Skip to main content

👋 Hello! I’m Scott – a product manager at Airtable who worked on the development of document automator – the newest way to get Airtable data into formatted documents.


What is document automator?


Available to those on Pro and Enterprise plans, Document automator is a new integration with Google Docs and associated automation action that enables you to export formatted Airtable data directly into Google docs, where you can format and collaborate on that data to your heart’s content.



Furthermore, because document automator is built into automations, you can use other automations like Slack or Email to automatically share the created document with others, fully automating the process of creating and distributing published reports or status updates.




How can I use document automator?


Document automator is perfect for creating point-in-time reports or status updates that can be shared with people who don’t have access to Airtable, when you want to editorialize around the data, or when you want to facilitate feedback and discussion about the data. Common use-cases for document automator include:



  • OKR (objectives and key responsibilities) updates

  • Roadmap updates

  • Campaign performance reports

  • Publishing Retrospectives


What about Interface Designer or Page Designer?


While similar, Interface Designer and Page Designer are meant to accomplish different use cases:



  • Document automator: Point-in-time reports/status updates leveraging Airtable data across multiple records, meant to be communicated to audiences that may/may not live in Airtable (or be close to the work), allowing broad access (ie. Google docs) across the org. This helps with distribution and permissioning issues, as well as facilitating comments and discussions directly on the report.

  • Interface Designer: Live-refreshing dashboards or surfaces for collaboration on live data

  • Page Designer: Visual assets (physical printed page design, mock-ups) based on individual records (like a real estate brief, business card, etc.)


Where can I learn more?


To learn more about how to use document automator, check out the launch blog post, or help center article.



I’ll also be hosting a Community AMA to talk all things content automator on June 29, at 9 am PT where you’ll have the opportunity to see the feature in action and ask any questions you may have. You can register now here, and I can’t wait to see you online.


We can’t wait to see what you create with the document automator and would love to hear your thoughts below.


If you are on a pro or enterprise plan and not seeing these changes reflected in your workspace, try clearing your cache.

Hi, it could be a very useful feature. Is there a restriction on the number of records or is there something I’ve done wrong? It shows only the first 100 records.

Also it’ be great if we had the capability to see the Sum, Average etc on each filed as we have it on the table.



The “find records” action has a limit of 100 records.


The “find records” action has a limit of 100 records.


So, it’s useless to me. But thank you

We try to stay away from all things Google as much as possible.


We use Documint and are VERY happy with it.


Yeah, the best thing about using Zapier (or Make.com or On2Air: Actions) to create Google Docs is that you can base those documents on complex document templates that contain formatting, headers & footers, fonts, colors, tables, margins, etc.


Even better, all of those tools can ALSO create complex spreadsheets with Google Sheets based on a complex spreadsheet template as well.


DocuMint also creates documents based on a template, but it uses its own template editor that doesn’t require Google Docs.


So personally, I’m having some difficulty understanding why people would choose Airtable’s Document Automator over any of these other options.


It still seems to me like improving Page Designer would’ve been the path to go down, since Page Designer has already started taking its very first baby steps down the path of creating these sorts of complex documents.


Hi Scott, few years ago I was struggling to create nice looking documents with the Airtable N0-CODE solution templates (i.e Page Designer) and then, decided to take the LOW-CODE approach after reading this very interesting post with very rich and insightful comments inside the post from @Bill.French


https://community.airtable.com/t/automatic-document-creation-and-sharing-from-airtable-records/23130/10


The proposed approach is LOW-CODE (Google Apps Script) and provides (I think) the full flexibility and total control on any kind of document creation using any source of data (as long as we can get the data via an API call). You are decoupling the data collection from the data presentation way more clearly, and removing many dependencies.


The Level of effort to get it off the ground is a bit bigger (initial learning curve), however what you get in return is so much more in Flexibility (and total ownership). I followed @Bill.French advices in the post, and learnt the basics of Google Apps Script to generate document using Templates, and after that step … it allowed me to bridge that gap that I could not do with the built-in features of Airtable or any other third party services at the time (3 years ago).


For Airtable users that are not afraid to put a bit of CODE around their Airtable solution, I think looking into Google Apps Script might be a good time investment.

