Wait…what? There are no webhooks for responding to record updates?!

Sigh. So is the current best practice polling from an external service? That won’t work in the long term, but if webhooks are in the pipeline, polling could work for awhile as we get our MVP up and running.

TL;DR— for webhooks @Airtable_Team

Fwiw, I just found this bullet point in my API docs under “API ROADMAP”:

• “Receiving notifications about changed records.”

Hard to say whether that’s going to be implemented via webhooks, but at least it’s a reason to remain hopeful. That and the design and implementation quality of the product so far; they’re definitely capable of getting this right. :crossed_fingers:

Also, Matt Bush from Airtable did say they’re working on webhooks here (in June 2017 ): Last Modified Timestamp

Given how long people have been clamoring for these foundational features (created/modified timestamps and webhooks), it would be fabulous if someone from AirTable could chime in briefly to explain what the holdup is. It’s hard to believe that a team capable of creating something so great is incapable of tackling these features.

In other words @Airtable_Team | @Airtable_Admin | @Airtable_Support, I think I speak for many of us here when I say that a) we’re super supportive of you guys, and b) that support is hard to maintain without timestamps and webhooks.

I take the lack of response from Airtable since the message on June 2017 as “this is a lot of work” and perhaps “it’s more complex than we originally thought”

Which is a completely fair position.

Once it is implemented, webhooks for changed records has the potential to be a game-changer for Airtable, and if done well, could massively open up the types of systems and solutions that can be developed on the platform.

+1 Would love to see Webhooks also.

Any update from admin on where the state of webhooks is? Would love to use webhooks also. I assumed (unfairly) that airtable would have them before joining

I wanna do some calculations whenever a row is added… I can either ask airtable every 10 seconds, or airtable can simply notify me… I need webhooks

Looks like this might be in the works.

API ROADMAP

Here are a few things that we’ll expose in the API shortly:

• Transparently creating new multiple choice options when you update records.


• Querying for recent changes.


• Receiving notifications about changed records.

I hope it means “webhook” and not “Send yourself an email when a record changes.”

Adding a plus one to keep this on top

+1! This would push it over the edge and make it that much easier to justify switching. The one thing this application is kind of lacking is automation and that would get this that much closer to that!

+1 bump! Any updates on webhooks?

+1 I love airtable and would love to use it as a true backend

+1 Definitely would love to use Airtable for more of my clients, but webhooks are SO necessary.

+1! Much like the ‘last modified’ feature request, I’m hopeful my additional vote here pushes this one over the edge after 2+ years.

+1 for webhooks. They would be super useful

+1 just started heavily using Airtable and was wondering if constant polling with the best practice for custom integrations based on record creation/updates…webhooks would be much easier

This is one of the major things needed here I think. It would also help reduce the amount of API requests people do to check the state of records.

Any idea when this might be enabled @Airtable @Airtable_Support

Another +! for webhooks

Would love to use Airtable but I just can’t without webhooks

+1 for webhooks !

I can’t use airtable without that…

Thanks for the awesome work

and also webhook based zapier triggers which are pretty delicious

This would make Airtable into a serious tool for us.

I agree with all these sentiments! If Airtable introduces webhooks, we would likely be able to switch away from our current CMS and begin using Airtable instead! However we have too many automations triggering from our CMS webhooks currently that without it, we can’t switch.

With the addition of the “Last modified time” type of column, it’s now possible to trigger an integration when records are updated. It’s only possible to do with Integromat so far, the integration can run every minute if you pay for it (instead of 5 for Zapier) and bonus: you can perform as many actions as records that have been updated.

We spent our last few weeks @ Automate Me to develop a workaround to trigger on updates and this new addition is a real game-changer.

First things first : go to Airtable and add a “Last Modified Time” column. You can pick up which columns you would like to watch or just select all of them.

Then, Head to Integromat, sign up if you have no account yet and start a scenario.

In the trigger slot, select Airtable > Watch Records.

Connect your Airtable, then select both the base and the table.

Unlike Zapier, Integromat asks you to add columns such as “Created Time” or now “Last Modified Time” to be able to trigger. Integromat refers to the data inside these columns to know when to trigger or not. Now, you can pick in the trigger field “Created Time” if you want your scenario to trigger when a new record is created or “Last Modified Time” if you want your scenario to trigger when a record is updated.

You can also select more than one record in the field “Max records” to process records in batch. Type a formula if you need to filter the records you’d like to pick up and you should be ready to go!