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Help Creating A Specific Automation - Single Select

  • April 23, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 63 views
S

I want to create an Automation that uses a Number Field (field name - Quantity) and a Single Select Field (field name - Can I Make It?). The Single select field only has two options YES and NO

Trigger - When Quantity is 0
Action - Update Record Can I Make It to NO

I’ve also tried the trigger: When Quantity is 0 and Can I Make It is YES

(I’m trying to build a meal prep table where if the quantity of an item in my pantry is 0, it will show that NO I cannot make that recipe.)

I’m able to set up the “when record matches conditions” trigger (both with just number field and single select field) but I can’t seem to get the Action set up. I’m not sure what to choose for Record ID or Fields, as the only dropdown option seems to be the trigger I set up. I’ve messed around with several options, but no matter what I choose, the only options seem to be things I can do to the word YES (capitalizing, trim, lowercase) but nothing leads me to ad option where I can choose the second single select option in that field

1 reply

Ben_Young1
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  • Ben_Young1
  • Brainy
  • April 24, 2022

Hey @Summer_Barney! Welcome in!

As a note, I work best when I can solve something myself, so I created a base where I built this out.
If you’d like to look at the example base I used below, here is a viewing link to the base.
Additionally, you can open up that shared view, then use the button in the upper right-hand corner to copy the base yourself and really poke around.

So, here’s the story I’m understanding from your post:

In Airtable, I have five eggs.

Now, I want to make a cake, so I go into Airtable and look at my recipe record.
But I need eight eggs to make a cake.
Because of this, Airtable has marked my Can I Make It? field as No.

Now, when I have eight OR more eggs, Airtable should change the status to Yes.

(I know that your requirement here is based on whether or not any of the ingredients has an inventory of 0, but that’s just how I thought about it!)

If that is correct, then here’s how you do it!

I created two tables, one for recipes and the other for ingredients.

Next, I created a rollup field in the recipes that looks for the minimum quantity of any of the ingredients.

The Automation

Now, I decided to use the “When a record is updated” action, this will allow us to update the select field to either Yes or No based on your inventory.

Here, we are watching for updates to the Lowest Quantity rollup field.

The first condition action evaluates if the lowest quantity is 0.
If this is true, then update the select field to ‘No’.

Now, this is where you ran into issues.
In automations, it will not provide you with a list of values to pick from.
Instead, you have to type the string (value) that you want to appear.

If the value you type in does not already exist in the options, it will create a new one
This is why you couldn’t find the options to choose from.

So for both actions, you want to actually type it into the update, instead of using the input dialog that was confusing you.

You can see here that even though I just typed in the option, Airtable found that I already have an option for No, and then just updated it using what already existed.

To finish up, for the next conditional action I just evaluate if the quantity is equal to or greater than 1, and if that evaluates true, then I update the field by typing in Yes.

Let me know if you have any questions or if I just completely misunderstood something.

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