Zapier trigger for updated record or all records

Any updates on this? I too see this as an essential feature and finding the lack of triggering on update or equivalent functionality severely limiting. It is especially frustrating when trying to set up new Airtable integrations and testing the functionality, as any record that is used as a trigger then becomes useless for future tests.

Instead of Zapier taking action on a new Airtable row… can I do that directly through the airtable API?

You still have the issue of knowing when there is a new record.

Yes, that is correct.

If anyone here has used Zapier, I could use your help integrating Zapier [Webhook] and Airtable

+1 on this, is there any timeframe on when this will land?

Also bumping this. It’s difficult for us to fully transition to Airtable without this

Is there any timeframe for webhook when a record is updated? We are looking to migrate our CRM here shortly and that is probably a no-go for us without it. Can’t do much tag-based automation (for marketing segmentation) without it.

Adding my +1 to this - allowing an updated record to work as a Zapier trigger would be a game-changer!

I wasted hours and hours trying to figure out why my workflows wouldn’t trigger, then I found this thread.

It seems anytime a Zap touches any Airtable record once, that record can never be used as a trigger again. I even tried a work-around to set up a Zap that creates a duplicate record in a different table (assuming I could then use that duplicate record as a trigger later) but even that fails because the Zap created the record, so it caches the id.

What is most frustrating is this cached id is persistent across different zaps. I would understand (and frankly appreciate) the functionally to never run the same zap on the same Airtable record twice. That’s sensible. But If I want to pick up that record later for an entirely different zap to do something entirely different, I can’t do so. As others have said, that’s severely limiting to creating multi-step workflows.

@Airtable_Team Any chance you’re listening?

I’m not certain the problem is with Airtable. If you look into many Zapier integrations, you’ll find this to be a frequently recurring limitation for a wide range of apps. For instance, I recently used Zapier to link Google Sheets to Airtable for a client, and I quickly ran into the middleware’s refusal to trigger on a cell update if it meant the cell was returned to a value Zapier knew it to have previously held. Given this was an advertising buy-scheduling system, it seemed quite likely for an ad campaign to be shifted off and then back on to a given date, rendering it invisible to Zapier.¹

In any case, this is essentially the same limitation everyone complains about with Zapier’s Airtable triggers – but having nothing to do with Airtable. Admittedly, if it is a problem with Zapier’s architecture, I can’t imagine what purpose it must originally have served, nor can I fathom why it wasn’t fixed years ago.

1. In the end, I got around the problem by ignoring Zapier’s triggers; instead, I wrote a simple Google Apps Script that’s triggered by a edit to any cell in the sheet. Significant changes fire off a POST to a Zapier webhook, which in turns updates Airtable accordingly.

I think you’re correct, this is not entirely Airtable’s fault. I was mistake in my earlier assessment that records won’t be picked up by a second, entirely different zap.

The problem in my workflow was that I was using Zapier filters to only run the Zap when certain conditions were met (in my case, it was preventing an automated email from sending on weekends). This was a mistake, because if the Zap saw a new record in my Airtable View, it ran. If an Airtable record did not pass the Zapier filters, then later on, when the record would pass the filters, it was ignored. Zapier only gets one “shot” at a new record in a view, and after that it won’t trigger again.

Airtable and Zapier would need to work together to fix this - Airtable would need to provide an API reference that told Zapier when/if an individual record was updated, and Zapier would then need to provide functionality to re-trigger a record when the record was updated since the last attempt.

For me, the way around this is to avoid using Zapier filters altogether. Instead, I control all the filtering on the Airtable View (I added in several Formula fields to compute various things, like current hour of the day, day of the week, etc.).

By ensuring the record will never appear in a view until I want the Zapier to run, it seems to be working quite well. I have different Views set up for different stages of my automation, and the record can pass between Views successfully and the Zaps run without issue.

