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Multi-Select Matching

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NOEDO_Digital
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Hello,

I am building a service that lets users hire experts to answer industry-specific questions.

And this is how the workflow would look like:

I have two tables called User and Expert.

  1. User fills in an Airtable form that asks the following questions:

    • Name (Single Line Text)
    • Question (Long Text)
    • Industry/Topic (Multiple Select)
    • Location (Multiple Select)
  2. Airtable automation finds an expert meeting the criteria by matching the Industry/Topic column along with the Location column and sends them an email requesting them to answer the question.

Here is the problem I am facing,

How do I devise the automation in such a way that it matches the right expert with the user based on the Industry and Location?

Currently, the problem I am facing is that I am unable to match using multiple topics from a single multiple select field.

For example,

User question: How does Bitcoin work?
Industry: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency
Location: United States of America

Now, I want the automation to match it exactly to an expert in Bitcoin and Crypto in USA.

How would I do that?

Examples of how the tables are setup:

Clients Table:

Screenshot 2021-03-29 at 5.10.43 PM

Experts Table

Screenshot 2021-03-29 at 5.08.59 PM

1 Reply 1

You could probably use the “Find Records” automation action to search for what you need, but after that, you would need conditional logic to figure out what to do if your searches result in more than one matching result. For example, which expert would you email if there was more than one result?

Conditional logic is not currently possible with Airtable’s native automation support, and Airtable’s automations only supports emailing ALL of your found matches (not just ONE of your matches).

So, if Airtable’s automations aren’t robust enough to handle your needs, you would have to accomplish this in another way. You could:

  1. Write your own custom JavaScript scripts to do this for you.

or

  1. Use an external automation platform such as Integromat, which is a no-code/low-code platform that has conditional logic built into it. In Integromat, you use routers and filters to handle conditional logic.

(Note that I am a professional Airtable consultant and a Registered Integromat Partner, and the Integromat link contains my personal referral code.)