Check if record that has triggered automation still exists in conditional actions?

The only way that you can check if a record still exists in the middle of an automation is to perform a “Find Records” action to search for that particular record.

The “Find Records” action will return a length. If the Length is 0, it means that no records were found.

However, note that Airtable will only let you perform one set of conditional actions per automation.

If you need to perform multiple sets of conditional actions per automation, you would either need to:
a) figure out a way to trigger a different automation (like setting a value in a field that triggers another automation), or
b) you can turn to a tool like Make’s advanced automations for Airtable, which lets you create unlimited conditional paths per automations.

- ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant

Thanks Scott!

Hmm, so this issue occurs when the record trigger is watching for a set field to be updated. Given that airtable’s “now” function only updates every 5 minutes (or maybe 15? Can’t quite remember), I don’t think there is a simple way to find the most recently updated record (i.e. the record that is triggering the automation)?

Sorry, I’m not sure I understand your question.

So, “find records” can only search by conditions (or a view) - it cannot “find” the record that triggered the automation.

The triggers of these automations are “When a record is updated,” watching specific fields.

Is there a way to use the “find records” action to only pull the record that has triggered the automation?

Background (and where I think I confused you):

After reading your suggestion, I tried to set something up like this. I added “Last modified” field for the field the automation watches for updates from. I then made a “datetimediff” formula, comparing “last modified” to “now()” in attempt to isolate the most recent record. 

However, “now()” isn’t a live time field. It updates every 5 minutes. Therefore, this doesn’t let me isolate the most recently modified record using the “datetimediff” (it would need to keep a seconds timer). 

Therefore the idea I had to isolate the most recent record doesn’t work. 

Ah! Total brain blank, thank you this should work! I’m not 100% of the sequence of actions that leads to this issue (its a less than once per week thing), but hopefully this resolves it :)