Is there a way to use Find Records in an Automation to pull data directly from linked record?

[Mike_Shaw1]

I'm trying to pull data directly from linked record in an Automation by using the Find Records action with a Condition to match the Record ID which i added to the main record via Lookup field. BUT when I try to reference the Rec ID field it says "no valid nested options"?? I am using the gear icon to match and find the record

Is there some way to lookup a linked record and pull data into Automation directly, ie without adding fields manually to the main record?

[kuovonne]

Do you always have exactly one linked record when you run the automation? You should be able to do a "Find Records" action to find the linked record and then access the data in that linked record from the results of the "Find Records" action.

If you are trying to do something different, can you share screen shots of your automation configuration and screen shots of the data you are trying to access?

[Mike_Shaw1]

In that field there is only one linked record. So other than pulling a lookup field into the main record can you tell me how I would access a linked record using the main record then get data from a field in the linked record to populate an Email such as an email address or other piece of data?

[JBJ]

@Mike_Shaw1

I got stuck on a similar problem and found both the explanation and solution to it. I'm late in the game, but this might help you out for future automations.

If you’re getting the tooltip ‘No valid nested option’ when trying to select a field as a condition in an automation, that's because the data type of the selected field and the data type of the populated value do not match.

To understand why this happens, it’s useful to know that Airtable processes linked records and lookups as arrays, even when the cell contains only 1 element (in that case, Airtable treats it as a 1-item array). This means you’re trying to have [string = array] as a condition, which Airtable considers as impossible.

The workaround to that is to create a formula field that references the linked record or lookup. This new field will display the original value, but will convert the array into a string. You can select this newly created field as a condition in your Find Records module.

Hope it helps.

JBJ
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