Automatically determine gender-specific salutations in Airtable

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1

I’m trying to figure out how to automate gender-specific salutations in Airtable. Here’s what I want to do:

I have two tables:

  1. Names: Has two columns - Male and Female - with about 30,000 names each.
  2. Contacts: Has columns for Name and Salutation.

I want to automatically fill the Salutation column based on whether the Name is found in the Male or Female list from the Names table. If it’s a male name, it should say ‘Herr’. For female names, ‘Frau’. If the name isn’t found, it should say ‘no data’.

I managed to do this in Google Sheets, but I’m stumped in Airtable. Is this even possible? Am I using the wrong tool?

The goal is to address people correctly in German (Dear Sir/Madam). I have a database of names and genders, but I’m not sure how to use it effectively in Airtable.

Any ideas on how to tackle this? Thanks!

2

I’ve faced a similar challenge in Airtable before. While it’s not as straightforward as in Google Sheets, there’s a workaround that might help. Instead of using two separate columns for male and female names, consider creating a single ‘Gender’ column in your Names table with ‘Male’ or ‘Female’ as values. Then, in your Contacts table, use a lookup field to find the corresponding gender for each name.

From there, you can use a formula field for the Salutation. Something like:

IF(BLANK({Gender Lookup}), ‘no data’,
IF({Gender Lookup} = ‘Male’, ‘Herr’, ‘Frau’))

This approach should work for most cases, though it might struggle with very large datasets or uncommon names. You might also want to consider adding a manual override option for exceptions or ambiguous names. Hope this helps!

3

hey, have u thought about using zapier or integromat with airtable? they can do some cool automations. u could set up a zap that checks each name against ur list and updates the salutation. might be easier than trying to do it all in airtable. just an idea, hope it helps!

4

While Airtable is powerful, this specific task might be challenging without custom scripting. Have you considered using a lookup field in your Contacts table? You could create two lookup fields - one for Male and one for Female names - that reference your Names table. Then, use a formula field to determine the salutation based on whether a match is found in either lookup.

Something like:
IF(NOT(BLANK({Male Lookup})), ‘Herr’,
IF(NOT(BLANK({Female Lookup})), ‘Frau’,
‘no data’))

This approach isn’t perfect and may have limitations with large datasets, but it could be a starting point. Alternatively, you might need to explore Airtable’s scripting options or consider integrating with external tools for more complex data matching.