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Nov 14, 2021 12:04 PM
Is there a way to fetch just one record or take the first/last one from the returned list?
In table A I have a record with an email.
In table B, I also have records with their emails.
I need to update A record with B attributes but they come from different sources and are not associated - they just have the same emails.
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Nov 14, 2021 12:50 PM
Unfortunately, there is no native built-in way to do that with automations, so you would need to find a different way of doing it.
You could write a custom JavaScript, or you could use an automation tool like Integromat which lets you limit your searches to 1 found record, and also lets you filter your search results, sort your search results, aggregate your search results, iterate through your search results, and more.
There might even be a better way of structuring your entire base so that you don’t need to use automations to do it at all.
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Nov 15, 2021 01:28 AM
Uh… I have two data sources that put the data in different tables. The only way to associate them then is via email.
By a custom JS code you mean a scripting step?
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Nov 15, 2021 03:19 AM
Yes, a scripting step.
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Nov 15, 2021 07:29 AM
Are you doing this with linked records? Is there any chance of making the email field the primary field of Table B?
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Nov 15, 2021 08:57 AM
Are you doing this with linked records?
Unfortunately not, they come from different sources.
Is there any chance of making the email field the primary field of Table B?
Yes, I think so.
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Nov 15, 2021 09:09 AM
The origin of the records should not affect whether or not you can link them together.
If the primary field of Table B is the email then you can do one of two things:
- Convert Table A’s email field into a Link to Another Record field pointing to Table B.
- Keep Table A’s email field the same and add a new field for the Link to Another Record pointing to Table B.
Option 1 means you won’t need any automations at all, Option 2 means you could use a simple Update Record step in an automation to copy a Table A record’s {Email}
value into the {Link to Table B}
field (no script required).
Once you’ve done either 1 or 2, then add add Lookup fields to Table A to bring in Table B’s values.
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Nov 15, 2021 02:24 PM
Email in table A is actually already a lookup from another table.
In Option 2 the issue is that a record in table B appears later than the record in table A. It means I cannot automate the update of table A since there is no corresponding record in table B yet.
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Apr 07, 2023 06:08 AM
I managed to get the ONE record in automation by adding a repeating group. It will iterate over the results and perform some actions, but because I guarantee the found records list contains only one result (I searched by record ID), it will perform the action exclusively on said record.
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Mar 07, 2024 12:46 PM - edited Mar 07, 2024 12:47 PM
While Airtable Automation's Update Record action doesn't seem to mind if you put a list of length 1 in, for example a number field, instead of just the number, it is pretty easy to add a script step to just return a single value from the Find Records step. After you add a Script Step, add an input value that will be made available to the script:
Use whatever name you want and then select either the list of record ids or the list of specific field values. Then, in your script:
let scriptConfig = input.config(); // can only be called once
let firstRecord = scriptConfig.foundRecords.length > 0 ? scriptConfig.foundRecords[0] : null;
output.set('firstFoundRecord', firstRecord);
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