Possible to automatically combine/join tables in Airtable?

Welcome to the Community @igonzalezdimartino! :)

It sounds like you might be in need of a way to search for the ID’s and get their corresponding employer name so you can add that information into Airtable. 

If that’s correct, you could potentially use a search action (Search for existing data in Zaps) for the app that contains the relevant ID and employer name information, then you could use a Create Record action to add the details into the relevant Base and Table in Airtable.

Does that approach sound like it could work for you here? Or are you more looking for a specific “combine/join table” action for Airtable?

I think this might work for one of my Zaps, but not for the other. 

One of my Zaps I want to retrieve the product ID and the product name. However, as shown in the screenshot, the Zap only retrieves the Product ID in that table and not the product name. Would that require me to combine/join tables? 

Thanks, 

Ines

Actually it worked out for my product ID and product name since those are predetermined by my own system. However, I am having issues with my User ID and Company name since I can’t predetermine those company names since they may come from external sources. 

DISCLAIMER: ALL info in this screenshot is not true, they are all trial runs

How can I have it autopopulate the info from SmarJobBoard to airtable when the info isn’t found in the same table in SmartJobBoard?

Thanks, 

Ines

I’m so pleased to hear it worked for the product ID and name, @igonzalezdimartino! :)

You could use a Filter to check whether or not information is found to prevent the Zap from attempting to update Airtable if it already has it stored. You can find out more about how to use Filter steps here: Add conditions to Zaps with filters

With the User ID and Company name are these details stored in Smart Job Board or are they listed in a different table in Airtable?

If they are in Smart Job Board, we may have some trouble as the Smart Job Board integration (currently in Beta) doesn’t appear to have any search actions. But it may be possible to use a Webhooks by Zapier action to connect to Smart Job Board’s API and search for the necessary information. You can find out more about working with Webhooks here: Send webhooks in Zaps and What are webhooks?

If they are within Airtable, you could use Airtable’s Find Record action to search a different table and locate that information.
 

Hello Sam - I’m extracting the info from SmartJobBoard and creating a table in Airtable and I want to extract the Company Name from the employers table into the payments table. However, I am not able to find the record ID that I want to be able to do it (the goal is that if it is empty in the payment table it will find the record id from the employer table and add the company name to the record on the payment table) 

I added screenshots of how my zap looks at the moment. Naming it based on the steps. On the Step 3 - Update Record 3 I show what I think is the solution for the record ID, but it keep showing the error message I uploaded as well. 

I hope we can find a solution together :) (thank you so much for being so responsive) 

Best, 

Ines

Hey @igonzalezdimartino,

Thanks for clarifying and for sending over those helpful screenshots. I think I can see the issue here! :)

It looks like step 1 triggers for new records added into the Employer’s table. Then step 2 attempts to search the Employer’s table for the company name from step 1 (essentially searching for the same record that triggered the Zap). Then step 3 attempts to update the Payments table using the company name from step 1. The company name is not the sort of Record ID reference that the Update Record Airtable would expect.

As you’re only looking to create a record in the Payments table if an existing one isn’t found, the Update Record action isn’t necessary here.

I would suggest making the following tweaks to your Zap:

1. Alter step 2 so that it searches the Payments table for the company name instead. This will allow the Zap to see if an existing record for that company name is found in the Payments table.
2. Then remove the Update Record action (step 3).
3. In the Find Record action for Airtable select the option to create a new record if one isn’t found (and configure the subsequent fields that appear):

This will allow your Zap to create a new record in the Payments table in cases where there isn’t an existing record for the company already. Hope that makes sense! 

Hey Sam!
Thanks for the tip! However, the reason I chose the “update” action is because the table is currently extracting information from the SmartJobBoard platform, but the only thing they do not provide is the company name, just the user ID (which is the identifier of the company name). Therefore, my goal is to find in the payments table the empty company name field (which should always be empty since it will never provide it form the extraction) and then enter the company name that is in the employer table. I just can’t quite figure out a way to identify the empty company name field on the payment table and then enter the company name (provided by the employer table)

Do you know how I should approach this? 

Thanks, 

Ines

Ah I see! Sorry for misunderstanding that previously, @igonzalezdimartino.

In that case, you’d use a Filter step to check whether the Company Name field on the Find Record step Exists - meaning that a value exists for that field. So the trigger and actions in your Zap should be similar to the below:

1. New Record in View in Airtable - triggers on new records added to the Employers table
2. Find Record in Airtable - searches Payments table for the matching record.
3. Filter - Only continues to next action if a value Exists in the company name field in step 2.
4. Update Record in Airtable - Record field uses the record ID from step 2 to determine the correct record to update.

Does that approach sound like it could work for you here? 

Hello Sam! 

That definitely helped with the progress! However, for some reason, this only takes place with one record. I thought that if I used the custom drop down options, this would not have a predetermined field, rather just encompass all of the record fields. 

For example, the only record updating is the Order ID: 18 because I think that is the record ID shown in the example when selecting the dropdown menu. 

How can I make it to apply to every single record? 

I attached how my “update record” steps looks and how there is only one record updated on airtable. 

Sorry for the consistent questions, I just want this to run as smooth as possible :) 

Thanks for your help, 

Ines

Glad I could help, @igonzalezdimartino! :)

I’ve been looking into this and the reason the Zap is only updating a single record is due to the output from the Find Record action step. As it will only return the first record that matches the search criteria, not all record matches. Sorry for the bad news here. 

We have an existing feature request for the ability to have the multiple results of a Find Record search returned as line items, which would then allow the Zap to update multiple records. I’ve added your vote to that but unfortunately I don’t have an ETA on when that would be possible. We’ll be sure to email you as soon as it is though!