Ending an automation

An Automation typically ends in moments, it shouldn’t be able to run for days.

Hey Karlstens,

Thanks for your feedback. May be I didn’t explain well the situation. So let me try again.

I have an automation, trigger type is ‘at a scheduled time’ that triggers an email everyday at a specific time. 

Here’s a screenshot.

I think that if I do nothing else this automation will continue forever.

So how do I stop it. I want to stop it after a number of days, say 20 days.

Thanks

End dates would be a useful feature!

Perhaps you could let the automation run but add a conditional rule so that it will only execute before a a set date.

Hey Steve, adding a conditional rule might work. This is what I did.

Added a new column in the airtable database with a formula for the date i want the trigger to end - end date.

then added a new condition for the end date in the automation (as shown in the screenshot)

I’m not sure if the automation will work as I want it to work because I am having some problems understanding how the conditioning will work. 

So basically i want to trigger an email over the period between the start and end date.

Jacqueline

Hi jackline

It looks like the automation would not run if today was between start date 2 and end date. Should the first condition be start date 2 is on or before today?

Is this part of the scheduled run, otherwise it will only run once.

Hey Steve,

I’m having some issues figuring how the conditions will work together.

But the automation is set up as triggered at schedule time - check the screenshot.

So my reasoning is if the answer to condition 1 is yes - start date is today - email will be triggered and it will continue triggering the email until the end date is on or after today.

example, start day is 01/03/2023 - end date is 08/03/2023 - today is 01/03/023

start date is today - then email is triggered. then it will continue to trigger email until end date 08/03/23 is on or after 01/03/23 - in this case the answer is yes - so email continues to be send out.

I’m not sure if my reasoning is correct.

Jacqueline

what about records which have a start date and end date in the future? Then the automation will run before the start date, as the end date is after today.

If this situation might occur, then you want to end up with the logic being Today is between start date and end date, ie where start date 2 is on or before today AND end date is on or after today.

Thats a very good point which I haven’t thought of. 

But start date is a formula and is the date when the record is created so it cannot be in the future.

ah ok, in that case I don't think you need the start date at all in the conditions, just the end date?

i think i need it to start sending the emails. so when a record is created start sending emails.

but not sure since i added these two conditions at different times.

Actually the start date condition becomes redundant after day 1.

as long as the end date is set when the record is created, it should start sending them straight away.

Definitely raise this as a feature request with Airtable in product ideas. Time limited Automations would definitely have their uses. It’s worth noting that (at least if I recall correctly) an automation that triggers failed conditional logic will still consume an automation credit.

Further to a time/turn based automation configuration setting, I think that perhaps it would be cool if we could disabled enable automations via an automation script. 😁

yes, good idea.

Just as an aside, if I was trying to do this myself, I would use google apps script for more control over things.

Hi Steve, the end date is not equal to when the record is created. The start date is equal to when the record is created. End date happens after a number of days from the start date. I think you are right though that as long as the end date is after today it will send out the email. 

I do not have coding skills to use google apps script.😅

Hey Steve, I received an e-mail that the automation failed 1 time. Could it be because the entry in the database came from a user with a different timezone than mine? Could it be because the automation works only in timezones in which they are created? Because when I checked what could have gone wrong - every step of the automation was successful - see screenshot. 

Agreed - it is strange that there is no end date for automations.

I think the problem was that i am on the free plan and cannot send email through airtable. I changed it now to gmail. Should work with gmail.