Use a form to update an existing record in Airtable

[@xlntmike]

I learned more from this video than any other. Thank you so much and looking forward to your wedding. Hope to meet half of the celebrities!

[@julian_post]

Me too! lol

[@cristianopolese9770]

Thanks for your precious work, it's very useful! do you know if it can works also with new version of form? i'm tryn to, but from the new version of Airtable form, i have a different link, that prefill but does not update the record. Thanks in advance for your kindly reply

[@sunbash]

Did you ever figure this out please?

[@cristianopolese9770]

@@sunbash yes, you just need to put a question mark at the end of the link (/form?)

[@larrymeyer5823]

Excellent video, so much better than the linked record method! This saved me from hours of additional agony trying to figure this out! Thank you!

[@julian_post]

Wohoo! Thanks for letting me know!!

[@AnuKumar-hl3vv]

Another great video - I really like your attention to small details - moving the guest name field up, hiding the guest id in the form. These things go a long way!

[@julian_post]

Thank you Anu, glad it's helpful!

[@heatherbrand3826]

Just ran into this by chance - such a fun video, Julian! We are loving all the Airtable bases you built for us! If anyone reading these comments wants to contract outside Airtable help, Julian is your man!

[@julian_post]

Thanks Heather! Nice to hear from you :)

[@TALMAIsrael]

We use Airtable to manage our fellowship application and registration processes, and this has been incredibly helpful. Thanks for an easy to follow tutorial!

[@julian_post]

Glad it's been useful and thanks so much for letting me know!

[@hexadevi]

You just made me the coolest person in my Burning Man camp, thank you!!🖤

[@julian_post]

I love this comment lol. Also would love to see the Airtable base. Have a great trip!

[@happy4523]

Sir you just saved me so much time. Thank you for explaining this so simply and clearly!

[@julian_post]

You’re welcome, glad it was helpful 🤗

[@LizziDCP]

This doesn't seem to be working for me; when I try the copy + paste automation it says the record ID doesn't exist :/

[@ShonaKamps]

Hey! Great video! Super helpful. I'm wondering if there is a workflow that updates fields in the main database, but if a field is left blank on the form to not overwrite the field in the main sheet. For instance, if Kanye decided to change his meal option but did not need to refill in the rest of the form and his previous preferences would not be overwritten. Thank you again for the video!

[@MMcCarthyRealty]

Great video. Thanks. Hope you haven't retired from KZbin!

[@julian_post]

I've been really busy with consulting work, but hoping to make more soon! Thanks for the encouragement :)

[@learnfireschool]

Insanely useful video

[@julian_post]

Glad you liked it!!

[@cottagekeeper]

Fantastic!!! Thank you so much 🎉

[@julian_post]

Glad you liked it!!

[@VIPULDJHAVERI]

thanks for sharing your brilliancy highly useful

[@julian_post]

So nice of you, glad it helped!

[@rileystephens9187]

In the formula column, can you make the formula/hyperlink read as text?

[@FrancoEjder-on4iv]

Great video, thanks!

[@julian_post]

Glad you liked it!

[@TheCantwellAdvisory]

Great video, but is there a way to perform this process if I have a large number of fields and some of them have lengthy text and many multiple select options? Something that would exceed the 1,600-character URL limitation?

[@Fredjo999]

Just great !! it's helping a lot ! THANKS.

[@julian_post]

Woohoo!

[@stevelassu7156]

How can I do this for multiple columns of data? I have over 20 columns I want to update. How would I formulate it for all 20 columns?

[@julian_post]

There's a great extension for that. It will generate the formula for you: airtable.com/marketplace/blkqHRSUYR2ooQyLE/prefilled-forms

[@MattGoesRogue]

Brilliant video, thank you ever so much!

[@julian_post]

Thanks, Matt - glad you enjoyed it!

[@marciaferreira6189]

Hi there, thank you for this. Just confirming, guests would need to create a airtable account to RSVP?

[@julian_post]

No! That's the beauty of doing it this way. You need to have entered them into the table and created a custom form URL (covered in the video), but no Airtable account is needed to RSVP

[@KeeriTramm]

Is there a way to prefill an attachment? I would love for users to be able to view and update their photo. Thank you!

[@julian_post]

I'm not aware of a way to do this for images in an Airtable attachment field :(. This might be a good use for creating an Interface, which will allow you to have a form-like aesthetic, but actually edit an existing record including attachments

[@KeeriTramm]

@@julian_post Thank you!

[@parameswaranp2957]

Thank you for the fantastic videos-they’ve been really helpful! I have a quick question: Is there a way to make prefilled details non-editable? For example, similar to hidden_guest_id=true, could we have something like readonly_guest_id=true or edit_guest_id=false? Additionally, is it possible to disable the link after the form is submitted? We need the form to be submitted only once, and if the link is clicked again, it should indicate that the form has already been submitted.

[@ContentServices-b7k]

Thank you for this great video. Question though, if you're using the form to update an already created record and field, how do you stop the tool from also recreating a new record at the same time?

[@julian_post]

This is explained in the video! In short, you creating a new "update" record in a separate table, then the Airtable automation finds the original record and updates it with the new information. If you run into any issues recreating it, feel free to ask questions here community.3rings.co/t/wedding-rsvps-template-and-discussion/16

[@LexiShirey]

Would this work with linked records and look up fields?

[@julian_post]

Yes, you could set it up that way. You'd also need a way to know which is the most recent update (if there are multiple updates to the same record), and use a rollup to show only that one.

