Automation works in tests, fails in live runs

Question

I have an automation which, when a new record is created (a new student joins the school), finds the linked record in another table (Zapier-connected table with info the student fills out in Calendly) and updates the new record (the permanent student info) with information from the Zapier table. The automation then goes on to find a linked record in yet another table (the teacher assigned to the new student), and sends an email to an address found there. See screenshot.

When I test the automation everything goes smoothly, both if I test each step individually and when I test the automation as a whole. In live runs, though, the emailing step always fails because "the to input is empty".

It seems like the automation just doesn't find a linked record in the teachers table. Again, it finds a record no problem in tests: it's only in live runs that it doesn't find a linked record.

This seems like a similar problem to this one, but I can't figure out how to work around it or make it work.

Any ideas? 😃

ScottWorld · Accepted Answer

@Sigurdur_Herman The problem is your trigger. If you trigger when a new record is created, you’re triggering on an empty record.

The only recommended trigger is “when a record matches conditions”. And be sure to only choose a checkbox field or a single-select field as your condition.

FlywheelConsult · Answer

I haven't personally had a problem like this, but I wonder if the email automation is trying to run before Airtable has finished updating the record. In that case, it works when you're testing because there's enough of a pause for Airtable to finish updating the record before you try to send the email. You could try splitting the send email step out into a separate automation to see if that fixes the problem.

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