What is a Rollup Field?

A rollup field is a field that takes many linked records and rolls them up into one calculated value, like the total of all orders for a customer or the number of tasks in a project. It matters because it turns a pile of related records into a single number you can actually read at a glance, without doing the math by hand every time the data changes.

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How a rollup field works

A rollup field needs two things: a link between two tables, and a value to calculate. Once your records are linked, for example customers linked to their orders, the rollup field looks across all the linked records and applies an operation like sum, count, average, minimum, or maximum. It is read-only, because the value is calculated rather than typed, and it updates on its own whenever the underlying linked records change. Add an order and the customer's total updates; delete one and it drops. This is what separates a rollup from a value you enter by hand.

Rollup field example

Picture an app where each customer is linked to their orders. You add a rollup field on the customer that sums the amount from every linked order. Now each customer row shows their lifetime spend, calculated automatically. When a new order comes in, the total climbs without anyone touching it, so a sales view stays accurate on its own.