Sync'd table Inactivity

[CamFields]

Hey Everyone!

One of our tables has maxed out on automations, so we've been using synced tables in another base to outsource some work to; we are routing client emails from there and have recently started noticing that when a user has not opened up that synced base for awhile and kept it active things are happening with a multiple hour delay.

An old thread where another user had this issue had the following information from customer support:

When the base is inactive the base will not sync. The base will sync as soon as a user access the base. One workaround to keep the base active without a user active in the base is to create an automation set to trigger at a scheduled time (when users are not active on the base). The automation can perform a simple action like checking or unchecking a checkbox field on a record. Doing this should keep the base active, and thus syncing, without an active user. I’ve passed along the feedback to the team to have this information reflected on our support articles on Sync.

Im wondering if anyone has had luck with this solution, or has found another one which worked successfully for them? The thread is a few years old and responders seemed to have mixed success.

Thanks very much for your input!

[ScottWorld]

Great find on that old post, which @AlliAlosa and I worked on together! Yes, even though that post is 2 years old, that is still the standard workaround for this issue.

However, since you have maxed out on automations, you might want to outsource some of your automations (i.e. rebuild as many of your automations as you can) by using Make, which doesn't have any limitations on automations at all. Then, you may not have to depend on the syncing workarounds that you came up with.

[CamFields]

Thanks so much for the reply Scott, and sorry for the delayed thank you, i was out of the office!

We've implemented that, so glad to know we're doing everything we can. 

I think your right, likely time we extract more of our work to make/zapier, ill try that!

[ScottWorld]

You're welcome!

I would definitely recommend choosing Make over Zapier because it's much cheaper yet much more powerful. I give a brief comparison between the 2 services here: Make vs. Zapier

There is a small learning curve with Make, which is why I created this basic navigation video to help. I also provide the links to a few other Make training resources there as well. For example, to instantly trigger your Make scenarios from Airtable, check out this thread.

p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of your automations, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld