My AirTable implementation deals with scheduling and staffing of courses for a university. We have a table for Professors, a table for Courses, and a table for Offerings which marries the two together with each record representing a single staffed course-section that students will ultimately be able to register for.
Of note: currently our professors do not have AirTable access. Having them create accounts is currently not an option, unfortunately. Additionally, our plan does not include AirTable Portals.
When we initially link professors to offerings, we need to send emails to have the professor accept or decline the position. We currently intend to do this via a Fillout form that will allow them to edit a single select field with accept/decline as the options (the “Accepted?” field below). Our issue is with the fact that professors teach several offerings every term, so sending one email for every offering would be cumbersome. Instead, we want to find a way to send a single email to each professor with multiple links to each of their assigned offerings’ acceptance forms.
For example, assume we have the following data:
| Course | Section | Professor Email | Accepted? (edited via form → ) | Acceptance Form URL (Created in Fillout, based on record ID) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACCT1000 | A | John@email.com | Pending | <form url 1> |
| ACCT1000 | B | John@email.com | Pending | <form url 2> |
| ACCT3000 | A | John@email.com | Pending | <form url 3> |
| MKTG1000 | A | Sharon@email.com | Pending | <form url 4> |
| MKTG2000 | A | Sharon@email.com | Pending | <form url 5> |
| MATH1000 | A | Liz@email.com | Pending | <form url 6> |
Given this data, the automation should send 3 emails when triggered:
Email 1 should send to John and include form urls 1, 2, and 3.
Email 2 should send to Sharon and include form urls 4 and 5.
Email 3 should send to Liz and include form url 6.
Is this possible to accomplish with AirTable Automations? If not, what are some other solutions or workarounds?
