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Weird behavior from found record in updated automation.

Topic Labels: Automations Data Formulas
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kbtap
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Hi! I am working on building a database to build donor records from donation records, and I'm trying to build an automation that updates any donor's name and contact information to match their most recent donation.

The automation is triggered when the Last Donation Date field of a donor record is updated. Next, a find operation retrieves the donation record associated with that date and donor, but working with the donation record from that point consistently produces the following error messages:

  • "Fields" could not be converted to a string
  • Received invalid inputs

For example, I try to update the Name field (string) of the donor record with the Donor Name field (formula) of the donation record. I only want to do so if the Donor Name field is not empty. When I check for emptiness in the find operation, it is successful, but if I check for emptiness with a Conditional logic group, it triggers the "Received invalid inputs error."

Screen Shot 2024-01-11 at 10.00.45 AM.png

Screen Shot 2024-01-11 at 10.02.45 AM.png

If I continue with the update operation after a successful find operation (not using the Conditional logic group), then it produces a "'Fields' could not be converted to a string" when I try to pass the Donor Name value of the donation record into the Name field of the donor record.

Screen Shot 2024-01-11 at 10.05.55 AM.png

The Donor Name field is a formula that combines string values from lookup fields, so I thought it would be registered as a string. Could this error be caused by the "List of..." that Airtable automatically creates from find operations? What do you think?

Thank you for reading!

1 Reply 1
kbtap
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Silly that I am able to figure it out only after I post here. I found this Airtable community post that helped me understand those errors were produced by trying to treat a list as a single record.

To solve that, I created a repeating group that opens up the list, so I can update the found record.

Screen Shot 2024-01-11 at 10.51.43 AM.png