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I'm building a base to track volunteer sign-ups for a project.

  • Table 1 stores Volunteer info

  • Table 2 contains available Timeslots

When a new volunteer signs up via a form on the Volunteer table, an automated email is sent confirming the timeslots they’re registered for.

The issue: When I include a grid of timeslots (using a Find Records step in the automation), all of the times are showing in UTC. I need them to display in EST.

Here’s what I’ve tried:

  • I created a formula field to convert the time to EST using SET_TIMEZONE, and also tried

  • A single-line text field that gets updated by a separate automation

But when I try to include either of those fields in the grid, the grid shows the correct number of records, but all the cells are blank.

Has anyone figured out a way to include times in the correct time zone (EST) inside a grid in an Airtable automation email? Would appreciate any tips!

Dates and timezones are a real pain.

In this case you can try to output the times in EST as a string (text) onto another column and use that in the email. That can be done using the DATETIME_FORMAT() function.

Add or substract hours from your original date field if necessary with DATEADD().


 

Dates and timezones are a real pain.

In this case you can try to output the times in EST as a string (text) onto another column and use that in the email. That can be done using the DATETIME_FORMAT() function.

Add or substract hours from your original date field if necessary with DATEADD().

I had given that a try, but what happens is that the grid appears with the correct number of rows, but all of them are just blank. 


That is probably because you need to run the previous blocks in the automation again, to fetch the new data.

When in testing mode, the automation blocks use the data outped by the previous blocks and this does not update automatically against changes in the data layer.


That is probably because you need to run the previous blocks in the automation again, to fetch the new data.

When in testing mode, the automation blocks use the data outped by the previous blocks and this does not update automatically against changes in the data layer.

🙃That was entirely my issue! Thank you!


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