Updating records using a form in Airtable

1. Open your Airtable homepage.

2. Create or open your preferred base.

3. Create a checkbox field to your preferred table.  

Add a checkbox field to the "Ad sets" table. We will call this field "Approval" in our base.

1. Create a formula field in the same table as noted above.

2. Use the RECORD_ID() formula function to output the unique record ID for each ad set.

1. Create a new table to track updates from form submissions.

1. Create a linked records field in table created in the step above.

We can keep the default name field so that we know who submitted the approval, but we want to customize the other fields. The "Notes" field can be renamed as "Link to Ad sets" and changed to a linked record field that links to the "Ad sets" table.

1. Create a checkbox field in table noted in the step above.

Name this field “Ad set approval” or something similar. We will use this same field later in the Automations (Step 8) portion of this workflow.

1. Create a form in table noted in previous the steps.

In the "Updates" table we want to create a simple form that we can send to our external collaborators for ad set approval.

We also want to turn on the "Required" toggle for each field. This ensures that the external collaborator won’t miss any necessary information. Additionally, it’s a good practice to add context to the "Link to Ad sets" portion of the form in the "Add some help text" box. More on pre-filling forms in the next step.

At this point, the form would look something like this. Note the added "help text" highlighted in the green boxes.

Now we need to create some helpful URLs for each ad set. This step will allow you to prefill the ad set needing approval by concatenating the RECORD_ID() from each ad set with the form share link we set up in the previous step.

First, we want to copy the form's share link URL from the "Updates table" by clicking on the "Share form" button from the form view.

Note

You may also consider restricting access to the form with a password for an added layer of security.

Next, we want to build out a new formula field in the "Ad sets" table. The general formula we are using for this example is as follows:

CONCATENATE("https://airtable.com/shr**********?","prefill_Link+to+Ad+sets=", {Ad set ID})

Let’s breakdown each part of this formula:

You'll need to use your own form's unique share URL when building out this formula.

Now, we have a unique pre-filled form link for each ad set that can be easily shared with external collaborators.

As you can see below, the link you’ve created with the formula will now dynamically pre-fill the ad set belonging to that record.

Now that we have everything needed to track ad set approvals in the base, we need a way of using those responses to update the ad set record in the "Ad sets" table. There are a couple of ways to do this, but for our example, we will use Airtable’s native Automations feature.

First, you’ll need to create a new automation, name it, and choose a trigger. The GIF below shows navigating to the Automations feature, adding a new custom automation, naming it (in this case we are naming it "Approval automation," and setting the trigger as " When a record is created " in the "Updates" table. Don’t forget to run the automation test.

Once the trigger has run successfully, we need to add an action or actions that the automation will perform. In this case, we want the automation to update an ad set’s record in the “Ad sets” table. To do this, we need to carefully select the record ID from the linked record field from the “Updates” table (Step 1 is the trigger portion of the automation). Follow along in the GIF below.

Once we’ve inserted the dynamic record ID value, we need to choose a field or fields to update. In this case, we will be updating the “Approval” checkbox field that we set up at the beginning of this guide. We will use the “Ad set approval” checkbox field from the “Updates” table to overwrite the “Approval” checkbox field in the “Ad sets” table. Again, make sure to test the action step of the automation and check that it performed the intended operation.

Congratulations! You can now turn the automation on and share the form link with your external collaborators so that they can approve the ad set.

Here is an embed of the base with all of the changes made from the steps above. Feel free to copy this base for your own comparison or use.

Above is just one of the workarounds you could use to update an existing record whenever a form is submitted. You can also check out other solutions related to this workaround in the Airtable Community.

Check out this useful support article that outlines common troubleshooting steps.

No. External collaborators cannot make comments. You can follow the above similar steps create a comments section using a long text field. Consider going back to step 5 above and create a "Comments" long text field instead of the checkbox field used in the example.