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Re: How to Add Attendees to an Outlook Event Created Through Another Automation?

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Cody_Winchester
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

I’ve created one automation that generates an Outlook Calendar Event when I add a record to a specific view in Airtable. Now, I want another automation to run that is triggered by someone submitting a form to register for that same Event as defined in the previous automation. However, this doesn’t seem to be possible because the Event ID is unobtainable for use any automation other than the one that creates it in the first place.

I tried to write the value from the original Create Event automation to a field in the Airtable record that defined it in the hopes that I could retrieve this value in the second automation, but it is invalid (not a genuine Outlook token). Furthermore, I cannot add a list of people to initial Create Event Automation through the Find Records Action because this feature does not provide any way to retrieve and use any of those records other than as a Grid or List, which are useless. Any help as to whether creating or updating calendar events has any use across multiple automations. Thanks!

6 Replies 6

Why is it invalid? You just outlined the exact process of what you’re supposed to do. Store the Outlook Event ID in an Airtable field, and then find that Event ID when you want to update that particular event in Outlook. You’re saying that Airtable won’t let you pull just that one value from your one found record? I’m not at my computer right now, so I can’t check this myself right now.

Thanks for your reply @ScottWorld.

Unfortunately that’s not the case on my end. The text value doesn’t appear to be the correct data type to use for what I’m trying to do. You say you have been to do something similar?

Hmmm… I normally do all of my Outlook automations in Make.com, and this would be a piece of cake to setup over there. So I’m not 100% sure if you can use the “find records” action in Airtable’s Automations to do what you want to do.

I’m assuming that you’re using “find records”, yes?

I will need to check when I get back to my computer later tonight, but in the meantime, please outline your current setup with screenshots! Including the form.

There might be some very easy & clever workaround, too.

Whenever an Airtable Form is submitted it will always create a new record in that table. Since Automations are primarily record based, it must work with some data that is present in the new record. If you are reusing the same Form each time the automation will not have any details of the newly created Event in Outlook Calendar.

Your Form will need to be unique for each created calendar event. This is fairly easy to set up with a Formula and prefill in the URL o insert the Event ID into the new form record. This will give you a unique Form URL for each Calendar Event.

So the steps are:

  1. New record is added to your Base
  2. The first Automation runs to create the new Calendar Event AND store the created Event ID in that record.
  3. A formula field in that record concats a prefill Form URL (link)
  4. Send the new link to whomever can register for the event
  5. The form is submitted WITH the corresponding Event ID
  6. The second Automation runs to update the Calendar event, as it now knows the correct Event ID

Let me know if you need me to clarify any of that. I did a quick test and everything worked just fine.

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D_F
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

I actually just today built this same workflow so that when an Outlook event is created, a make.com scenario creates an Airtable record with the Event ID (@Cody_Winchester I think I just got lucky here, and make.com format is correct for what you need?) Then I’m able to generate a form URL that links to this event. I’m using those submissions to trigger a second automation to update the Outlook event with the new attendee. It succeeds in finding it, and even updating it, but here’s where I’m running into an issue: I can’t figure out how to look up the existing attendees so that I can add them to the Attendee field and then add the email from my newest subscription to the list. Otherwise, I assume I am writing over existing attendees and deleting them. I’m thinking about using a formula field to cast the emails from the AT event’s Link to RSVP field, but if someone fills out my registration form, and later opts out of the event, I’d be constantly reinviting them. An automation to keep the attendee list updated feels bulky, but maybe that’s the answer? Either way, I’m VERY worried about retriggering the event notification for all attendees every time we add a new email to the list. Has anyone already solved for that or have any ideas?

Can you explain this in more detail? I am unsure what conditions the form needs to meet. I am managing an event with multiple locations and need a calendar invite to be sent to each person that registered based on the location they choose. :grimacing: