How to create an Airtable view showing unlinked and unpartnered records?

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1

Hey everyone, I’m struggling with an Airtable problem. I’ve got a table with names and linked partners. I want to make a view that shows people who either have no partners or aren’t listed as someone else’s partner.

Here’s what my table looks like:

Name         | Partner
-------------|----------------
Alex         | Sam
Sam          | (Empty)
Chris        | Pat, Jamie
Pat          | (Empty)
Jamie        | (Empty)
Taylor       | (Empty)

I tried to set up a filter like this:

WHERE Partner is empty
OR Name is not in Partner

But it’s not working how I want. I’m aiming to get a list that shows:

  1. People with no partners
  2. People who aren’t listed as anyone’s partner

Is this even possible in Airtable? Any ideas on how to make this work? Thanks for any help!

2

hey there, i had a similar issue. try creating a rollup field that counts linked records pointing back. then filter for Partner is empty OR Rollup Count = 0. this should catch both unlinked peeps and those not listed as partners. hope it helps!

3

I encountered a similar issue with Airtable and found a workaround that might be useful. I ended up creating a new formula field called “Unpartnered Status” and used a formula to check whether the Partner field was empty or if the Name did not appear in any Partner entries.

The formula I worked with was:

IF(OR(ISBLANK({Partner}), NOT(FIND(Name, ARRAYJOIN(ARRAYFLATTEN(Partner))))), ‘Unpartnered’, ‘Partnered’)

This formula evaluates both conditions and marks the record as ‘Unpartnered’ if either applies. Afterwards, I set up a view filtered to display only records highlighting this status. Although this method isn’t the most elegant, it effectively addressed the problem in my configuration. Hope this helps!

4

I’ve dealt with this exact problem before. Here’s a solution that worked for me:

Create a new rollup field called ‘Partner Count’ in your main table. Set it to count the number of times each person’s name appears in the Partner field across all records.

Then, set up a view with this filter:

WHERE {Partner} is empty
OR {Partner Count} = 0

This should give you the list you’re looking for. It’ll show people with no partners and those who aren’t listed as anyone’s partner.

One caveat: This method assumes your Partner field is set up as a linked record field. If it’s not, you’ll need to restructure your table a bit for this to work properly.