Using Airtable Interface Buttons to Trigger Automations: Pulling Metadata such as the user name

[ltorresrendo]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to create a button automation in the interface designer that will change the status of a customer from "Lead" to "Customer". 

I've set up the automation, created the button and added it to the interface. Manually the process would look like this: Everytime an employee successfully turns a lead into a paying customer, they log a record called "Outreach Log" in the Outreach Table. Employee information is linked to Outreach log since there could be multiple outreach attempts to one Lead. The employee information includes name, email, etc. etc.

Currently, our colleagues would have to manually add new records via interface forms: link to Lead ID, type of outreach, date of outreach, and outcome. I also have the "Log Submitted By" data field that pulls who submitted the form via their Airtable Login.

Now that I want to automate this process, everything works except the "Log Submitted By". Is there any way around this? It seems that I can't pull that data since this log is technically created by an Automation. 

Thanks so much.

[kuovonne]

Created an editable helper field such as a checkbox field. Create an additional helper field that shows who the checkbox field was last modified by. 

Change your interface button to an update record action to select the checkbox. 

Change your automation to trigger when the checkbox field is selected. You can get the user from the last modified by field for the checkbox. Optionally have the automation clear the checkbox field.