If this then that like rules in a base

[Mathias_Elmose]

I would like to request the ability to create if this then that like rules in a base. I like formulas but they can be hard to work with if your not a formula person and I would like to be able to change the state of one field based on the change of another.

So I would like to change a records fields based on other fields in the same record, but also be able to change a record in a table based on the change of different record(s) in another table.

Examples:

1. When a task changes to “Need Reviews” THEN change the collaborator field to “John”
2. When a new record is added to the view “For evaluation” THEN remove the linked record “Implementation” AND add the linked record “For Evaluation”.
3. When a record is marked with “problematic” THEN notify Hannah
4. When a deadline is within 7 days AND the record hasn’t been updated for that last 7 days THEN change the field “Needs your attention” to checked AND notify me.
5. When the field A, B, and C is empty THEN change the status to “Incomplete”

This would make sense for Airtable with their “build your own application” approach and mean that you could build great workflows.

[Cameron_Deleone]

Hi Mathias,

Thanks for your note! This is something that we do have plans to support and are actively discussing internally. If you’re open to it, I’d love find some time to learn more about your use case here, as part of the research process for this feature.

In the mean time, you can achieve most of what you describe using Zapier/triggering on unique views for each ‘update action’ (though at the moment, a Zap can trigger only once per record per view).

Cameron

[Mathias_Elmose]

Hi Cameron

That’s so great to hear! I would be happy to talk to you about the use case :v:

[Jacob_Turley]

I’d also be willing to talk about our use case! This would be HUGE. I’m currently looking into Airtable and the lack of automation when it comes to things like Mathias is talking about is a bit of a let down for me :frowning: . I like the vision and overall the app is great, but every business needs automation to make their processes more efficient!

[Martin_Kopischk]

In case you need some more scenarios to study, I’d also be quite willing to share: we are a film school and use Airtable for our internal project documentation. There is a lot of per record (= one record, one project, with dependent data in extra tables) status changes going on which should by rights trigger adjustments in related data or action steps, but currently don’t without manual intervention. The kind of business logic automation (hooks) this is hinting at would be a leap forward for us, and I’d be happy to share how and why.

And yes, we could achieve a lot of that with an automation service (we use Integromat), if only Airtable provided webhooks for record creation, modification and deletion.

[Cameron_Deleone]

Thanks for the enthusiasm, all. I’ll be reaching out next week to set some time up!

Cameron

[Chrysanthe_Tan]

I wonder if my request is similar (or if there already exists a solution):

Can we use IF THEN rules to basically automate the population of records across tables in a base? (other than when it’s an explicitly linked record)?

I’m trying to build out a base to contain all my sharable music/writing content. I currently have one table for the Content Title (i.e. “Come Together”), then a separate table for Platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Spotify, etc), and a third junction table to join Content + Platform together for the purpose of listing specific links. Everything is linked together. Meaning, on the Content table, there’s a column for linked record to corresponding platforms.

I wish this could all happen cohesively in one table, but I can’t figure that out. So the next best thing would be a junction table (I think).

So my third, junction table has Linked record columns for both Content and Platform, and the main field is a formula for Content + Platform. Thus, each record in that first column of the junction table follows the format of “Come Together - Facebook” etc. And then I can add a column for specific link to that piece of content on that specific platform.

The problem is that I have to manually link the records in the Content and Platform columns when on the junction table. Would there be a way to just have those automatically populated as soon as I fill them in on either the Content or Platform tables?

Anyway, the original reason I got into this whole mess is just because I wanted to have a multiple select column that listed various platforms, but then when I separated it out into views, I couldn’t see the platforms separately. I just wanted to see all my Facebook content together, then all my YouTube, etc, even if much of the content titles were duplicated, rather than all the different specific combinations of platforms thereof.

Thanks for any help! I’m really not great at this yet, so if I made a glaring oversight, let me know!

[Applied_Solar_E]

Any updates here?
I moved to airbase from another platform, I just build a base for our company but I just noticed I have to rely on moving projects and assignments along manually?
This was a HUGE advantage from the other platform.
Have you guys at least figured a way around in the meantime?

Please help
Jimmy!

[Neuma_Llusia]

Hi there,
are there any updates on this? Zapier is fine but it’d be great if we can apply rules without the need of it.
Thanks!

[Yenni_Desroches]

Definitely need this feature! It’s completely hamstringing our ability to use this platform for event attendance tracking as we’ve got 3 tables that need to talk to each other, ex. Volunteer table w/ names, Events table w/ attendance field and host field, and Attendance table w/ check boxes for if someone’s a host, if they attended/said no/no showed. Right now I can have the event table have a name as the host, but that can’t check boxes off on the attendance sheet and only can link to the volunteers sheet.

Right now we’re just using the events=>volunteers path for host, but I’d rather have it connect all three tables, and be able to just have the person checked off on the attendance table and it show up on the event table and the volunteers table.

[Russell_Bishop1]

This was recently implemented in Asana as “Rules” - with ‘Triggers’ and ‘Actions’ - and it makes the product that much more powerful.

Their first implementation is simple but very empowering. Would love a similar execution in Airtable.