Zapier trigger for updated record or all records

[Christopher_Bis]

Love the Zapier integration, but without the ability to trigger on update/change/edit of a field, it’s pretty hard to keep other databases synced with Airtable - not sure if this my mistake or not.

Additionally, I can’t move my system across to Airtable without the above feature or the option to run a Zapier zap on all database entires in a view/base. For example, if I want to email all my contacts, I can’t do that via Mail-Chimp etc, because the triggers only fire on creation of a record not on update/change/manual selection.

Can you advise any workaround because this is one of only two barriers to me moving a client to your platform.

[Julian_Kirkness]

Hi Roman

This sounds like a very clever solution!

However, I feel that having to rely on code somewhat defeats the object of a No Code platform like Airtable (at least for most of us).

I think you could achieve something pretty similar by using:

1. A Schedule based Zap which can run hourly and then search for records meeting certain criteria and take action or,

2. Use the Search feature in Integromat (which can run very minute) to do the same.

I’ll add my usual proviso that Airtable and Integromat need to improve the design experience of Integromat ‘Scenarios’. Once created though there is more power here than using Zapier.

[William_Nutt]

This thread has been somewhat dormant, and I’m wondering if anyone has any updates on the request. This is my foremost feature request to be sure! It’ll transform my workflow.

[openside]

I’d be willing to build a custom zapier (and/or integromat, workato, etc) connector that could do this. If your interested in sponsoring such a project please get in touch (dan@openside.com). We are experienced integration developers that build custom integrations for companies on these platforms. Plus I am using and loving airtable more and more so would love to get more involved with the product.

[openside]

So I got curious and based on others approaches was able to pretty easily implement this in zapier. I’ll do a full blog post later explaining what I did, but basically set up a checkbox field that I labeled ‘Ready for Update’. I think one of the concerns with update triggers is when to perform them, what if you updated one cell, then in the process of updating the next cell and your process triggers due to the first update. By having a field that you have to check to notify its ready for updating, you avoid that issue.

Then, as Roman suggested, create a view that is filtered to only show rows who have this ‘Ready for Update’ checked.

Then, in zapier, you can perform a lookup for everytime a row is added to this view. That will trigger your workflow.

Then at the end of the workflow, I go back and use the ID i got in the first step, and update that row to uncheck the ‘Ready for Update’. Now if you update it again and check that box, it will re-trigger the workflow again in zapier.

Pretty slick! Full write up to come.

[openside]

Well, shoot. Maybe I spoke too soon. Looks like Zapier doesn’t re-trigger the second time you check the box to re-add it to the view. This is due to it already having a cache of the id saved to avoid duplicated triggers.

So, maybe it will require a custom zapier connector. I’d still be up for doing that if any takers on sponsoring it.

[Tuur]

openside:

Looks like Zapier doesn’t re-trigger the second time you check the box to re-add it to the view. This is due to it already having a cache of the id saved to avoid duplicated triggers.

Yup. If only they would simply allow a setting to disable that feature…

[Jon_Thomas1]

Any updates on this? I too see this as an essential feature and finding the lack of triggering on update or equivalent functionality severely limiting. It is especially frustrating when trying to set up new Airtable integrations and testing the functionality, as any record that is used as a trigger then becomes useless for future tests.

[Dilraj_Somel]

Instead of Zapier taking action on a new Airtable row… can I do that directly through the airtable API?

[W_Vann_Hall]

You still have the issue of knowing when there is a new record.

[Dilraj_Somel]

Yes, that is correct. :frowning:

If anyone here has used Zapier, I could use your help integrating Zapier [Webhook] and Airtable