How To Work With Reference Fields In The Webflow CMS

Watch: How To Work With Reference Fields In The Webflow CMS

In this video, we are going to go over mapping single and multi-reference fields to the Webflow CMS inside of Zapier and Integromat. We are also dive into some low-code concepts that will allow you go beyond some of Zapier's limitations with the Webflow CMS. 🕚TIMESTAMPS:

• 00:00 Intro
• 03:30 Single reference field workflow
• 08:15 Multi-reference field workflows
• 10:40 Code Meets No-code
• 12:00 Custom request step in Zapier
• 18:00 Postman
• 24:00 Formatting Webflow IDs in Zapier

Reference values are item IDs

Webflow references point to items in a specified Collection. The current field reference defines single references as an item ID and multi-references as an array.

Here is illustrative fieldData for a freelancer linked to a city and two service records:

{
  "name": "Example freelancer",
  "slug": "example-freelancer",
  "city": "5f8d0d55a9337c5f0e0e7e0d",
  "services": ["5f8d0d55a9337c5f0e0e7e1f", "5f8d0d55a9337c5f0e0e7e2a"]
}

Replace the example IDs with actual items from each field's referenced Collection. Keep the source-to-Webflow ID mapping in Airtable. Names alone can match several records. Stop when a linked source record has no destination ID. Do not convert an empty lookup into a guessed ID. For intentional clearing, test the field's accepted empty value on a copied item before updating real content.

Zapier or Make may expose native reference fields. Use a custom API request only when the module cannot express the required values. The complete field-mapping guide includes a full request body and difficult field types.

The Zapier reference-field guide covers the companion workflow.