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I can't figure out why an automation is not performing as expected.

You can view the test base here: https://airtable.com/appvus4mpIsM95P1S/shrcfwha5Sx1NEui9

Please see the Content, Tasks and Task Templates table.

The logic behind the automation is that when the podcast status on the Content Table is updated to "In Progress," the automation will generate a set of tasks for that episode. The automation looks for records in the Task Templates table under the Podcast View and duplicates those records in the Tasks table.

The automation is creating extra records in the task table and I can't figure out why. There is no pattern to the extra records created. I've tested and tested and it's not the same duplicate records each time the automation runs. 

The extra records created in the task table break the date dependencies.

"Start Date", "Deadline", "Duration" and "Predecessor" work as expected in the Task Templates table, but when the automation creates the records in Tasks table, those same dependencies no longer work—I believe it's due to the extra records being created. To see what I mean, if you look at the Start Date, Deadline, Duration and Predecessor in the Task Template table, you'll see the dependencies are working. But if you look in the Task table, you'll see the first 6 records are the random ones being creating and when I delete those tasks, it deletes the predecessor info from the task.

Here is the automation logic:

When a record matches a condition
Content Table
Status is In Progress
AND Content Format is Podcast
AND DEV | Task List Generated is "unchecked"

Update Record
Content Table
DEV | Task List Generated to "checked"

Find Records
Task Template Table
Based on View "Podcasts"

Repeat for each in List of Record
Create Record
Tasks Table

I've attached screenshots of the automation.

It looks like you may have edited some of the data since this was posted (I don't see any linked Predecessors on the Tasks table).

This may not be the central issue but I suspect that the predecessor links in the automation are not functioning as you expect they are.

That aside, when you look in the automation run history, do you see the does the find records action return more than 13 records (the number of tasks in your template page)?

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to hop on video.

Hi Kenneth, thanks for the reply. apologies for the table changing. I turned off the predecessor field in the automation and that stopped creating the extra records. But I'm not sure how to to fix that. I will reach out, thank you very much for the support. 

It looks like you may have edited some of the data since this was posted (I don't see any linked Predecessors on the Tasks table).

This may not be the central issue but I suspect that the predecessor links in the automation are not functioning as you expect they are.

That aside, when you look in the automation run history, do you see the does the find records action return more than 13 records (the number of tasks in your template page)?

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to hop on video.


I can see in the run history that it is making just 13 interactions, but I'm getting more records.

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