There’s also the quick-and-dirty work-around of [ab]using Slack as a trigger, of which I first learned from a post by @Chester_McLaughlin. I’ve not used it in a production system, but I did cobble together an Airtable-to-Slack-to-Zapier-to-Airtable integration that seemed to work OK. (Of course, I’m not sure if I tested whether reappearance in the view I’m using to trigger Slack actually triggers Slack…) It’s pretty much real-time notification, as well. I’ve read comments the system drops messages occasionally, seemingly related to integrations that have Airtable triggering messages on multiple Slack channels for the same update, but that’s not something I’ve tested.

Our recent show and tell introduces a solution to this age old question of update record triggers (finally!). Be sure to check it out: Custom Connector for Zapier

Just seeing your connector. At $49.99 a month I’m curious if there is a trial so I can test and be sure this connector will work?

So this isn’t a perfect solution, but I do have a manual workaround that actually worked out better for a given use case.

In my office we were wanting to use AirTable to store and centralize contact information and link it to various other records. We would be constantly adding information to records as we found out people’s cell phone numbers and additional email addresses etc. That makes it slightly risky to auto sync and update the information as someone could accidentally delete some information and clear it our of our database.

The workaround was to set the trigger to be a button push. Air table would then search for any record with “Yes” in the field “Ready for Update?”. It would update the contact information in the first record with Yes in that fields to google contacts, then after it updates it looks back for that same field (using the main ID# we use as a key to identify it) and updates the Yes to “Updated” and puts the timestamp of the button press into another field for records.

You do have to press the button once for each record you update, but it will work every time you press it, and it can repeated any number of times.

I know its not quite automated, but when its something as vital as contact information, it can sometimes be best to have a physical trigger to make sure that things don’t trigger improperly.

@openside is a short trial available to test this out?

Hi @Delali_Dzirasa @Nick_Duda (sorry I missed your post from a few months ago. never got a notification).

We offer a full refund in first 14 days if it doesn’t work out for you. Just reach out to our community site and submit a ticket and it will be refunded.

Thanks!

Hi y’all,

I’ve setup webhooks for new records and record updates using a combination of Airtable’s Slack notifications and Pipedream (think Zapier, but optimized for webhooks). It’s similar to the solution some of y’all have described, using Slack as a way to get record updates, but it’s also free.

End-to-end, If you add a new record to a base, you’ll get a webhook out with a JSON payload sent to a custom HTTP endpoint for that update:

[

  {

    "tableId": "tbl98fitgvmmAR8aX",

    "recordId": "recltHKU7vKAv7bhW",

    "updates": [

      {

        "field": "Name",

        "newValue": "NEW RECORD"

      },

      {

        "field": "Status",

        "newValue": "CLOSED"

      }

    ]

  }

]

I documented the setup in a Medium post:

https://medium.com/@dylan.sather/airtable-webhooks-with-slack-pipedream-8a394a763fa9

and this Pipedream pipeline:

https://pipedream.com/@dylburger/airtable-slack-messages-webhook-p_wOCgpB

(apologies for the formatting, the Community site wouldn’t let me include any direct links in this post)

I’d love feedback on whether this helps solve anyone’s issues getting webhook notifications for record creation / updates.

Feel free to personally reach out if you need help getting it working — more than happy to help.

Dylan

Airtable team, how we coming on this?

This fuctionality is soooo needed. It’s been over 3 years and still nothing…

@Airtable_Ops @Airtable_Team Can you please look at this?

It’s a lot simpler than that. To re trigger on an event, simply right click the line that you want to trigger again. Select duplicate. Delete the first line. That new line has a new record ID and will trigger once more to do the same function with zapier.

Sure, but this method is totally manual, we need soemthing that can run totally automatized.

Its now 10/29/2019… any progress Airtable?

@Airtable, @Airtable_Ops

48 replies & 9.4k views and nearly 4 years without a single response.

Triggering upon record update is a vital feature that nearly every other app offers.

Please make this happen.

This is the best solution: Airtable Importer by Railsware.

1. Import the Grid/Sheet into it’s own sheet


2. Vlookup data accordingly in other sheets