Kuovonne's Guide to Airtable

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Kuovonne's Guide to Airtable

Specific field types

Select fields
Select fields

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Single and multiple select fields are useful when there is a well defined set of choices.

Sorting select fields

When you sort records based on a select field, the sort order is determined by the order of the choices in the field configuration, not an alphanumeric sort.

Grouping with multiple select fields

When a record has multiple choices selected, the record will appear in a group that contains all of the same choices. The record will not appear under the individual select choices.

Formulas with select choices

When using a select field in a formula, the select field value is always text.

Single select fields are often used in conjunction with a SWITCH() formula function.

SWITCH( {single select field},

"option 1", 1,

"option 2", 2,

"option 3", 3

)

However, multiple select fields do not work well with SWITCH() because they could have multiple values and values in different orders.

IF(

FIND("option 1", {multiple select field}),

"Your choice includes option 1"

)

If a select choice is hardcoded in a formula, changing the name of the select choice also requires changing the formula. If you fail to update the formula, the formula field itself will not appear broken, but it may no longer give the correct result.

Filtering on select fields an lookups of select fields

Filtering on select fields is very robust.

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This same robust filtering is available on lookups of select fields. Note that a lookup of a select field behaves like a multiple select field.

The ever-expanding list of select choices

If you find yourself frequently adding new select choices, you should consider using a linked record field instead of a select field.

Although I have not seen a published limit on the number of select choices,

this thread in the Airtable community⁠

indicates that there is a limit of 10,000 select choices.

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