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Hello. Thanks for any help regarding this.

I have an integration running in Google Sheets where Amex charges are downloaded into a Google sheet, almost realtime.  My goal is to create a connection so that when a record is created in Google Sheets it is copied into an Airtable base. I think it should be just one way from Google Sheets to Airtable.

The challenge is that the integration between Amex and Google sheets deletes all existing records and does a full re-creation of ALL the records in the Google Sheet whenever a single row is added.

I didn’t realize this when I created a Zapier Zap to create a new record in AirTable every time a record was added to the Google Sheet. Before long I had thousands of Zaps on hold.  For example, in the Google sheet if one new Amex charge is added, for some reason it deletes the 500 existing rows and adds back 501 new rows.  I asked support for that product why they do it, but I’m certain they’ll have their reason. Just haven’t heard back yet.

So to make this work, I have a transaction ID from Amex which I think does not change.  So, I need to conditionally have something like this:

  1. New row created in Google Sheets
  2. Check to see if that transaction ID for the Google Sheet row exists in any Airtable record
  3. If it doesn’t, copy the record over
  4. If it does, skip.

So, I think I understand the process, just not sure how to implement it in a Google Sheets Airtable automation.

Thanks again for any help.

Hm what difficulties did you face building that flow you’re talking about in Zapier?  i.e. When Zap triggers, look for a record in Airtable with the same Amex ID, if it doesn’t find one create it?

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This seems like it’d get really expensive though, with a 500 row sheet you’d be running the automation 500+ times for each transaction.  I’d suggest either moving to Make (usaged based like Zapier, much cheaper) or just hiring a JS developer to help you build something in Google Apps Script for this (one off set up cost, free to run afterwards)

​@stevenjo57 

Yes, as ​@TheTimeSavingCo mentioned above, I would highly recommend using Make’s advanced automations & integrations for this instead of Zapier.

Make is INFINITELY more powerful & customizable than Zapier, yet it is SIGNIFICANTLY CHEAPER than Zapier. I wrote an entire post here comparing Make vs. Zapier. I’ve also assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread. 

In your situation, your Make automation could be as simple as the screenshots below.

In Make, you use routers & filters to setup conditional paths. You don’t need a router in your situation, but notice the filter that I setup which only allows the automation to continue if zero matching records were found in Airtable.

Hope this helps!

If you have a budget and you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with this or anything else that is Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

 

SInce you are looking for syncing the Google sheets to Airtable, you can even check out Data Fetcher extention.

Taha, Airtable Advisor

You can also attempt to use Google App Script directly from Google Sheets.

However, I only recommend this option if you have some knowledge of JavaScript. It performs the same process in code as Zapier or Make does.

 

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