Need help merging data between two tables

Hi all. Sorry in advance I’ve been searching how to do this, and I probably skipped over it. But hoping someone would be able to point me in a direction for this.

I have 1 table that has data that changes multiple times. It gets cleared and repasted back in. First column is a identifying number. But i want to be able to add notes to each row that would stay after clearing and repasting.
My original thought for this was to have a 2nd table that would do a lookup for the first column of the first table then show data entered into 2nd table. But i have doubts this is the best way and haven’t been successful trying it this way.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

In theory if the data was always the same items in the same order, you could select the top-left cell (not open it for editing with a blinking text cursor, just have the cell highlighted), and paste tabular data. But I’m guessing based on your description of the identifying first column, that the data cannot be trusted to stay in this same shape.

I think you’re on the right track with the second table, and this should work to have them connect automatically upon paste. A few things you’ll need:

  • Go into the second table, and set the “Display Column” to be the identifying number column
  • In the first table (the one you paste into), set the first column to be type Lookup (looking up to table 2)

Then any pasted identifying numbers should link up to table 2 (and you can even set up table 2 to dynamically show certain columns that you pasted into table 1 - let me know if you need any help with that).

The last thing I would say is that, depending on where the updated data is coming from, this might be a good use case for a Pack and a Sync Table. This could be set to automatically refresh the data on a schedule of your choosing (and Sync Tables have the bonus feature that they already behave the way you’re describing: as the dynamic data changes, your notes automatically stay attached to the correct record).

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