How do we auto populate a file attachment field from a form submission?

Hm could you share a bit more about your workflow for this?  I’m curious what a single form entry represents for you, and in what cases it ends up with multiple resume files attached and why you need form entries moved to another table

Just wondering if there’s a chance to tweak the setup so the automation is a bit simpler, but no worries if you’re already sorted!

Thanks for the message.  I was able to get the resumes to attach using the ‘expiring download url’, though that name is still not meaningful to me.  

To answer your question about the workflow, we have an Applicant Tracking System within a Human Resource Information System (HRIS) that does not allow for multiple word searching or “AND” searches.  We are expecting hundreds of resumes for our summer intern program (like last year) and need good search capability. 

A temporary workaround I came up with was to create a bulk resume upload form (with a job selection pulling from a jobs table) that would populate candidate and application records for each resume, and the resume attachment to the candidate record would trigger an ai skills extraction field to populate using a field agent in the candidates table. 

Then we could use the skills extracted (based on a list we care about) to filter resumes easily (in an interface that joins candidates and applications) down to a manageable 10-20 number.  Once we have that small list, our recruiter could go back in the ATS and find those resumes by id (part of the file name extracted earlier, used to populate the name field for each candidate record) so the recruiting process can continue within the ATS.

This is meant to be temporary because the HRIS company has committed to work on enhancing the resume search capability.

Do you have any suggestions to improve this process?  I found out yesterday that Airtable has a 50 file attachment limit for upload fields in a form, so the recruiter will need to submit the form 10 times if there are 500 resumes - not ideal.

Thank you,

Robert

Hi Scott,

I found there is a 50 file attachment limit in Airtable forms.  If we use Fillout could we upload 250 resumes at once and create a candidate and application record for each automatically?  That is my intention with this automation.

Thank you,

Robert

Yes, Fillout will let you upload 250 files simultaneously into a single attachment field.

After submission, you would need to create an automation in Airtable to loop through the attachments to create a new record for each attachment.

So your best bet would be to connect your Fillout form to a DIFFERENT table that just serves as the “table for your form submissions”.

Then, your automation would loop through the attachments to create individual records in your REAL table.

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

Do you have any suggestions to improve this process? 

Interesting, thanks for the details!  Yeah your system makes sense and is how I’d set it up as well.  I assume you’re throwing in a ‘Generate structured data with AI’ step into the repeating group so that it creates the record and populates the candidate name, details etc?

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I found out yesterday that Airtable has a 50 file attachment limit for upload fields in a form, so the recruiter will need to submit the form 10 times if there are 500 resumes - not ideal.

Hm, I just tried submitting a form with 500 attachments and it went through fine.  May I know where you saw the thing about the 50 attachment limit?

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your response and video!  I see this limit when adding to a file upload field in a form like this:

I also asked Airtable support and they said that limit was by design.  But your video shows what looks like a different type of form field.  Maybe that’s the trick?  It looks like there is only one Attachment field type:

Interesting!  I’m using a standard attachment field with a form: https://airtable.com/appUnBooIeAtiK707/paglBfKwSKIIE6dLN/form 

I drag and dropped all the files in and I’m guessing that’s the difference?

Hello ​@robertatpbsd,

You can also design forms for creating and editing records with Plumsail Forms. There are no limits on the number of files that can be attached to a record.

I just tested this by uploading 130 files via Plumsail Forms, and they were all instantly uploaded to Airtable. The formula in Airtable correctly shows the count of files in the attachment column:

There is a free plan available of Plumsail Forms for Airtable, so check it out!