Is it possible to automate an api call to update a base?

[Mark_Murfitt]

Hi,
New user to Airtable here, so any help would be appreciated…

What I’d like to do is every 12 hours have an external API call to update my base; is this possible using the ‘Automations’ feature of Airtable, or do I have to use something Zapier?

[Bill_French]

Hi @Mark_Murfitt, and welcome to the community.

Mark_Murfitt:

every 12 hours have an external API call to update my base

Sure. Is your external API able to make a webhook post that conveys the data? If so, you need only creat a Webhook Action that listens for your posts and parses the field values into their respective table fields.

[Mark_Murfitt]

Hey Bill,
Thanks for the reply.
I thought you might mention webhooks :slightly_smiling_face:

The app which I’m pulling data from is Adalo (not sure if you’re familiar with it or not…)

What I was hoping was that there’d be an automation app in Airtable which would run at a presecribed time (be it every 12 hours or otherwise) which would relinquish the requirement for a webhook as Adalo doesn’t have this functionality at present.

I guess if there isn’t an Airtable automation app, then it’ll have to be Zapier or the like…

[Bill_French]

Mark_Murfitt:

The app which I’m pulling data from is Adalo (not sure if you’re familiar with it or not…)

Very familiar, actually.

Mark_Murfitt:

which would relinquish the requirement for a webhook as Adalo doesn’t have this functionality at present.

Actually, it does. Custom Actions - this video shows how to fire off outbound webhook calls from Adalo into Zapier, but they could be fired to call into Airtable’s webhook actions as well.

[Mark_Murfitt]

Thanks @Bill.French, really appreciate your help.

I thought I’d watched every Adalo video known to man, but this one seems to have snuck past me :slightly_smiling_face: