Email reminder triggered prematurely

[KP217]

Hello. I am having some trouble with automations for email reminders.

I am using the formula below to create the condition that will be used in the automation. When entering the start date and time, I can’t seem to enter this information quickly enough without either a) the date appearing as a partial of the real date (eg “9/1” instead of “9/16”) and thus triggering an email immediately, or b) the auto-populated time for the date (the current time) appearing and thus triggering an email.

I can tell this is happening because the start time field appears in the email header as “9/1/2022” instead of “9/16/2022” for example.

Is there any way to get the system to give you a few seconds to enter things before jumping the gun?

Thanks!

IF({Start date}, VALUE(DATETIME_FORMAT(SET_TIMEZONE(NOW(), “America/New_York”), “YYMMDDHHmm”)) >= VALUE(DATETIME_FORMAT(SET_TIMEZONE(DATEADD({Start date}, -30, “minutes”), “America/New_York”), “YYMMDDHHmm”)))

[Mohamed_Swella1]

Hi @KP217 ,

Welcome to Airtable Community !

What I usually prefer to do for such cases is entering the data via a form so it comes to Airtable as a complete set of data. But Im guessing you are changing the data in the {Start date} field later after the record is already created?

In such case, a formula to compare the Last modified time for the {Start date} field and NOW() can be helpful to trigger the automation so you can put a delay of 2 mins or so.

[KP217]

Would you be able to get me started on that formula? The date/time functions are so cluttered it’s hard for me to visualize them. Thank you so much for your quick reply!

[Mohamed_Swella1 · Accepted solution]

Always my pleasure :slightly_smiling_face:

What I would do, add a new field called Trigger with this formula

IF(AND({Start date},DATETIME_DIFF(NOW(),CREATED_TIME(),"minutes")>2),"Trigger")

This will result in adding the word “Trigger” in this field 2 mins after the time the record is created. You can also substitute the Created_Time() part with LAST_MODIFIED_TIME({Start date})

Then in the automation add this condition :slightly_smiling_face:

[KP217]

Great, this was so helpful. Thank you!