Emailing Runsheets

[Heather_Cameron]

I work as a booking agent and I want to use airtable to email my runsheets for each of my clients. Currently I’m pasting my data into google sheets, which then formats it into a runsheet and I save a PDF of this and email the PDF, but its quite time consuming

If I were to create a view for each client for their following weeks bookings, I’d like to have a way to email all records within that view to a select few email addresses automatically twice a week (or upon click of a button or something)

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

You’re in luck! New features added to Automations just recently, and announced today, make this possible and fairly simple:

Automate email digests with 3 new features :rocket: Announcements

[2b862daedc04fd36ef132dac5f543f6c4c717332] Hey community! Today we are officially launching several brand new automation features to help you build more robust workflows. Automation trigger: at a scheduled time Automation action: find records Rendering records as a list One of the best applications for these new features is making an email digest, where you can schedule a time to send a list of records that match the conditions you set. To see how all of these features come together to buil…

[Heather_Cameron]

Thanks Jeremy.This doesn’t quite suite what I need

I need my records to be formatted as a grid. So just like they would be if you selected multiple records and then right clicked and selected email records, however I don’t want airtable branding and I want the email to be automatic

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

Ah - does “Render Records As List” not put them into a grid format when you select multiple fields?

I’m searching for this “Render Records As List” option in Automations right now and not seeing it anyways. Not sure where one finds that action…

[Heather_Cameron]

My automatons view looks different to what they showed in the demonstration video. I don’t have the render records as list option. I also can’t see a way to put it into grid format

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

Ya, I had to refresh my Airtable app (or browser page) to get the option to show up, but it’s there now:

But I can confirm for you, after a quick test, that the list of records does not format as a grid with this option. Rather, it formats with field names as headings and values underneath them in a vertical layout:

I was able to avoid Airtable branding by using the “Gmail” automation action; but the formatting is a bit disappointing.

[Heather_Cameron]

Thats a shame. It seems like a simple task to email a grid from a view thats already configured but even with external apps it seems the only way its possible is with coding

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

I’d make a feature-request post here in the forums requesting that they add the ability to format the “List of records” in the email action as a grid, the same way they do with the “Send records as email” right-click option. I can’t imagine this being a difficult thing for them to implement.

[Bill_French]

Heather_Cameron:

pasting my data into google sheets, which then formats it into a runsheet and I save a PDF of this and email the PDF, but its quite time consuming

Yep - I have built at least 20 system that pretty much do this in a variety of spreadsheet formats.

The most important aspect of this process is Google Apps Script that uses the advanced sheets API to craft precise grid layouts and convert them to attachment PDFs in the email message.

Using script actions or script blocks I send a request to a custom web hook server that calls back into Airtable to retrieve the view. Then I update a sheet tab, apply formatting, color, etc and make it a PDF.

If pixel-precise formatting and branding matter, this is the best approach.