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Conditional trigger to send emails but in better time than at midnight

  • April 3, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 87 views
Augustini
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Hi all,

I've been using Airtable automations in my base with a conditional trigger setup that has been functioning quite well. The automation is designed to send an email when specific conditions are met: namely, when an event is 20 days away and matches a certain status. This triggers an email to be sent.

The issue I'm encountering is that these automated emails are dispatched at midnight, which is not ideal for my needs. I'm wondering if there's a way to adjust the timing of these emails so they're sent at a more convenient hour, rather than right at midnight. My automation relies on the conditions being checked daily, hence the timing.

Does anyone know of a workaround or method to either:

  1. Schedule the email to be sent at a specific time after the conditions are met, rather than immediately?
  2. Modify the automation in a way that it checks for the conditions at a different time, not necessarily at midnight?

3 replies

ScottWorld
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  • ScottWorld
  • Genius
  • 9808 replies
  • April 3, 2024

You have 2 options:

1. Your best bet would likely be to set your automation trigger to take place at a scheduled time, and then have the automation find the records you’re looking for.

2. If your current trigger involves a formula field to figure out if the date matches today, expand your formula to also check if the current hour of the day is greater than a certain number.

p.s. If your company has a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld 

Augustini
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  • Augustini
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • 1 reply
  • April 3, 2024

Thanks Scott. I'm not sure I understand the proposed solutions.

1. How do I nest 2 automations in each other?

2. My trigger doesn't have a formula. Just condition for number of days from now. But do you suggest not to use that and instead create some temporary column in the base that would be a formula that checks on this condition instead? Will that work? ie (maybe a basic question) how ofter will the automation check on the trigger?

ScottWorld
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  • ScottWorld
  • Genius
  • 9808 replies
  • April 3, 2024

1. You're not nesting 2 automations within each other. You're just adding on steps to your automation after your trigger. So your automation would have:
(1) a trigger at a scheduled time, then
(2) your first action would be to find records that match what you're looking for (use the gear icon in the far right to get dynamic options), then
(3) you would add a repeating loop to loop through the records that were found by the find records action, then
(4) you would send an email to each of the items in the loop.

You can learn more about automations in Airtable's support documents here: https://support.airtable.com/docs/automations-overview-articles

2. Yes, some sort of a formula that compares today's date to the date that you want to trigger on, plus checking to see if HOUR(NOW())>9 to trigger at approximately 9am. So your entire formula could look like something like this:

IF(
AND(
IS_SAME(TODAY(),{Event Reminder Date},'day'),
HOUR(NOW())>=9
),
"Yes","No"
)

If all the conditions are met, then the formula could result in the word "Yes", and then you could use that word "Yes" to trigger the automation.

You can learn more about functions in the formula field reference here: https://support.airtable.com//docs/formula-field-reference

p.s. If your company has a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld


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