Twilio SMS Survey

[Evan_Thompson1]

I’ve created a simple 3 question SMS flow in Twilio and by using Zapier I am easily seeing new records and their SMS responses in Airtable.

How do I get all 3 responses added to the same record?

I did my best to search for this and came up short, I apologize if this has already been answered. Thank you!

[TheTimeSavingCo · Accepted solution]

Hey Evan, it sounds like each SMS response is triggering the Zap to make a new record in Airtable, would that be correct?

If so, may I know whether there’s a unique identifier that would group these 3 SMS responses together? Perhaps the respondee’s phone number?

If there is, we could create a new table called Compiled Responses and create a link field to your original table. We then update your Zap to also update the link field with the unique identifier (e.g. the phone number).

That way, the three records for each SMS response will be linked together, and we can create lookup fields in the Compiled Responses table to view the responses as one record

[Evan_Thompson1]

Correct, each SMS responses is triggering the Zap. The unique identifier I’m using is the phone number, also correct.

I’ve got it working! Thank you so much.

Now I’m wondering if it is possible for each of those responses to have their own column?

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Hi Evan, apologies I think we may be having a misunderstanding.

I’ve put something together for you here.

This should be what you’re looking for, yes?

[Evan_Thompson1]

Yes! This is exactly it. What I have currently, is all responses ending up in one column, separated by columns and it’s not what I want at all.

How do I achieve what you have shown?

Thanks again!

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Hi Evan, to view the setup, you can duplicate the base by clicking the title of the base at the top of the screen, then the three horizontal dots on the right, and then the “Duplicate Base” button.

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We need to create a new table called Compiled Responses and create a link field to your original table where Zapier creates records. We then update your Zap to also update the link field with the unique identifier (the phone number).

With this, the three records for each SMS response will be linked together, and we can create lookup fields in the Compiled Responses table to view the responses as one record

[Evan_Thompson1]

I apologize for the back and forth on this, I am fairly new to this level of automation.

I’m getting closer, but I’m messing up something in the Zap I think.

Please advise, and thank you so much for your time/help.

[TheTimeSavingCo]

No worries man. It looks like you’ve got everything set up properly based on my understanding of what we’re trying to do.

In the screenshot you’ve provided, all the records are linked to a single phone number. I was under the impression there would only be three records linked to each phone number, and each record would have one response field filled, is that not the case?

[Evan_Thompson1]

So my screenshot is a little confusing, all of those records are from a single SMS survey that I responded to. I don’t know why there are repeats being stored in airtable, that’s what’s pointing me to a zapier error in my setup.

You are correct in understanding each person will only receive this survey one time.

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Evan_Thompson1:

So my screenshot is a little confusing, all of those records are from a single SMS survey that I responded to. I don’t know why there are repeats being stored in airtable, that’s what’s pointing me to a zapier error in my setup.

Woah okay. So 12 records were created when we really only expect 3 records to be created. Could I get a screenshot of the Zap setup?