Reference multiple records in single email (via Zapier) - ideas needed!

[Caitlyn10]

Unsure of the best approach so I would love some suggestions on this;

Background & current process;
We book training sessions for clients. We currently create one Airtable record for each session to set different dates for them. Each session (record) immediately receives a confirmation email (triggered through Zapier) once we change the status to 'Confirmed'. Sessions are linked to a Company.

One issue with this is that clients often book multiple sessions at once, so upon confirming them in Airtable they will receive multiple confirmation emails that are almost identical (only the date/time changes). This spam-like approach isn't the customer experience we want to deliver.

Desired outcome;
For clients that book multiple sessions at once, I'd like to be able to send a single email that shows all the sessions as dot points so it's easy to understand and doesn't seem like spam.

I'm not sure of the best way to set this up with Airtable. We still want to keep the sessions as individual records as we have further automation (via Zapier) that sends a reminder email one week prior, and also one that generates an invoice per session.

How can I identify in Airtable how many, and which sessions should be noted in the confirmation email? Could I create a 'Booking Code' that is identical for each session, and tell Zapier that when that Booking Code has more than one record assigned to it, then send an email with each session noted as dot points? (Also unsure how to add as dot points in Zapier if the number of sessions is always changing). Can I group the records somehow (without creating a new table for linked records) so I can identify in Zapier that they should all be noted in the one email and not sent separately?

Any suggestions or ideas would be much appreciated!

[Megan_Bandy]

Hi Caitlyn,

Do they book multiple sessions at once or one after the other?

[ScottWorld]

Unfortunately, Zapier is one of the least capable tools for automating Airtable, and it cannot do what you want to do. Make is significantly cheaper than Zapier and it is infinitely more powerful than Zapier. I wrote an entire post on this topic here: https://air.tableforums.com/t/make-vs-zapier/737

With Make’s aggregator tools, you can simply search for a student’s upcoming sessions, and then aggregate the session details together as a table or a list, and then embed them in an email.

However, you don’t need to use external tools to do this at all. Airtable’s automations let you find records and then embed them as a grid or a list in an email.

[Caitlyn10]

A lot of the time they book multiple at once, so for example, they will book training sessions for the entire year (one a month). We book them all at the same time, but need to process as separate records.

Other times clients will just book a one-off session, sometimes two as they don't need such extensive training.

[Caitlyn10]

Hi @ScottWorld thanks for your message. Zapier works for us across many different platforms so we aren't looking to change that at this stage. It'd be amazing if this project could be done, but if not, it's not a deal breaker.

You mention that Airtable's automation would allow me to embed as a list in an email; are you able to elaborate on that or link an article?

[ScottWorld]

Yes, just perform a "Find Records" Action, and then in your "Send Email" action, you can insert a grid or a list from the "Find Records" Action.

[Caitlyn10]

Okay great, thank you. I've also read things about Airtable's 'Create Records (with line item support)'; would that not be suitable for this project either? Was just trying to get my head around that function.

[ScottWorld]

Sorry, I don’t use Zapier, so I couldn’t guide you there.