. That is the first step to work with data from several tables at once. But you have to stop thinking on cells, columns, rows, etc.

Appreciate you taking the time to post and explain. After some perseverance (and much time), i’m beginning to get the picture you’re painting.

I am getting somewhere (slowly), but not exactly where i want to be, which is to be able to take data from several tables and collate ‘look ups’ of this data into one field in one table. I’ve managed to create a table with links in one field, but the looks ups only in different fields.

Is what i’m looking for possible?

Example:

I have 3 tables

I want info from one record in one field of each table ‘rounded up’ and simply displayed (look up pref) in one field, in one table, so one field on Table 4 would look like this:

Look up from Table 1, Field 1, Record 1 here.
Look up from Table 2, Field 2, Record 2 here.
Look up from Table 3, Field 3, Record 3 here.

You’ll need to link the records first, this will display the linked record’s primary key in table master table. Then, run a lookup on the associated records to display the specific columns you want.

Difficult to explain but…

Create 3 new “Linked” fields in your master table that will be linked to tables A, B, C. In the master table row where you want the new data displayed (ie row 1 column 2), click on the record field and chose the row in table A from which you want to get data from. This will display the linked record’s primary key data in the linked records column of the master table. Repeat this for tables B and C. Then, create 3 “Lookup” fields in the master table and pull whichever fields you want from each of the associated tables (A,B,C) that you want to display in the master table. You can then hide the 3 linked fields in the master table.

Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to post and explain.

I’ve followed your guidance here, and realised this is close to what i’ve been doing.

I think the confusion for me, is that it doesn’t quite deliver what I expect which is basically

2 columns/fields as such:

Column 1 (Question) | Column 2 (Answer).

What i get is

Column 1 (Q) | 2A | 3A | 4A

This presents itself in a sort of step format.

This is going to result in a very wide and difficult to navigate document. I’m just looking for the simplicity of 2 columns, like this (mock up done with copy & paste):

image|690x320

Is this possible?

Thanks

Like this (mock up done with copy & paste):

Your mock-up doesn’t come through; perhaps because you’re a new[ish] user.
And I can’t say I really follow what you’re trying to do.

It would seem to me that you have your two-column system there; you’ve just spread it across six. Rather than {Link 1}, {Link 2}, and {Link 3}, there should just be {Link}, a linked-record field pointing to another table. In that other table, you’d have three records: '1st Choice', '2nd Choice', and '3rd Choice', which would be linked with records, respectively, 'Heading 1', 'Heading 2', and 'Heading 3'. Similarly, you’d have a single lookup field that would look up the respective values based on the linked record.

Take a look at this base. (Select ‘duplicate base’ to copy it to your workspace; that way you can inspect the field configuration to see how everything links together.) I think it will point you on the right path…

Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time on this very much. Although you say you cant follow what i’m trying to do, the demo here looks exactly like what i’m trying to do. :slightly_smiling_face: Although i’m struggling to follow your explanation of how, i’ll do as you say; make a duplicate and take a look.

It looks promising. Thanks again.

Ok, back to square one i’m afraid: Example

The problem (misunderstanding), is that I want/need to look up the data from several different tables (so need to a link and look up column for each) and compile neatly into one table (preferably with just 2 columns Q &A).

Nick, would you be able to describe what you are trying to do - What the various tables are etc.

It looks as though Main is a set of answers to questions - the answers being selected from Link 1, Link 2 and Link 3. If this is the case, why are the answers in 3 tables?

Also, who are the intended users, how will they use it and what will they enter?

I will try :slightly_smiling_face:

Ok, so lets say there are 3 tables, each have 2 fields (x 1 Questions, x1 Answers)

I would like a 4th table to aggregate the Q & A’s from all 3, into (ideally) just 2 columns In one table).

So table 4 would look something like this (mock up):

For context, i currently have several spreadsheets that I use to gather research for copywriting projects (basically questionnaires). The answers show up in one much neater summarised spreadsheet, which i can then easily refer to. I do this simply by using formulas (fill this cell with info from this cell on this sheet), but i’m not able to do this as simply using Airtable.

Why several spreadsheets/tables? Well you don’t necessarily need all that info for every project, so i have broken them down into sections, that you can pick n mix from.

It’s not easy to explain, but i’m basically looking for a way to make my process accessible to others (or have clients complete the questionnaires), that is more user friendly. The spreadsheets are ok for me to work with, but for others, quite frankly; they look a mess, and would be too confusing.

I am also looking at using a form to do the job on Airtable, but thats seems even harder to do, as each question needs one field, so potentially end up with scores of fields, making if difficult to view/navigate.

Thanks for the explanation - is there any reason that all the questions and answers shouldn’t be in a single table along with, say, a category field. You could then create views which selected particular sets of questions and answers based on the category?

Having said that, the next step of getting clients to complete the answers to the questions (and presumably having multiple sets of answers for each of them) won’t really work with this structure (as you’ve realised, Airtable forms can only enter a single record and so each question would need to be a field in the table).

Apart from it being very large, i suppose having all Q&A in one table + categories might be a way around the ‘many tables’ format . I’d need to look into how to: “create views which selected particular sets of questions and answers based on the category”, and then try it.

It’s not something id registered as an option before, so thanks for the suggestion. I’ll look into it.

I’ve built questionnaire/checklist apps for a couple of clients based upon Airtable’s automatic generation of linked records and an extremely ugly IF() statement to generate question text. (The largest contained 470-some entries. To simplify maintenance as much as possible, I use standalone tables within the base to allow Airtable to generate its own formula code.) It’s not an approach I’d recommend to a new user, and my description and example base are still far from publishable, but if you’re interested in seeing if this might work for you, PM or email me to discuss.

Hi W_Vann_Hall,
I am trying to do something similar. My grid has category, question, response. There are 2 categories and each category has 2-7 questions which require a manual entry for an answer. The answer is then linked a response selection from a dropdown. I am having trouble trying to create the grid and form for this. If you can provide insight into how you did your Airtables that would be great!

@Neera_Majumdar

This isn’t quite the response you hoped for — and I apologize for the delay in responding, but, having relocated some 3500 km physically and, alas, seemingly 30-odd years culturally, I’m only now working through my backlog of messages — but you may want to check this recent post. It doesn’t deal with my attempts to standardize and simplify a checklist approach, which are still being refined [in other words, they still don’t work :winking_face: ]; instead, it discusses conditional limiting of linked records. For instance, in linked-record field {1} your user selects linked-record ‘A’, which then limits his or her choices for linked-record field {2} to linked records ‘A1’, ‘A2’, or ‘A3’; had he or she chosen linked-record ‘B’ as the value for {1}, permissible options for {2} would have been ‘B1’, ‘B2’, and ‘B3’. I’m not sure if your work flow would support an approach built around layered linked records, but the post contains links to demo bases illustrating two- and three-level conditional logic.

Edit: I should add the bad news is neither this nor the checklist approach will work with the current generation of Airtable forms: Conditionally linked-records won’t work because they require the new record to be created first and then updated incrementally, where a form view creates and updates the new record in one fell swoop; my current implementation of checklists won’t work because it depends upon the ability to create a new linked record, which cannot be done from a form…