Run automation manually on all records that match conditions

Ask the community Automations
#1

Hi there, I’d like to create an automation that, when triggered manually, appends all records that match certain conditions to a Google Sheet (that I then apply built-in formulas to in the sheet).

My first attempt was to choose the trigger “When record matches conditions” but that only seems to fire for when a new or updated record matches conditions, not for when an existing one does.

How might I set up the conditions and action and then for a trigger be able to just click a button like “run” or turn it on? Is there another way to do this?

#2

To trigger this, you could copy/paste the values in the field that is being watched. Don’t know if it’ll work, but here’s an example.

Let’s say your automation is: when “Checkbox” (checkbox field) is checked, mark “Status” (single-select field) as “Done”. After creating the automation, any new record which meets the above conditions get updated, but let’s say you have 100+ records already created. So, what you can try is copy/paste all the values of the “Checkbox” field onto itself. Then, maybe it’ll trigger the automation on those records.

For me when I faced this problem, I manually changed the “Status” field of previous records to “Done” :stuck_out_tongue:

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#3

Correct. An automation triggered by record changes will only fire based on changes made after the automation is activated. The workaround by @Jarvis_Digital is one way around it, though I’m not certain that copy-paste will work because the field contents aren’t changing. What I’ll sometimes do is select a field (or group of fields), delete the contents to force the records to not meet the trigger condition, then Undo to bring the data back, and all of the affected records should trigger at once. Naturally one should be aware of how many records are triggering so that plan automation limits aren’t exceeded, but it’s a quick way to batch-process records.

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