That’s a limitation of Zapier. If records already exist, they just won’t trigger. It’s why I prefer using the API for most things like this, but that’s obviously not a viable solution for everyone. There are a couple of workarounds to overcome this limitation. First, you can copy and paste the records, then delete the old ones so everything looks new to Zapier. This is the fastest and simplest option if you’re just trying to accomplish this once. Everything should remain intact after pasting and if anything goes wrong you can hit undo. Alternatively, you can have Zapier look for new records in a specific view and filter it on a checkbox field you create for that view. Then you can check the box on an existing record and Zapier should see it as a new addition. Once Zapier sees it in that view, however, it’ll never process it again. It’s not a good workaround if you’ll need records to update.
If you need to change records and have them reprocessed, you can create a zap in Zapier that runs at a set interval. I can’t remember offhand what the trigger is called but it’s probably “timer” or something like that. It’s the Zapier equivalent of a cron job. Basically, you tell it how often to run and then set it up to search Airtable for records that match something specific. You can create a status field in Airtable (with a single select or even just a checkbox) and then have Zapier search for records in that table with a checkbox. If it finds one, have it run the lat/long API call and update the record. As part of the record update, make sure to have Zapier uncheck the box/update the status field so it doesn’t keep trying to re-process the same record over and over again. If you have a lot of records they’ll update at a fairly slow pace, but this will work well for when you have occasional updates.
You can also do both of these things with date and time information (see here).
If you need to speed things along, you can also make a zap that triggers on a webhook. You can set it up so you pass the webhook URL that Zapier gives you the ID of the record you want to update. You basically just make a formula field in Airtable that creates a URL with that information and then you can just click that link in the record you want to update and Zapier will perform the operation instantly. This is kind of a long operation to explain, but I finished a guide on how to do this (for another purpose) a little while ago and I’d be happy to share the link once it’s published if you’re interested.
None of these solutions are perfect and, hopefully, there will be a better way to handle existing records with Zapier in the future. It’s very easy to do with the API so it’s definitely possible to implement in Zapier (because it’s basically a GUI for APIs). When I can find the time, I’ve been working on a simplified way of making Airtable API calls. It works great if you can write basic PHP code but I’m hoping to make a GUI that can handle this kind of stuff. I don’t have the resources to support something like that, but if it’s good enough I’ll share it anyway and maybe the community will pitch in and help make it better.
But for now, hopefully one of these options will work for you!
