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Getting "to" input is empty error on form submission automation

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Hi! I'm trying to set up my first automation so that whenever someone submits a survey, AT sends that person an email with a summary of their responses. The client base are outside of the company and don't use AirTable beyond this survey, so I figured the automation route would be best. 

When I test using a test record I created in the base, it appears to run successfully. However, the first person submitted the survey yesterday and the automation keeps failing with the "The "To" input is empty" error. I currently have it set to popular the "To" field based on what the user enters in that question on the survey. I triple-checked the run that failed, and the user entered an email in that field, so I'm not sure why it's still saying it's blank. Should I add another step somewhere? 

Thanks in advance for any help! 

Best answer by Sistema_Aotearo

The "To" box should be filled with the submitter's email address. It seems your survey question is asking for both Name and Email. I'd split this into 2 separate fields, and input the email in the "To" box. There's also an email-type field that might be good for the email.

Also, if you're using the interface forms, instead of the form view, you can authenticate the emails submitted. That way the automation won't run into issues trying to send to invalid email addresses.

Let me know if this helps!

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S

The "To" box should be filled with the submitter's email address. It seems your survey question is asking for both Name and Email. I'd split this into 2 separate fields, and input the email in the "To" box. There's also an email-type field that might be good for the email.

Also, if you're using the interface forms, instead of the form view, you can authenticate the emails submitted. That way the automation won't run into issues trying to send to invalid email addresses.

Let me know if this helps!

Justin NgProgramme Coordinator at Sistema Aotearoahttps://www.sistemaaotearoa.org.nz/
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Hmm, could you provide a read only invite link to a duplicated copy of your base with no data in it?  From what you've said it seems like everything's fine so I'd need to have a look at your setup to see what might be going wrong

If you're expecting <1000 submissions a month you could just use Fillout's free plan for this instead too, would be a lot simpler

Adam, Consultant @ The Time Saving Co
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  • June 20, 2024
Sistema_Aotearo wrote:

The "To" box should be filled with the submitter's email address. It seems your survey question is asking for both Name and Email. I'd split this into 2 separate fields, and input the email in the "To" box. There's also an email-type field that might be good for the email.

Also, if you're using the interface forms, instead of the form view, you can authenticate the emails submitted. That way the automation won't run into issues trying to send to invalid email addresses.

Let me know if this helps!


Yeah that field is labeled oddly - name and email are separated into two fields, the name was just copied from another. I've since renamed them to be clearer. Also updated to be an email field. Since creating this post I've gotten another submission that actually did run successfully, despite the first form submission failing multiple times whenever I tried to re-run it, so not sure what happened there! 

I'm not sure if I'm using interface forms or not (bit of a beginner!), but our audience for this form is all external so not sure what that looks like for them. If you have any resources with more information about that I'd appreciate it! 

S

A Form view will have a button on the top right to upgrade to an interface form. Looks like this:

Re-running the automation won't do anything if it has previously failed, even if you've fixed the errors. I'm guessing the input into the "email" field was submitted with an error. So even if you fix the field, clicking on the re-run button won't run it with the new configuration.

I'd try to trigger the automation again somehow. Either re-submit the form or duplicate the automation with a different trigger.

Justin NgProgramme Coordinator at Sistema Aotearoahttps://www.sistemaaotearoa.org.nz/
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