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How can I build a simple daily prayer-time tracker in Airtable for Sharjah?

  • October 26, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 11 views
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I want to keep a simple base for our community group in Sharjah: one row per day, with date, Fajr time, and a checkbox for whether the notice was shared. I would also like a view that shows only today and tomorrow, so volunteers can check it quickly. I am using a guide to fajr time sharjah to check the timings before I enter them. What is the best field setup for this: a date field, a duration or single-line text field for the time, and a formula that flags any row where the time is missing? Also, how would you build a filtered view for today and tomorrow, and is an automation a good way to remind the volunteer when a row is still unchecked?

    1 reply

    CurtisFonger
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    Hey John,

    Use a date field (time turned off) for the day and a single-line text field for the Fajr time (e.g., “05:12”). Duration fields are meant for lengths of time, so they’re awkward for a clock time. Add a User field (or an Email field) for the volunteer responsible for each day, so reminders can go to the right person. Also set the date field to use the same time zone for everyone (Asia/Dubai). Otherwise “today” can be calculated in UTC and show the wrong day between midnight and 4am local time.

    For the missing-time flag, a formula like IF({Fajr time}, "", "Missing time") works. To also catch typos, you can check the format: IF(REGEX_MATCH({Fajr time}, "^\d{2}:\d{2}$"), "", "Missing or invalid time").

    For the view, filter on Date “is” today OR Date “is” tomorrow by switching the filter’s top-level “and” to “or”. If you later add another filter, such as “Notice shared is unchecked”, put the two date conditions in their own OR group and keep the top level as AND.

    For reminders, use a scheduled automation instead of “When record matches conditions.” That trigger fires only once, when a record first starts to match, and won’t reliably fire just because the date changed. Instead:

    1. Trigger: At a scheduled time, e.g., daily at 8pm.
    2. Action: Find records where Date is tomorrow AND Notice shared is unchecked.
    3. Condition: continue only if at least one record is found.
    4. Action: send an email or Slack message to the assigned volunteer with the date and Fajr time.

    You can also add a second early-morning run for anything still unchecked on the day.

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