Integromat - tried it?

[Zac]

Hi,
Did anybody hear about this before / try it?

Integromat

Airtable Integrations

Integromat gives you the ability to integrate Airtable with many other services.

[HammerOz]

No but its on the list to try!

[Kim_Prisk]

Yes I have been testing by comparing with Zapier.

Firstly word of warning. The Integromat design console does not guide one step by step in the way that Zapier does when creating a new integration. In the later only one record can be updated during the test step. With Integromat one can (unintentionally) update all or many records if your configuration is not correct or completed. Therefore use a test Airtable database to experiment with.

My most common integration is from form-related data in Google Sheets to Airtable so this is where I am exploring initially. Zapier detects if there is either a new row or an updated GS row but Integromat only looks for new rows. Integromat does not work with Airtable views. Integromat says it can update Airtable records. Not tried yet but will as you can’t do this in Zapier as far as I know.

There are many more places in Integromat to set filters or conditions. The UI is very different from Zapier’s and I like the way that the data-flows resulting from a trigger are depicted graphically.

Integromat has a free limit of 1000 operations per month as opposed to Zapier’s 100. This is a major benefit for keeping our non-profit organisation’s database current.

That’s all for now folks.

[Vernon_Fowler]

Similarly, I tried Integromat a couple of times and couldn’t understand how to put an automation together. :grimacing: Not intuitive, and hard to figure out.

The graphical depiction is awesome (in theory at least).

The only point of difference with @Kim_Prisk post, Zapier can update records in Airtable, but it requires a multi-step Zap via a paid Zapier account. https://support.airtable.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007655568-Using-forms-to-edit-tables-with-Zapier

Unless you somehow know which RECORD_ID() to update.

[Arpit_Choudhury]

Hey guys,

I’m struggling with Integromat in updating a record. The search works fine but the update action always shows an error. Attached screenshot. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Julian_Kirkness]

Hi

I have tried Integromat and I think it’s very promising indeed.

For a project, I was looking to be able to move photos out of a database (not Airtable this time), resize them, store them in Google Drive and then add a link back to them in the database. I couldn’t get this to work with Zapier for several reasons so searched for an alternative. I was able to do this in a free Integromat account in about 5 minutes!

Other advantages over Zapier include the ability to have branching logic (equivalent to If… ElseIf… Else…) and to inherently handle multiple returned values and perform subsequent steps for all of them (which is only possible in Zapier using some code). A downside, though, is that it doesn’t have as many connections yet.

HOWEVER, for Airtable users there is a problem in that the interface is limited and buggy at the moment. I contacted them via their support site and received the following response from their CEO (no less):

Airtable has a private part of API which is (for example) used by Zapier. The thing is, that Airtable is not allowing us to access the private part of their API. So what we did is that we used some workarounds to be able to do at least some of the actions from their private API. Unfortunately, this workaround is very limited and that’s why you are seeing this errors.
We can’t do anything about that before they will provide us with the access to their full API. We are requesting regularly, but so far no luck :frowning:

I have no way of knowing if this is correct or not but I emailed Airtable to find out more and have yet to receive a response (but it’s only been a couple of days).

I came across these errors when I started to prepare a review of Integromat for my blog (http://software.kirknessassociates.com/blog.html), intending to go through some use cases with both Airtable and, potentially, another database, but these errors caused me to delay. I prefer to use Airtable as the main platform in this type of review because it’s so visual and also quick to configure. I may have to base my review on the other database and edit it later - if and when the problems are resolved.

[Arpit_Choudhury]

Hey Julian, thanks a lot for your response. Yes it does seem like Airtable
doesn’t want to support Integromat. Where I wrote to their support, they
simply said it’s beyond their scope of knowledge. Integromat is freaking
awesome but Zapier clearly has Aces up its sleeves.

[Julian_Kirkness]

I think you may be right - there seems to be a good relationship with Zapier (who are market leaders in this space) and I wouldn’t be that surprised to find there was some kind of agreement there - which would be quite sensible on Airtable’s part.

However, in a competitive market, newer entrants with great features tend to push market leaders to up their game - so maybe we’ll see some improvements to Zapier in due course.

I would like Integromat to work with Airtable properly though - there are things it does right now which can’t be done in a Zap.

[M_k]

Hi

I am having similar issues with Integromat. One suggestion (from Integromat support) was to upload data to datastore module and than proceed to setting up a module/scenario from there. Having said that, I seem to be getting errors, too. I would like to use Integromat and hopefully Airtable will cooperate with there API access with Integromat, otherwise it would be a shame to not have another option, which seems to be more of what I am looking for.

A bit of a heads up, an Airtable user set up a video using Airtable and Integromat:

Hope this helps.

MK

I hope I set this link up correctly.

[Gco]

I use Integromatic for connect Google Sheet to Airtable.
why Integromatic and not Zaper?