Find Records -> Update Record = Received invalid inputs

[Tuur]

If I find a bunch of records in step x and try to update them in step y I’m getting the following error: ‘received invalid inputs’.

According to the docs (Find records automation action – Airtable Support) it should work: “One recommendation is to use the update record action in order to update one set of records using data from the records found using the “find records” action outlined in this article.”

How?

Just to be clear, it works fine with 1 record, just not with a list.

[ScottWorld]

Unfortunately, Airtable’s Automations feature doesn’t work in the way that the vast majority of us (maybe ALL of us?) would expect it to work. :frowning: :frowning:

See my comments here:

Hope you are ready for some newbie questions 😉 Ask the community

Unfortunately, the “Find Records” action in Airtable’s Automations doesn’t function how most of us would have expected it to function. :cold_sweat: The “Find Records” action only returns an array of Record ID’s, but Airtable won’t loop through those record ID’s to take individual actions on those individual records. The only thing it does is give us a list of Record ID’s which we can then paste (as a group of ID’s) into a linked record field or pass into a JavaScript for looping there. That’s …

[Tuur]

That’s all good and well, but the quoted text from the help explicitly tells me it should work.

So it’s not about expectations, it’s not working as advertised. Right? :slightly_smiling_face:

[Tuur]

Thinking about this some more, you can update a set of records, as long as you only want to update a parent table. :confused:

Talking with support now to clear this up.

[ScottWorld]

Tuur:

That’s all good and well, but the quoted text from the help explicitly tells me it should work.

Yeah, that article is wrong… or at best extremely misleading. Airtable should fix that article.

Tuur:

Thinking about this some more, you can update a set of records, as long as you only want to update a parent table. :confused:

Right, which is exactly what I outlined in my other message that I linked to above.

Unfortunately, the only thing we can effectively do with the “Find Records” action is copy-and-paste the group of record ID’s into a linked record field. Ostensibly to update the parent record.

For anything more than that, you would need to write a custom JavaScript or use a professional automation tool like Integromat. (Note that I am a professional Airtable consultant and a Registered Integromat Partner, and the Integromat link contains my personal referral code.)

[Tuur]

I rather use my own automation tool in that case (note that I am a professional Airtable consultant and developer, and the tool contains my personal code). :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

[Tuur]

Here’s the official line: “I did get confirmation from the engineering team that it is not possible to update multiple records with this action. It will fail if the “Find Records” action is finding more than one record.”

I suggested improving the article.

[JAN]

Thank you guys for the inputs,
i hope the AT team will improve this because there is no interest to use the update automation feature.