How to Update Airtable with a Form

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Table of Contents:

00:00 - Intro
00:44 - Understanding the Current Environment
01:22 - Showcasing the Solution
02:06 - Step 1: Create the Data Table
02:59 - Step 2: Create the Updates Table
04:15 - Step 3: Build a Form in Airtable
05:16 - Step 4: Copy/Paste the Form URL
06:00 - Step 5: Prefill the Form
08:28 - Step 6: Build an Update Automation
10:48 - Two Parting Thoughts
12:19 - Get More Airtable Help

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Software Resources (may contain affiliate links):

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There are many reasons why you would want to update Airtable data through a form. Most popular of these is the fact that it can be difficult to limit data access for the users in your Airtable database. However, if you could create a "read-only" view for them, and allow them to push a button to update data in that view, all your problems would be solved! With this approach, you can (1) eliminate the need for multiple paid users, (2) limit the data that others can view, and (3) only allow others to update specific fields.

This is a big request within the Airtable community - so much so, that some 3rd party tools have built plug-and-play solutions to help you streamline this process. And while I personally think a lot of those solutions are very solid, they aren't always necessary. In this video, I outline the six step process to creating this entire solution directly inside your Airtable database. In short, you'll want to follow these steps:

1. Create your Data Table
2. Create your Update Table
3. Build a Form in your Update Table
4. Copy/Paste the Form URL into your Data Table
5. Create a Prefilled Form
6. Build an Automation to Update the Data Table

Try implementing this process in your workflow to see how you can efficiently share views of your data that others can update easily!

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[ericapascual]

BOOM!!! YouTube knows me so well and that I was just getting into something similar to this and this just hit the nail right on the head for me!!! YAY!!! :D
Essentially I have a "morning form" and "evening form" I fill out for myself to track my progress/reflection. They go to the same base but they're separate rows since they're new submissions. Totes going to use this so the "evening form" updates the same row as my "morning form" YESSSS 🙌🔥

[djimmy]

Thanks for your work ! I was looking for this solution for a long time

[jennysimons]

I needed this info today to figure out why a potential client's form isn't filling out to anything! Thank you Gareth!

[andreagenciahouseful]

Thanks a lot for the instruction! It worked fine with images and text, but it didn't work with status, multiple choice, or ratings. Do you know if we can only update texts and images or can we also change other fields such as the status? If your video tip is only for texts and images, can you indicate a way to update the status of an airtable record?

[severinee.]

Awesome, informative video. Truly helped me out!

[jeffk]

For us we do need users to edit existing data, although I'm not sure I would find this solution useful. I think maybe a better use case (and what we need) would be for the form to load with existing data from the user record and let the user decide what to update and submit their changes, rather than making the user select the field names from a dropdown and submit new information almost blindly (not seeing what data already exists). Not sure if one of the extensions like miniextensions would work that way. Haven't tried one of those yet but I'm hopeful. Thanks for the post.

[williammachado]

This is brilliant! Will try it out and see how I mange with this. Thanks for sharing!

[TowPiglet]

Hey can you do a Stacker vs Softr comparison 0:09 ?

[garylewis]

Gareth - thanks! This is perfect! :)

[cregenda]

Excellent thank you!! Is there a reason this can not be done in different VIEWS within a single table rather than across two separate TABLES? I need to keep table 1 synced with table 2. It’s easier to just use views rather than tables.

[esha]

Great Video, can you do a similar thing to submit attachments?

[imarithkongtho]

Thanks for this fantastic video. I followed your instruction, but the parent record ID did not show up when I clicked on the prefill form in the main table (table 1). Would it be possible to fix this issue?

[adminspinecarepartners]

Brilliant tutorial, thanks. How do you keep a synchronized copy FROM Table 1 live data TO Table 2 (and then not have it run an infinite loop when updates are pushed from Table 2 to Table 1)?

[karelrosseel]

I also needed this already a long time.. but also for a checkmark.. how can you do that? 'update checkmark' but with password protection othrwise everybody with the form-link can update the checkmark.. (i want to use it for bookchapters checked if I gave the lessons it to the students)

[robertsteffanNetRoofer]

Great job Gareth, AirTable is an amazing tool and I was introduced to it in November 2018. Your dedication and effort to help others with your vast AT knowledge base still keeps me inspired. I encouraged a few roofing contractors to AirTable and highly recommended it. Have any roofing contractors engaged GAP to create a roofing AirTable workflow? I would love to see some examples if you have. Thanks for keeping it interesting.

[kidlaborde]

This has been very helpfull for me. I have only one problem I haven't been able to solve.

I'm using these forms on a vinyl factory, I want workers to use the forms to update data like "vinyl's pressed" which I achieved thanks to this tutorial. Problem is, in some cases I need the the addition of the numbers they are updating. IE: RC pressed 260 copies of REC001 on Monday, 240 on Tuesday and 300 on Wednesday. The automation setup will only show me 300 on "vinyl's pressed".

Any idea on how to workaround this?

[marionmoulton]

When you created the new matching table with the Record ID that is text, did you have to do that step manually?

[giacomocorda]

Thank you so much for sharing. It really helped me! I got trouble with prefilling linked fields: only the first come out. Any idea? Is it an airtable limitation? Thanks

[쿨팁]

Thank you for the good explanation. It really helped me a lot. In addition, I have a question. Is there a way to make the attachment appear in the prefilled form in the same way? I want to update the attachment data.

[ADHDMoneyandBusiness]

Great idea, thanks for the explanation. This process is too cumbersome for our mega airtable base, so we'd likely need an extension. You mentioned there are extensions for this.. it would be great if you include suggestions or links to extensions in the details below.