Hi Scott, few years ago I was struggling to create nice looking documents with the Airtable N0-CODE solution templates (i.e Page Designer) and then, decided to take the LOW-CODE approach after reading this very interesting post with very rich and insightful comments inside the post from @Bill.French


https://community.airtable.com/t/automatic-document-creation-and-sharing-from-airtable-records/23130/10


The proposed approach is LOW-CODE (Google Apps Script) and provides (I think) the full flexibility and total control on any kind of document creation using any source of data (as long as we can get the data via an API call). You are decoupling the data collection from the data presentation way more clearly, and removing many dependencies.


The Level of effort to get it off the ground is a bit bigger (initial learning curve), however what you get in return is so much more in Flexibility (and total ownership). I followed @Bill.French advices in the post, and learnt the basics of Google Apps Script to generate document using Templates, and after that step … it allowed me to bridge that gap that I could not do with the built-in features of Airtable or any other third party services at the time (3 years ago).


For Airtable users that are not afraid to put a bit of CODE around their Airtable solution, I think looking into Google Apps Script might be a good time investment.



It certainly has paid big dividends in many Airtable solutions.


As a measure of platform progress, I often look for vendors (like Airtable) who get pretty good at replacing many of the aftermarket solutions and services with native capabilities. This sometimes comes as a surprise to aftermarket developers who believe they just had their lunch taken by a bully. Systems that leverage Google Apps Script seem to be less likely to be replaced in part because these external solutions are largely based upon Google Apps Script building blocks that are quite robust and far too complex to easily replace. From big data to AI, document handling, and findability - Google Cloud Platform brings a vast array of extensibility with relatively little effort and complexity.

Hi Scott, few years ago I was struggling to create nice looking documents with the Airtable N0-CODE solution templates (i.e Page Designer) and then, decided to take the LOW-CODE approach after reading this very interesting post with very rich and insightful comments inside the post from @Bill.French


https://community.airtable.com/t/automatic-document-creation-and-sharing-from-airtable-records/23130/10


The proposed approach is LOW-CODE (Google Apps Script) and provides (I think) the full flexibility and total control on any kind of document creation using any source of data (as long as we can get the data via an API call). You are decoupling the data collection from the data presentation way more clearly, and removing many dependencies.


The Level of effort to get it off the ground is a bit bigger (initial learning curve), however what you get in return is so much more in Flexibility (and total ownership). I followed @Bill.French advices in the post, and learnt the basics of Google Apps Script to generate document using Templates, and after that step … it allowed me to bridge that gap that I could not do with the built-in features of Airtable or any other third party services at the time (3 years ago).


For Airtable users that are not afraid to put a bit of CODE around their Airtable solution, I think looking into Google Apps Script might be a good time investment.



I am great fan of this too,

and in my Bookmarks Base, it’s linked to:




Triggering Document creation via Code block




Using Google API in scripting block


👋 Hi! I’m Ayesha, a Product Manager at Airtable. We have a quick update for you on this feature — now you can update an existing Google Doc within this automation.


When you set up your automation, you can now choose to “Update Google Doc”:


You can update the title or content of the document and format what you want to add.

Your content update can be inserted into the top or bottom of the document:


For teams who keep a running document, we hope this update will be useful for your work.

Let us know if you have any questions!

👋 Hi! I’m Ayesha, a Product Manager at Airtable. We have a quick update for you on this feature — now you can update an existing Google Doc within this automation.


When you set up your automation, you can now choose to “Update Google Doc”:


You can update the title or content of the document and format what you want to add.

Your content update can be inserted into the top or bottom of the document:


For teams who keep a running document, we hope this update will be useful for your work.

Let us know if you have any questions!


Thank you for this update! The ability to update an existing doc opens more possibilities. This will help with things like headers/footers and other static elements.


Is there a link to the help docs on how to specify the existing doc?

Thank you for this update! The ability to update an existing doc opens more possibilities. This will help with things like headers/footers and other static elements.


Is there a link to the help docs on how to specify the existing doc?


We’re working on getting our help documentation updated soon!


You can pick any existing document, after you connect your Google Docs account. When you click “+ Select from Google Drive”, you’ll see a window where you can browse your documents:



Hope this helps, let me know if you have other questions!

We’re working on getting our help documentation updated soon!


You can pick any existing document, after you connect your Google Docs account. When you click “+ Select from Google Drive”, you’ll see a window where you can browse your documents:



Hope this helps, let me know if you have other questions!


