Lookup from a different table in form dropdown

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I’ve been running into this many times over now and done as much searching as I think possible around here so hoping someone can help me with this…

I have a form that has a dropdown. The choices are from a different table but a filtered list of them. So as an example I made a table with cars’ make and model. The form’s dropdown is trying to show just a list of one make’s models. It shows properly in the doc but not in the published form. There, it shows the message:

Deleted reference: Formulas in published forms may only reference visible columns of the current table or lookup tables with “include all lookup columns” enabled in privacy settings

I have checked this box in the privacy settings. Anyone know how I can get this to work? Thanks so much in advance.

Here’s the test doc to illustrate: Form Select List
And here’s the form: Form

1 Like
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Hey @kev_null ,
I think I found the problem. Your column is not a lookup column, it is a select list with a formula. Behind the scenes they are treated differently and especially when it comes to privacy in forms.

To make the privacy settings work, you’d just need to switch the column type of the “Car” column. You can then filter for the brand via item settings.

For example:

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Form: Untitled Form

Hope that helps :slight_smile:

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Dear @kev_null,

I see Daniel already replied, this would be my approach, not necessarily better, just a different way:

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When the “make” is selected, the user will be able to select the related model and submit

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Thanks @Daniel_Stieber that definitely gets me closer. In your example, that works when Make happens to be the display column. What if, for example, that table had a different column that I wanted as the selection instead?

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Thanks @Jean_Pierre_Traets. In this case, the filter is one which I don’t want the user selecting and is pre-set so that solution won’t work in my case.

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Hey @kev_null, hm I think you’d need to use the display column to make it work (I think it is “Model” in that case). You can of course change which is the display column, but might not be in your interest :slight_smile:

You could create a second table populated by the cars table and there make a different column as display column and in the results table make a column that checks back which original row was ment, but that is a little bit hacky and can get complicated when the cars table changes a lot. Not impossible if you build the UI around it or use automations, but in most cases probably not worth the effort :slight_smile:

Maybe someone else knows a better solution?