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Zapier best practice

  • October 14, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 23 views
R
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Zapier can help make Airtable do awesome things, but I’m finding it intensely frustrating when developing and refining a new Zap that a backlog of Airtable records can develop that should be candidates for processing by the Zap, but wont be processed at all because they are no longer ‘new’ records in the view.

Even if I create a dummy view using same filters, and assign the Zap to process the records in that view it still wont work because the records are already in that dummy view when the zap is assigned. Other problems occur if I assign the zap to the dummy view then update the filters to populate it because there is no initial candidate record to test and validate the Zap.

What is the best practice way to manage this? Its driving me mad!

    3 replies

    ScottWorld
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    • ScottWorld
    • Genius
    • October 14, 2020

    Yeah, this is one of the many reasons that most of us have switched away from using Zapier to using Integromat instead. Zapier is just a major disappointment all the way around.

    Integromat offers 100% full-featured Airtable support, not the “partial support” that Zapier offers, and the Integromat platform as a whole is a zillion times better than Zapier. It is much cheaper, much more powerful, much more flexible, and much more customizable than Zapier. Integromat essentially eliminates every single limitation that the Zapier platform has. It is a sheer delight & joy to work with. And their tech support is much better than Zapier’s as well.

    However, if you are absolutely forced to stick with Zapier, you have 2 options:

    1. You can purchase On2Air: Actions, which adds more Airtable triggers & actions into your zaps.

    2. You can use this JavaScript hack to schedule your zaps to perform searches on your records at scheduled intervals: Workarounds for overcoming Zapier's "New Record in View" limitation

    But, if you can, I strongly urge you to check out Integromat instead. Once you switch, you will never go back to Zapier. :slightly_smiling_face:

    (Note that I am an Airtable Consultant and a Registered Integromat Partner, and the Integromat link above contains my personal referral code.)

    R
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    • Richard_Foxwort
    • Author
    • Known Participant
    • October 16, 2020

    Yeah, this is one of the many reasons that most of us have switched away from using Zapier to using Integromat instead. Zapier is just a major disappointment all the way around.

    Integromat offers 100% full-featured Airtable support, not the “partial support” that Zapier offers, and the Integromat platform as a whole is a zillion times better than Zapier. It is much cheaper, much more powerful, much more flexible, and much more customizable than Zapier. Integromat essentially eliminates every single limitation that the Zapier platform has. It is a sheer delight & joy to work with. And their tech support is much better than Zapier’s as well.

    However, if you are absolutely forced to stick with Zapier, you have 2 options:

    1. You can purchase On2Air: Actions, which adds more Airtable triggers & actions into your zaps.

    2. You can use this JavaScript hack to schedule your zaps to perform searches on your records at scheduled intervals: Workarounds for overcoming Zapier's "New Record in View" limitation

    But, if you can, I strongly urge you to check out Integromat instead. Once you switch, you will never go back to Zapier. :slightly_smiling_face:

    (Note that I am an Airtable Consultant and a Registered Integromat Partner, and the Integromat link above contains my personal referral code.)


    Thanks @ScottWorld I’ve been looking at Integromat on your recommendation - it does look to have a lot of great features and capabilities.

    However I’m now getting stuck on errors in flows where unlike Zapier, Integromat completely grinds to a halt if it encounters an error like an empty field. The only way to handle such situations seems to be to create a contingent error directive flow that duplicates all the modules downstream of the error - in a multi-step flow this leads to exponentially increasing sets of duplicate paths which is a big problem for maintainability.

    I know is is the wrong place to ask, but I’m wondering if I’ve missed something and there’s some way to tell Integromat to simply skip a module and continue with the flow if/when an error is encountered?

    ScottWorld
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    • ScottWorld
    • Genius
    • October 16, 2020

    Thanks @ScottWorld I’ve been looking at Integromat on your recommendation - it does look to have a lot of great features and capabilities.

    However I’m now getting stuck on errors in flows where unlike Zapier, Integromat completely grinds to a halt if it encounters an error like an empty field. The only way to handle such situations seems to be to create a contingent error directive flow that duplicates all the modules downstream of the error - in a multi-step flow this leads to exponentially increasing sets of duplicate paths which is a big problem for maintainability.

    I know is is the wrong place to ask, but I’m wondering if I’ve missed something and there’s some way to tell Integromat to simply skip a module and continue with the flow if/when an error is encountered?


    Hi @Richard_Foxworthy,

    I’m not sure I follow. I don’t have the same issues that you’re describing. You say that an empty field is returning an error, but under what context is an empty field triggering an error? Some fields are required to be filled in, such as Record ID’s of records that you’re trying to update.

    Integromat does have a bit of a learning curve, but once you get up & running with it, it’s a piece of cake. If you’re having problems building your scenario, I would suggest reaching out to Integromat tech support to see if they can help you. They also have tons of extensive support articles as well.

    Or, if you’d like to receive personalized one-on-one consultation help from me, unfortunately, this is not something that I can troubleshoot for free — but I am available for hire to look at your scenarios and consult you on them, or even help you program them from scratch! :slightly_smiling_face: Feel free to send me a private message, or reach out to me via my website at scottworld.com.

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