Can the existing doc selector be dynamic? For instance, if we have the document ID as a value in an Airtable record’s field, can that be passed to the Automation to indicate which file to update?

👋 Hi! I’m Ayesha, a Product Manager at Airtable. We have a quick update for you on this feature — now you can update an existing Google Doc within this automation.


When you set up your automation, you can now choose to “Update Google Doc”:


You can update the title or content of the document and format what you want to add.

Your content update can be inserted into the top or bottom of the document:


For teams who keep a running document, we hope this update will be useful for your work.

Let us know if you have any questions!


Hey, this is great! Thanks for making the footer optional too. :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:


Question:

Whilst configuring the Airtable Automation, I noticed that we can update either the Title or the Content “Field” in Google Doc. Please excuse my ignorance (as I actually dropped out of Google Docs school when I discovered Airtable 6 years ago :grinning_face_with_sweat: ) , but how do we further define custom fields within the target Google Doc?


For example, I have half-a-dozen record fields that I’d like to send to fill in various words on the target google doc. Take a simple custom Title for example… how do we define the text in Google Doc so Airtable Automation picks it up as a field?



I see that one Action can cater for as many “Fields” as needed, excellent! Just hoping we can define our own custom fields in the target doc, then this may just be ready for production. :partying_face:


EDIT: Further to my earlier post - can Airtable somehow keep the Google Authentication open when grabing the document URL as a PDF to capture in an Airtable Attachment field, using the suffix /export?format=pdf as mentioned previously in this thread?


@ScottWorld mentioned that this trick works only for a document that’s saved in a publicly accessible folder. But to me, I’m thinking that as we’ve already authenticated Airtable to write to the file, we should be able to capture that updated URL as a PDF and save into our attachments without the need to publicly expose the doc.

We’re working on getting our help documentation updated soon!


You can pick any existing document, after you connect your Google Docs account. When you click “+ Select from Google Drive”, you’ll see a window where you can browse your documents:



Hope this helps, let me know if you have other questions!


It’s awesome! Thank you for this update.

Hey, this is great! Thanks for making the footer optional too. :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

Question:
Whilst configuring the Airtable Automation, I noticed that we can update either the Title or the Content “Field” in Google Doc. Please excuse my ignorance (as I actually dropped out of Google Docs school when I discovered Airtable 6 years ago :grinning_face_with_sweat: ) , but how do we further define custom fields within the target Google Doc?

For example, I have half-a-dozen record fields that I’d like to send to fill in various words on the target google doc. Take a simple custom Title for example… how do we define the text in Google Doc so Airtable Automation picks it up as a field?

22772iCFA6A6D24D13F584.png

I see that one Action can cater for as many “Fields” as needed, excellent! Just hoping we can define our own custom fields in the target doc, then this may just be ready for production. :partying_face:

EDIT: Further to my earlier post - can Airtable somehow keep the Google Authentication open when grabing the document URL as a PDF to capture in an Airtable Attachment field, using the suffix /export?format=pdf as mentioned previously in this thread?

@ScottWorld mentioned that this trick works only for a document that’s saved in a publicly accessible folder. But to me, I’m thinking that as we’ve already authenticated Airtable to write to the file, we should be able to capture that updated URL as a PDF and save into our attachments without the need to publicly expose the doc.


Yeah, this isn’t a very useful update if documents can’t be dynamically selected. It isn’t helpful for Airtable to force customers to hard-code a static document name into the system (or choose from a hard-coded list of record names, as announced last week by Airtable).

In the meantime, here are 4 popular solutions for generating documents from Airtable that can do what you’re looking to do:

  1. DocuMint — the original document creation app for Airtable. Creates PDF files.
  1. DocsAutomator — creates Google Docs documents or PDF files. 
  1. Make’s integrations — which can be integrated with any document-creation app of your choosing, even something as simple as custom Microsoft Word documents.

    If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread. For example, here is one way that you can instantly trigger a Make automation from Airtable.
  1. Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable — which offers hundreds of features that Airtable’s forms don’t offer, such as the ability to automatically generate custom PDF files from a form submission.

    I show off this feature on this Airtable podcast episode:

    Using Fillout to create an eSignature approval process with PDF file creation.

Hope this helps!

If you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with this or anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

Reply


Terms & Conditions