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Re: When Record Updated Automation Capturing Specific Changes Made

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Daniel_Chamberl
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Hello! With an automation, we’d like to effectively display a changelog in slack for when specific, high-value fields are changed.
I have an automation using the “When a record is updated” trigger that monitors those fields working great, but what we’d like is to know specifically what field(s) were updated and what the changes were (what the field’s value was previously and what it is now).

Is there anyway to retrieve that information in the automation or a script?

2 Replies 2
Pat_Martinson
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Seems like there wasn’t a ton of interest at the time, but I am exploring almost the same thing!

I’d like to use a single automation with the “When a record is updated” trigger which is active for all fields, but I’d like to know which field(s) were updated, and perform different actions depending on the field (ideally triggering one of several webhooks in Integromat). My main reasons for taking this approach are:

  1. reduce the number of “Watch Records” modules we currently use in Integromat (which poll airtable views for new records, on a 15 minute to 1 hour basis)
  2. Avoid the situation where every single field we care about has its own dedicated AT automation; given the lack of organization of AT automations and the # of fields we want to watch, this seems like it will become an unwieldy mess very quickly

I can’t seem to find a way to look up the recent fields using a script, so my next approach is to have a longtext field that essentially logs the values of the fields I care about, and when the automation fires, I compare the logged values of ‘FieldsToWatch’ to their current values (pulled directly from the record) to determine which field(s) within ‘FieldsToWatch’ were updated.

Both the logging and the diff process seem like they could be really inefficient if written by a beginner or novice programmer (like myself), so I’m worried that this could bog things down quite badly, but I’m still hoping to try it. Open to any and all suggestions on this from the community!

Allison_Durinke
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

I have a similar issue I know there is a modified by field and a modified time field, but I would like to send a slack notification with what was updated. Have either of you found a solution yet?