How can I trigger an automation when “Deep Match” finds nothing?

You can trigger your automation based on the “fallback” record. If the linked record field matches the fallback record, then your automation would run.

- ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant

Hey ​@coderkid,

What I believe ​@ScottWorld means is that you could set your trigger for the automation be “When a record matches conditions” where the condition to be met is {Linked Record field} is [fallback record selected by deep match].

Did you try this already?

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation 
YouTube Channel 

​@ScottWorld and ​@Mike_AutomaticN, thank you for your reply. As mentioned in my question above, I referred to a “fallback record” (triggered by a field update or a record match). This is the only workaround I’ve been able to come up with, but I believe there should be a better solution.

Use the “When record matches conditions” automation trigger, though instead of the fallback record, configure it to when the linked record field **is empty** after a Deep Match runs.

You just have to make sure Deep Match clears/leaves the field blank when it doesn’t find anything.  This makes the automation “Linked Record” = Empty » Run Next steps.  No fallback record needed.

If you need the deep match to overwrite a record that is previously linked you can add in a checkbox field that could be something like, “Empty DeepMatch”.  That way you can trigger off that field being checked and the linked record field being empty.  Just make sure to reset the checkbox at the end of the automation, to keep it clean.

I hope that this helps.

​@anthonyXRay 

That approach doesn’t work in this case because the “is empty” condition is already true when the record is created, so the automation fires immediately, before Deep Match even runs.

Because of that, it doesn’t actually tell us whether Deep Match failed to find a match, just that the field hasn’t been populated yet.

Instead of using the field type as Deep Match, I have implemented my own Deep Match in an automation.

It gets triggered whenever certain fields are updated (just how Deep Match matches using certain fields). The automation uses native AI step provided by Airtable with my custom prompt with an structured output as expectation from it.

Since its my own Automation, I can pretty much do anything in the next step on basis of whether it returns a value or not.

​@anmolgupta 

Deep Match field runs natively at the field level; it updates instantly and consistently whenever the underlying fields change, with no setup, cost, or maintenance.

Recreating the same functionality using Automations with AI steps introduces additional cost, and usage limits, so it’s not as scalable. And potential data integrity issues when linking records.

​@coderkid 

On the cost part, Deep Match also consumes AI credits just like how AI step in Airtable would consume AI credits. The only additional cost will be Automation run. For many businesses that are no where close to monthly limit of automation runs, this may not be matter at all.

Deep Match is also using exactly the same AI capabilities as provided in the AI step in automation runs. Potential data integrity issues are same in both the cases. In fact, we have more control while creating our own automation.

Having said that, I’d anyday use Deep Match or native features provided out of the box instead. But at times, when more control is required (like providing context from other tables and unlinked records) like in your case or in my case where I have to trigger another sequence of steps depending on what AI found (or didn’t), I create my custom solutions.

Good catch, another approach is to create a Checkbox field titled something like, “Deep Match Ran”.  Have that box be checked by the automation after Deep Match runs, so it will not be checked simply on record creation.

This way you can still have the second automation trigger on “When record matches conditions” and we just update the conditions to both linked record is empty AND “Deep Match Ran” is checked.

Make sure the second automation resets the checkbox at the end to make sure it is clean for the next time.  Hopefully this will fix your issue.

Stumbled on this looking for similar workarounds but your fallback idea is the best I’ve seen / works great so far

Thank you ​@alxwlfe_airbnb Let me know if you find any other ways.

​@anthonyXRay your second suggestion is probably the closest to a clean workaround here. The only thing to watch is the reset. If you’re unchecking that box at the end, it can get out of sync once you’ve got multiple records being processed close together.

I’d use a timestamp instead of a checkbox, and use  “Deep Match ran” date/time as my trigger, plus the linked field still being empty. No reset needed.

Side note: Deep Match isn’t guaranteed to resolve in sync with your automation steps, so if this is chained, a short wait step can help avoid it firing too early.