[@fea5820]

Good video! Imagine my shock when you deleted the first form. What if I still need that form because I will be continuing to collect information on it as well? Can I leave the form there? Thanks!

[@julian_post]

Sure! You can have a form that adds a NEW person to the system (the first one) and then use another one to update existing records. It is no problem to keep both.

[@misse2449]

@@julian_post What's the best way to do that? I've been struggling with this for four days.

[@julian_post]

@@misse2449 What specifically are you struggling with?

[@misse2449]

@@julian_post when I tried to do the above, the second form just added s new record instead of update the old record. I tried to use automation and also to use a formula.

[@julian_post]

@@misse2449 Did you add the second form in the second table? I recommend copying the template, and if it's not working for you, take a couple screenshots of where you're stuck and post them in this thread! community.3rings.co/t/use-a-form-to-update-an-existing-record-in-airtable/16

[@ImogenW]

Thanks for this! I'm stuck on the Guest ID, can anyone help? How did you create it? And why can't you use the primary field instead?

[@julian_post]

You could use the primary field, but it's not quite as foolproof because if you have multiple records with the same name in the primary field, for example two guests named "Lebron James," you'll have a problem. That's why I use the record ID. In the video, I show you how to do that at 5:30 by prefilling GuestID with the Guest's record ID (using a formula)

[@LuzTorres-Rendon]

Love this! So what happens if for example the guest goes back to the same URL? Will they see their pre-selected options? or will it be empty and the new values will override the previous ones?

[@julian_post]

The way we set it up here, it will overwrite the previous ones. But you can absolutely prefill the existing values. I like to use this Airtable extension to set up the prefills: airtable.com/marketplace/blkqHRSUYR2ooQyLE/prefilled-forms

[@C3malmoSe]

@@julian_post Is it possible to prefill values if the field is multiple linked records?

[@RobSchwartzCoaching]

Great vid Julian. Not so sure if Lebron is attending however!

[@julian_post]

Thanks Rob. Time will tell 😅

[@danikadares]

Hi Julian! Thanks for such an informative video! I tested out the email automation and when I received it the personalized link is trailed by the code we entered in the formula. Do you happen to know how to fix this?

[@danikadares]

I seemed to have fixed it. I edited the token and hit 'Length'. If you have a spare moment to just sort of explain, I would greatly appreciate that. Thank you again! I'm looking forward to utilizing more of your videos!

[@julian_post]

@@danikadares Hi Danika! That's interesting. Choosing 'length' means you are inserting just a number for how many characters long your token is. If you want, post a couple screenshots here in my community forum and I'll help you figure out what's going on community.3rings.co/t/wedding-rsvps-template-and-discussion/16

[@os-m]

Hi Julian! Good vid! This is exactly what I need! I followed all the steps, but when a form is submitted all the data in the main table goes blank instead of updating with the information from the form. Any idea why?

[@os-m]

Nevermind, I got it haha

[@julian_post]

Glad you figured it out! For anyone else with this problem, here's what I wrote to another user: Yes that's true, it will overwrite all fields with the info in the form. The best way to work around that is to prefill the form with the current info. That way it will overwrite the same values unless the user edits them in the form. I recommend using this handy extension to make a formula that enters all the prefill values: airtable.com/marketplace/blkqHRSUYR2ooQyLE/prefilled-forms You also might be able to use conditional logic in the automation to limit what fields to copy and paste, but this would get tricky if you have a lot of fields. Hope that helps!

[@DanielleMcLaughlin-er7nc]

Thanks for this video! We are using this automation to update member records, and when a member leaves one question field blank because it does not need to be updated, it deletes the old data field from the record. Is there a way to avoid this?

[@julian_post]

Hi Danielle, yes that's true, it will overwrite all fields with the info in the form. The best way to work around that is to prefill the form with the current info. That way it will overwrite the same values unless the user edits them in the form. I recommend using this handy extension to make a formula that enters all the prefill values: airtable.com/marketplace/blkqHRSUYR2ooQyLE/prefilled-forms You also might be able to use conditional logic in the automation to limit what fields to copy and paste, but this would get tricky if you have a lot of fields. Hope that helps!

[@luiscolin6752]

Hello, thanks for this video. I made all you did but when i answer the form, it updates correctly BUT adds a new entry at the end. 8 hours trying what is happening :( Also in the test says Received invalid inputs. Can you help me?

[@julian_post]

Hi Luis, my guess is that you may be passing it the wrong record ID. Post your question here with a couple screenshots of what's happening and I'll help you figure it out! community.3rings.co/t/wedding-rsvps-template-and-discussion/

[@dave7491]

Great video! Wondering - does this require premium? I have a table with 250 entries that is a contact list essentially and I want each person to be able to update their own information every once in a while, thanks!

[@julian_post]

The paid plan features sometimes shift over time, but currently you can do all of this on the free plan :)

[@billsholar573]

If there are hundreds of members of an association listed in a directory powered by AirTable, and you wanted to give each member the opportunity to update (only) their own data whenever they wish, how could a member request the form be sent just to their own email, so they could complete it?

[@julian_post]

Hi Bill! You could create a form that takes their email address, and an automation that checks for a match in the Airtable base when the form is submitted. If there is a matching email address, have it send the prefilled form like we created in this video.

[@sara_no_h_92]

mine doesn't have the gear to switch to dynamic. HALP

[@kfsm820]

the guest list is hillarious. Ted bundy? omg ☠