Re: Zapier Notifications When a Record Changes

Doug-CUSOM · ‎May 28, 2020

Hello everyone - Does anyone know how to send an email notification when an editable field within a record changes? I looked at Zapier and the only triggers are New Record or New Record In View. We have several scenarios where people want to be notified via email (not currently collaborators) when information changes.

Many thanks for your insights and advice.
Doug

andywingrave · ‎May 28, 2020

Hey! Yes. The best thing to do is as follows:

Create a Last updated field, let’s call it “Last updated”
- Choose the fields you want (and don’t want) to be considered as “updated” upon creation
Create a view in Airtable filtering off this field
Create a zap that triggers whenever a record comes into this view
The action that should happen after this trigger fires is “email” - And you can email whatever details you want about that record

See Solution in Thread

andywingrave · ‎May 28, 2020

Hey! Yes. The best thing to do is as follows:

Create a Last updated field, let’s call it “Last updated”
- Choose the fields you want (and don’t want) to be considered as “updated” upon creation
Create a view in Airtable filtering off this field
Create a zap that triggers whenever a record comes into this view
The action that should happen after this trigger fires is “email” - And you can email whatever details you want about that record

Doug-CUSOM · ‎May 28, 2020

@andywingrave You Totally ROCK! Thank you very much for the quick response - very much appreciated.

openside · ‎May 28, 2020

fyi - that approach will work the first time a record is modified, but only once. If you update the record again, it won’t trigger the zap.

Our solution fixes that: https://openside.com/product/on2air-actions

ScottWorld · ‎May 28, 2020

As @openside mentioned, the solution posted above only works ONCE per record, so it’s not a long-term solution for you.

Your best option is to use Make's Airtable integrations, which have none of the limitations that Zapier has.

Make is significantly cheaper than Zapier, yet it is infinitely more powerful and customizable than Zapier. I’ve written an entire post here about 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.

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 this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld

Justin_Barrett · ‎May 28, 2020

I think @openside’s tools are awesome and I love Dan like a brother. However, I do a ton of stuff with Airtable and Integromat, and I think Integromat’s Airtable-related features are fairly robust. It’s not as crippled as you’re making it sound.

ScottWorld · ‎May 28, 2020

Justin_Barrett:

I think @openside’s tools are awesome and I love Dan like a brother. However, I do a ton of stuff with Airtable and Integromat, and I think Integromat’s Airtable-related features are fairly robust. It’s not as crippled as you’re making it sound.

I totally agree with you! Sorry if I made Integromat (now known as Make) sound crippled at all!

When I work with my Airtable consulting clients, I do most of my advanced Airtable automations with Make! I absolutely love Make!

Not to mention that Integromat/Make is free for many people.

Justin_Barrett · ‎May 29, 2020

That’s one of the biggest reasons I use Integromat. I’ve got their Basic package, which is half the cost of Zapier’s lowest paid tier, but even when I had Integromat’s free account, I could still do more than if I were paying for Zapier.