How to send a single completion email after a repeat group automation?

[v1_oh_n0]

Hello,

I have a schedule table with multiple records that are linked as work to be repeated. When a checkbox is set I want each of these records to be recreated using a repeat group automation. When the automation is complete I would like to send a single email with a summary of all the records created. 

Currently, it appears that Airtable severely lacks this as a native function to add further automation steps after a repeat group.

Thanks!

[TheTimeSavingCo]

You could try creating Count fields and a formula field to compare the expected count and the count of the newly created records, and have the automation trigger off of that?

I'm curious though, why not just send the email before the repeating group starts?  If there's a possibility the repeating group might fail I would understand the concern, but given that it just creates records it seems that it'd work all the time, and so having the email sent first isn't an issue?

[ScottWorld]

@v1_oh_n0 

Unfortunately, that isn’t possible in Airtable.

You could use the suggestions outlined above to stick with Airtable’s automations, or you could turn to Make’s advanced automations for Airtable, which lets you perform whatever actions you want after a repeating group.

If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread: https://air.tableforums.com/t/make-com-basic-navigation-tips/277

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld 

[v1_oh_n0]

The reason for this is to send unique form links for each of the created records that allows an external user to manage the record. If it sends before the records are created then there is no way to send the links. 

[ScottWorld]

In that case, you should send the email within the repeating group, not afterwards.

- ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant 

[v1_oh_n0]

Is it possible so that an email is not sent multiple times with the batch of records created?

[TheTimeSavingCo · Accepted solution]

Ahh, I see.  Hmm, then yeah I think I'd recommend that count field thing

You'd have:
1. Count field that outputs the linked work record number (e.g. 10)
2. Count field that outputs the number of records that have been created
3. Formula field that compares the two previous fields

And so when the second field also outputs 10, the formula would output "Done" or something and you'd trigger the automation off of that.  The automation would then find the ten newly created records and send them as a table or something with the links to the records

I realize that you're creating these work records multiple times, so getting the count field to match up is a problem though.  I'm assuming your work records each have a status to indicate whether or not they're done?  Assuming your workflow involves only creating new work records when the previous batch of work records is fully complete, you could make the second Count field conditional and only count the records that are not fully complete yet, does that make sense?

[v1_oh_n0]

Thank you I think that would work. I will give it a go!