Automations broken?

[Gabi_Messina]

Yesterday I build a number of automations that I fully tested and worked fine but are now broken.

Trigger is new record in a view
Action is update record
What breaks is identifying the record. I want to update 1-2 records that are linked to the trigger record. Since you cannot use a link in the record ID column I have a look up of the record ID.

I now have 2 issues.

1. The links are showing as not valid (picture 1) where yesterday this was totally fine
2. I cannot click to add the values. There is a open symbol but when I click it, nothing opens.

Of course I publicly launched the process that relies on these automations today so it’s critical I get resolution to this ASAP.

[Anthony]

Thanks for the suggestion @ArielleEvans, it is a good idea, but the data is already visible in the tables when the automation is triggered.

Interestingly when I tried to run this automation again this morning, the Record ID is now showing in the Test (ie where I drew a question mark in the snip above there is now the correct Record ID) but it is still not connecting up to the record of that ID in the table - despite the records matching when I check by hand.

My conclusion is that there are bug fixes being rolled out in the background but they are not quite there yet… although I don’t want to rule out the possibility of my own error just yet eirther!

[Justin_Barrett]

Anthony:

I am using the “create record” automation to create a new record in a “timesheet” table, based on moving the status of a job in a “jobs” table.

Technically there’s no such thing as a “‘create record’ automation”. An automation is a combination of a trigger and one or more actions. In that light, you either have a “when record created” trigger starting the automation, or you’re using a “Create record” action in response to some other trigger. Which is it?

Would you be able to share screenshots of the trigger and action(s) in your automation? My gut feeling right now is that this is due to user error, but without knowing exactly how your automation is set up, it’s impossible to know the cause of the problem.

[Anthony]

Thanks @Justin_Barrett, you are right it is a little convoluted!

The automation structure is can most briefly be desribed like this:

Automation 1: (WORKS FINE)
Trigger - when “status” is “timer” (for a “job” record in jobs table)
Action i - create record in timesheet table; populate field “time start” with the “change of status time” field from jobs table.
Action ii - update job field “timesheet record id” to write Record_ID of created timesheet record [this is to get around linked fields not working for Automation 2]

Automation 2: (“RECEIVED INVALID INPUTS” ERROR)
Trigger - when “status” is not “timer” (for a “job” record in jobs table)
Action i - update record in timesheet table, using the recently created “timesheet record id” in the jobs table to identify the right record; populate field “time end” with the “change of status time” field from jobs table.

Interestingly Automation 2 does work when I copy and paste the timesheet Record_ID from the jobs table into the automation (ie I manually do what I want the automation to do, see picture below). Therefore doesn’t seem to be a format mismatch on the field population at Automation 2 Action i step.

Here is the relevant picture:

All suggestions appreciated!

[Justin_Barrett]

Thanks for the update. Have you made both automations live, or are these errors only occurring when testing them individually?

[Anthony]

Hi Justin, both are live. The error occurs when testing and when running live (ie automation 2 action fails the test and doesn’t work in practice)

[Justin_Barrett]

How quickly are you testing #2 after #1? Say you choose the “Timer” option in that single-select, which triggers the first automation. You wait a bit, then clear the field, which triggers the second one. How much of a time gap is in-between those two actions? I’m asking because there’s a delay of several seconds before Airtable actually begins running any automation after its trigger event has occurred. It’s possible that you’re triggering #2 too quickly, before #1 has had a chance to run and put that record ID into the relevant field.

[Anthony]

Thanks Justin, I appreciate your help and it is a good point. But I am waiting after Automation 1 until I can see the record created and fields updated in the jobs table. Then I count to 3. Then I trigger Automation 2 and it doesn’t work.

It got me thinking though - should the trigger for Automation 2 be:
When “status” is none of “timer” [rather than is not]
Perhaps it was a sort of mouse click up or down problem which interferred with the timing of the status change field? But this turned out not to be an issue.

The key thing is that the automation does work when I copy and paste the record ID into the Automation action (see picture). It is just when I use the Automation action to pull the Record ID value from a field in my table it doesn’t seem to recognise it - despite it being the same value that I have just copied and pasted.

==================

[Justin_Barrett]

Anthony:

It got me thinking though - should the trigger for Automation 2 be:
When “status” is none of “timer” [rather than is not ]

That shouldn’t make a difference. The end result is the same. I don’t think the trigger is the issue. I think it’s somewhere else, but I’m still only seeing fragments of your setup. However, this latest fragment shows something that wasn’t evident before: the {Timesheet record ID passthru} field that you’re trying to pull from is a formula. What exactly is that formula? That may provide another clue.

[Anthony]

Thanks for your persistence Justin! I don’t think this is the issue, at least not directly:

I tried different ways of getting the timesheet record ID into the automation given this appears to be the broken bit, the different snips showed the different methods I tried.

One was just using the Timesheet Record ID straight from the relevant field (didn’t work). The second was using another field which manipulated the Timesheet Record ID (ie in case there was a problem recognising as a string, I tried different formulas so that it might get recognised as a string) (didn’t work). The third (testing method) was just pasting the relevant Timesheet Record ID straight into the Automation Action (did work, but clearly not now automatic!). But we can see from these three tests there is some issue with the Automation Action picking up the Timesheet Record ID.

[Justin_Barrett]

Would you be able to share your base? You could make a copy with any sensitive data stripped out if you’re more comfortable with that. After all that we’ve tried so far, I want to run more hands-on tests.