Find and update records at a scheduled time

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
July 7, 2023
5 replies
120 views

+9

Jonathan_Gunne1
Inspiring

I am currently using the "when a record is updated" trigger paired with 10 separate condition groups, each with its own "update record" action to change the status of records that meet specific criteria.

The problem is that it relies on the record to be updated in order to trigger. I'd like to do this same thing using the "at a scheduled time" trigger so I can run this automation daily whether a record was updated or not. I've tried using "find records" to get a list of records to update followed by an "update record" action but I get a "received invalid inputs" error.

+35

ScottWorld
Genius
Forum|Forum|2 years ago
July 8, 2023

You would need to loop through the records by using Airtable's repeating groups action.

However, there are 2 drawbacks that you should be aware of:

1. You can only find a maximum of 100 records in the "Find Records" step.

2. You have conditional actions in your original automation. But if you need conditional actions in your new “repeating group” automation, you won’t be able to do that because unfortunately Airtable won’t allow you to combine both conditional actions & repeating groups in the same automation.

If you find yourself needing to combine conditional groups & repeating actions in the same automation, I would highly recommend using Make for your Airtable automations.

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+9

Jonathan_Gunne1
Author
Inspiring
Forum|Forum|2 years ago
July 8, 2023

You would need to loop through the records by using Airtable's repeating groups action.

However, there are 2 drawbacks that you should be aware of:

1. You can only find a maximum of 100 records in the "Find Records" step.

2. You have conditional actions in your original automation. But if you need conditional actions in your new “repeating group” automation, you won’t be able to do that because unfortunately Airtable won’t allow you to combine both conditional actions & repeating groups in the same automation.

If you find yourself needing to combine conditional groups & repeating actions in the same automation, I would highly recommend using Make for your Airtable automations.

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I'm not sure why a third-party tool would be necessary. This seems like a pretty easy task. My "Find Records" step is pulling well under 100 records. This doesn't work even without conditional actions (see the second screenshot).