In Airtable, I am dealing with two separate cells, each containing three distinct linked records. My goal is to merge all linked records from these cells into one cell, resulting in a total of six unique linked records. I have attempted using the concatenate formula, but it only produces a text representation of the records instead of the actual linked records. I’m seeking an automated solution or a JavaScript approach to accomplish this task, as manually inputting the six unique records is not an option for me.
One approach you might consider is using Airtable’s Automations feature to create a script that merges these records automatically. You can write a custom script using JavaScript that pulls all the linked records from both cells, removes any duplicates, and then updates a third cell with the combined list. This might involve looping through the linked arrays, appending them, and then clearing out any duplicates before writing them back to your target cell. It’s a bit more advanced than using formulas, but it should achieve the desired result more efficiently. If you’re new to scripting, Airtable’s documentation and community are excellent resources to get started.
Another method worth considering is using the “Join” option within an Airtable Formula field. Although this might not give you direct linked records, you can use this feature as a stepping stone to convert the concatenated text back to links in another field. After joining the entries into a single cell, you could utilize an external script, perhaps via Airtable’s Scripting block, to transform the concatenated text into linked records based on their identifiers. This has its complexities but allows for flexibility if Automations are unavailable.
you could try creating a new linked table and have a script that adds linked records to this new table by scanning your existing columns. Then, connect this table to your desired cell. This lets you reduce duplication while maintaining links in a more structured way. good luck! 