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I have a form using Fillout that accepts submissions of repair service requests. The results populate a dedicated table and I use an automation to distribute the response data among multiple other tables, such as People and Repairs.

When someone submits a request, part of the automation looks to see if the same first name–email address pair exists on a record in the People table. If so, it creates a Repair record and attaches the existing Person record as requestor. Otherwise, it creates a new Person record, then a Repair record, and attaches the new Person record as the requestor.

Currently, first part of this is not working at all. It fails tests, logging "Could not find matching rows for string." How can I troubleshoot this?

Additionally, when the automation does work, it correctly fills the new Repair record with the existing Person but also removes this Person association from any prior Repairs connected to them. I can't figure out why it does this.

How might I proceed? Is there a better way to approach this matching automation?

Try reformatting tyour first condition (if person already exists) 

Under create record (repair record) add the person field (utilizing your first List of 'Airtable Record ID' that was found in if a person exists)to be updated when creating this record - this should help link an additional repair to this person, instead of linking a repair to a person 

then in your second update you'd just have the item owner check box. that may also help with the string failed error. 

Let me know if this is helpful, or happy to continue troubleshooting if you can share some additional context. 

Hmm conceptually what you've got looks good.  I've created a simplified version of the automation here for you to check out

I'd move the creation of the 'Repair' record out, and then, if a 'People' record is found, update the 'Repair' record to link it to the 'People' record

If it can't find a 'People' record, then create one and link it to the newly created 'Repair' record

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Additionally, when the automation does work, it correctly fills the new Repair record with the existing Person but also removes this Person association from any prior Repairs connected to them. I can't figure out why it does this.

From your screenshot, you're updating the 'People' record to link it to the 'Repair' and that's why it's removing all the prior Repairs.  By updating the 'Repair' record instead you'd be able to avoid this issue

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Currently, first part of this is not working at all. It fails tests, logging "Could not find matching rows for string." How can I troubleshoot this?

Hmm, could be a bunch of stuff.  Could you try re-testing your initial trigger?

You mentioned that the automation works but fails during testing, so I'm wondering if the initial test data's been deleted or something

 

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