Appending to Google Sheets, how to post last modified value not lengther

[Mark_Hostetler]

Howdy,

I am trying to append my airtable records to a google sheet at regular intervals, including my last modified column. How can I get it to append the actual value, and not just the character length of the value. I’m getting results like 29, 30, 29, 29… for my rows instead of 8/18/2021 10:27:31 or whatever

[JonathanBowen · Accepted solution]

Hi @Mark_Hostetler - I don’t think this is going to work. I’m guessing your automation is something like:

At a scheduled time → Find Records → Append Row to Google Sheets

The problem is that Find records returns a list or an array of records and you need a way to iterate through these to append them as individual rows on the Sheet. However, Airtable Automations don’t offer an iterate component directly.

One way around this would be to run a script in the automation as the 3rd part, but this is going to need a lot more coding (the script would be able to iterate through the list of records returned and post them to the Sheet).

Another way would be to change the automation to work off a view - e.g. when a record enters a view. Here your view might be when the created at time is more than 10 minutes ago. In this scenario, you’re dealing with each record individually, so you can append to the Sheet easily. The downside of this method is that every record triggers the automation, so you burn through a lot more of your automation allowance.

[Mark_Hostetler]

That would explain my other issues as well! Thank you for clarifying this!

[ScottWorld]

@Mark_Hostetler 

This is no longer a problem in Airtable, because you can now use a repeating group of actions. However, note that the “Find Record” action will only find a maximum of 100 records, so if you’re expecting more than 100 records, you’ll need to find another way of doing this.

If you know JavaScript, you can write your own custom JavaScript script to do this.

But the easiest & quickest no-code way of doing this is to use Make, which doesn’t require any programming code. There can be a bit of a learning curve with Make, which is why I created this basic navigation video for Make, along with providing the link to Make’s free training courses. There are also many Make experts hanging out there who can answer other Make questions.