Skip to main content

I have a table of 100 members of our makerspace. There's a ROLE field that is multiselect that has Lead, Board Member, Officer, etc.  9 of the members of the "Member" table have "Board Member" and I have a subsequent view called "Board Members" that filters to show all board members (and that have an active status).

I want to have an automation on another table (Applications) that would send a gmail to each of the 9 members in the "Board Members" view/grid. Does anyone have an example of this?  FWIW, I want to include a url of a fillout form including the RECORD_ID() of the application record as well as a parameter of the email address to pre-fill the board members identifying information so when they approve/comment on the form we can identify the source board member.

Thanks in advance

Jeff

PS: I know that on the free plan there are limits on sendmail to non-airtable emails, but that gmail might work instead.

Try using a repeating group automation and triggering it via checkbox or something in the "Applications" table: https://support.airtable.com/docs/repeating-groups-of-automation-actions

You'd have a "Find Record" action that'd grab all the records in the "Board Members" view and you'd use the output of that in your repeating group.  Inside the repeating group, you'd have that Send Gmail action and it'd send one email per found record, and you'd put in the Fillout URL and add in the email address of the board member as a token so it's unique per email

Try using a repeating group automation and triggering it via checkbox or something in the "Applications" table: https://support.airtable.com/docs/repeating-groups-of-automation-actions

You'd have a "Find Record" action that'd grab all the records in the "Board Members" view and you'd use the output of that in your repeating group.  Inside the repeating group, you'd have that Send Gmail action and it'd send one email per found record, and you'd put in the Fillout URL and add in the email address of the board member as a token so it's unique per email


Thanks for the quick reply. The "find records" makes sense, now that I'm experimenting.  But as I look at it, I've changed tact just a bit...  When application record is selected, I am trying to create a new record "member  approval" that has a record for each board member and information from the applicant. This will give the form a place for them to update the approval status.  So to create the "member approval" record, I need to have data from the board member and data from the application.  I assume that the "member approval" record is to be defined with record links to "application" and "member"?  Sorry if that isn't very clear. So for 9 board members, there would be 9 records added to the table with the application data being copied in each one.   I'm playing with it now. 

If I can get this record creation working, I'll add the formula link pointing to the form/record and work on sending the gmail as part of the automation.

Thanks for the quick reply. The "find records" makes sense, now that I'm experimenting.  But as I look at it, I've changed tact just a bit...  When application record is selected, I am trying to create a new record "member  approval" that has a record for each board member and information from the applicant. This will give the form a place for them to update the approval status.  So to create the "member approval" record, I need to have data from the board member and data from the application.  I assume that the "member approval" record is to be defined with record links to "application" and "member"?  Sorry if that isn't very clear. So for 9 board members, there would be 9 records added to the table with the application data being copied in each one.   I'm playing with it now. 

If I can get this record creation working, I'll add the formula link pointing to the form/record and work on sending the gmail as part of the automation.


Hmm, yeah, that would work.  You'd just replace the "Send email" action with a "Create record" action

Is there a business reason why you want to do it that way though?  Sending out the email with a prefilled Fillout form works fine and would be less setup?  The workflow would be
1. Create "Applicant" record
2. Trigger automation
3. Automation sends one email per found Board Member
   - Email includes link to Fillout form with Applicant and Board Member details prefilled
4. Board Member submits Fillout form
5. New record gets created "Member Approvals" automatically linked to both the Applicant and Board Member

Hmm, yeah, that would work.  You'd just replace the "Send email" action with a "Create record" action

Is there a business reason why you want to do it that way though?  Sending out the email with a prefilled Fillout form works fine and would be less setup?  The workflow would be
1. Create "Applicant" record
2. Trigger automation
3. Automation sends one email per found Board Member
   - Email includes link to Fillout form with Applicant and Board Member details prefilled
4. Board Member submits Fillout form
5. New record gets created "Member Approvals" automatically linked to both the Applicant and Board Member


Not really a business reason, it's just something I can break into smaller parts and understand.  Being new to this, I tend to go the way that I know I can get there based on what I've learned to do so far.  My approach is like

  1. get the records built automatically.... oh, thank god it worked (after a lot of work).
  2. Build an update form and put in formula url link to form..... whew, it worked too....
  3. Now... lets see if I can trigger emails...

So I know I'm doing it the hard way, it's jus part of my learning process.

Reply


Terms & Conditions