In business, sales, or team management, while managing a workflow, you may keep different lines of activities saved as individual tables. In various circumstances, it may require cross-referencing data from different tables. Bringing data from one linked table to another linked table is made easier with the Zoho Tables Lookup field.

You can use this field type to lookup data within the same table or across different tables.

When to use a lookup field?

Suppose you're the head of sales, working on Table 2- details of the sales representatives, and would like to glimpse at the lead source that each salesperson is engaged in. You can enable the lookup field to retrieve that information from Table 1 - which holds the list of leads generated from various sources.

How to add a lookup field ?

Note: To use the lookup field, the tables need to be linked using the Link field.

A linked field lets the look-up field understand the path and based on the record selected in the link field, the lookup field retrieves data.

Table 1, as illustrated above, contains the leads received from various sources.
Table 2, as illustrated above, has the list of the sales representatives and leads assigned.

Step 1- Choose where you want to add the lookup field. This is the field where data to be pulled up from other tables. Add a new field and choose Lookup from the list of available field types.

In the above image, as we have placed a lookup field, we can now see the list of sources of the leads handled by individual sales reps. With lookup field, we are now free from switching between tables to view relevant information.

You can add multiple lookup fields on the same table.

Note: A lookup field is read-only. It acts like a mirror in displaying the values of other fields, therefore cannot be edited.

The lookup field stays in sync. If a change is made in the linked record, the associated linked record, and the lookup field connected with it will be updated automatically.