Run automation only if cell is empty

[Pjero_Kusijanov]

Hi :slightly_smiling_face:

I have automation set to run when an record is updated. Thank I have “Find record” action to find records which should be updated. Last step is “Update record”, but I can not select record from “Find record” step. Anything I select it gives me error. :frowning:

Does any one know how to do this?
Thank you,
Pjero

[Databaser]

Hi @Pjero_Kusijanovic

Unfortunately, the “find” action was build only to use in email actions. It doesn’t work when it finds multiple record (ID’s).

Please send an email to support@airtable.com requesting this feature and let’s hope they wake up :slightly_smiling_face:

[Justin_Barrett]

Databaser:

Unfortunately, the “find” action was build only to use in email actions.

Not necessarily. The output can also be sent to a script action which can operate on the group of found records. That’s what I would recommend in this case.

After making the script action, add an input variable that contains the list of record IDs from the “Find” action:

Here’s a sample script to update the found records:

// Setup
const config = input.config();
const table = base.getTable("Sample");

// Build an update array
let updates = config.foundRecords.map(id => {
    return {
        id: id,
        fields: {
            // In this example, I'm updating a checkbox field
            // Change as needed based on the field(s) you wish to update,
            // and the appropriate date type for the field(s)
            "Output": true
        }
    }
});

// Update the records
while (updates.length > 0) {
    await table.updateRecordsAsync(updates.slice(0, 50));
    updates = updates.slice(50);
}

[Databaser]

Justin_Barrett:

Databaser:

Unfortunately, the “find” action was build only to use in email actions.

Not necessarily.

Well, this is what Airtable support said to me…

Thanks so much for your patience here, I’ve just heard back from the engineering team regarding your previous email and it looks like the way we’ve designed this feature to work is intended for email.

So it may be possible, but not the intention I get from this :man_shrugging:

[Pjero_Kusijanov]

Thank you both :slightly_smiling_face:

[Justin_Barrett]

Databaser:

So it may be possible, but not the intention I get from this :man_shrugging:

Interesting, because the documentation says the opposite:

Afterwards you can add another action to determine what step to take (as long as at least one record was found using find records ). One recommendation is to use the update record action in order to update one set of records using data from the records found using the “find records” action outlined in this article.

@Pjero_Kusijanovic : could you please share some screenshots showing what you tried? The documentation says that your process should work, but perhaps it wasn’t set up correctly.

[Pjero_Kusijanov]

Sure, here I will explain in more details.

So, the trigger is updated {Down %} field…

Next is the action find record, looking if the {Cancel %} field (the field that I want to update in next step) from the record in the previous step is empty.

This should update {Cancel %} with a value from {Down %} only if the {Cancel %} is empty.

Now, if the {Cancel %} is empty everything works fine and the field is updated, but if the field {Cancel %} is not empty I get “Failed to run” error. Not sure why the error appears when, there are 0 results in second field with {Cancel %} not being empty?

Hope this explains well.

[Justin_Barrett]

Pjero_Kusijanovic:

Now, if the {Cancel %} is empty everything works fine and the field is updated, but if the field {Cancel %} is not empty I get “Failed to run” error. Not sure why the error appears when, there are 0 results in second field with {Cancel %} not being empty?

That (that part that I highlighted in bold) is precisely why the error appears: the Find action isn’t returning any records, so the Update action has nothing to do. In essence, you’re trying to implement a conditional update, but automations are not yet designed for conditional behavior. They only work when every step is executed successfully. When one step fails, the whole thing fails. In this case, zero results in the Find step causes the Update step to fail because there’s nothing to update.

In the end, the problem isn’t with passing the results from the Find action to the Update action, because that works when a record is found. The real problem is with the overall design of the automation. A more appropriate design would process the conditional test before triggering the automation, so that the automation runs only when needed instead of running every time that {% Down} field is changed.

Before I recommend an alternative approach, I want to make sure that I understand your process clearly. As I’m reading it, you’re entering values manually into {% Down}. The first time that this happens, you want that number copied into the {Cancel %} field. If {% Down} is changed later, you want {Cancel %} to remain as it was. Is that correct?

Some other questions…

• Is a value ever manually entered into {Cancel %} before something is put into {% Down}?
• Is the value in {Cancel %} ever removed?

[Pjero_Kusijanov]

@Justin_Barrett, thank you for putting effort in solving my case.

You understood the process correctly.

To answer your questions;

• Is a value ever manually entered into {Cancel %} before something is put into {% Down} ?

• No, {% Down} is always entered first.

• Is the value in {Cancel %} ever removed?
  {Cancel %} is Percent field and it can be modified but there should always be a value, unless removed by mistake. Change in {Cancel %} field should not influence any other field.

[Databaser]

Justin_Barrett:

Databaser:

So it may be possible, but not the intention I get from this :man_shrugging:

Interesting, because the documentation says the opposite:

Afterwards you can add another action to determine what step to take (as long as at least one record was found using find records ). One recommendation is to use the update record action in order to update one set of records using data from the records found using the “find records” action outlined in this article.

And yet again, a message from Support:

Thank you for your feedback about using “Find Records”/“Update Records”. Unfortunately, if the Find Records step returns more than one record, the Update Records step will fail to run (due to the way it handles the inputs). I agree that having this functionality would be a game-changer for your workflow; my apologies that we’re not quite there yet. At the moment, there isn’t a solid timeline in place that I can pass along