Deleting a record as part of an automation

[Jessica_Farrell]

Hi! I am using an airtable automation to move certain data from the record to a different table, then I would like to automatically delete the record in the original table. Can I take that last step using Automations? I couldn’t figure out how. Apologies if this is well documented, I couldn’t find it though!

Thanks!

[ScottWorld]

Welcome to the community, @Jessica_Farrell !

Deleting records is not currently supported with the built-in (point-and-click) automation actions. I think it would be really useful for Airtable to add this feature — you might want to suggest it to them by emailing support@airtable.com.

My guess is that you could possibly write a JavaScript for your automation that can delete a record for you. I am not yet proficient in JavaScript, so someone else would have to verify if that is indeed possible.

Alternatively, the way that I currently do this is that I use Integromat to automate the deletion of my records. Integromat is a no-code/low-code way of automating Airtable.

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

[kuovonne · Accepted solution]

Yes, it is possible to delete a record using a scripting action. I have created automation scripts that delete the triggering record. While scripting as a whole is well documented, there are far more use cases for scripts than example scripts.

(I am also an Airtable consultant, and I am experienced at writing Airtable scripts.)

[ScottWorld]

Great to know! I couldn’t find the Delete functionality in the scripting API, but this just goes to show you how little I know about JavaScript. :crazy_face: I’m still on Chapter 2 of my Javascript book. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

[kuovonne]

ScottWorld:

I couldn’t find the Delete functionality in the scripting API

It’s documented as of the functions for the table object.

ScottWorld:

my Javascript book

Learning to code from a book is really hard. If you want to learn, using a system that lets you immediately try out the concepts that you’re learning.

On the other hand, learning the Scripting API is different from learning JavaScript. Knowing basic JavaScript will make writing scripts easier, but learning the Scripting API is mostly a matter of learning how to read documentation.

[Jessica_Farrell]

Thank you both for the very helpful information. The volume of records I have is pretty low for now meaning that the level of effort for scripting (for me, a person who would be learning that from scratch) probably is too high for me to implement at the moment, but it’s great to know how I could level this up if I needed to in the future. Thanks again!!