Last modified time [SOLVED]

[Katherine_Duh]

UPDATE 2: last modified time is now available to everyone! You can learn more about it here.

UPDATE: The last modified time beta is now closed as we get ready for a general release. Thanks to all of the testers who made this beta a success.

ORIGINAL POST:

Hi folks! We’re very excited to announce that we’re beta testing a last modified time field type, as well as a LAST_MODIFIED_TIME formula function. Many thanks to the users who’ve posted specific, detailed feedback about their needs and use cases with regard to this feature, like @Arlo_Haskell, @Deborah_Buck, and @Jordan_Friedman. We read everything that is posted here in the forums and your feedback is incredibly valuable for us when we’re planning the product roadmap and developing new features!

If you’re a Pro plan user and you’re interested in testing out the last modified time field type and/or the LAST_MODIFIED_TIME formula function—and giving us your feedback—please sign up using this form. (Note: this is a different form from our standard beta signup form, and it requires you to fill out a couple of additional questions.)

As you are all aware, this is a highly anticipated feature, and there are many users who would like to get beta access. However, for technical reasons and to ensure an optimal user experience, rollout for this beta will be conducted in small, limited batches. (In practical terms, that means that it might take a while for you to get access.)

[darren_mark]

I am trying to convince my company to invest in shifting over to airtable.

We absolutely need the “last modified” function.

what’s the latest on adding this?

[Kumar_Indresh]

waiting for this to roll out - will make it easy for me to do so many things

[Deep_Vyas]

Are you aware of zapier’s trigger app and action app ?

[Tiffany_Hamilto]

Hi Matt,

Happy New Year! Any updates on the release timing of the last modified date field feature? My team is holding back rolling out our database throughout our company because of the lack of this one feature.

Thanks for any updates!

Kind regards, Tiffany

[Jordan_Friedman]

i cant seem to make it work with Wunderlist. any ideas on how to connect Airtable to Wunderlist via zapier for updated records in airtable?

for instance, we have a column for proeprty status. i want something to happen when we change a property status to “tenanted” and for zapier to send that to someones wunderlist

[John_Beaudoin]

@Jordan_Friedman I’m not sure of your objective(s). Is it “to see the last time they updated their tables,” or is it to add a task to Wunderlist when a property status changes to tenanted? Or is it both?

I use Airtable with Zapier, but I’m not a guru. Here’s a response, based on my personal experiences.

Zapier is limited when it comes to Airtable triggers: a Zap can only be triggered by (1) a New Record or (2) a New Record in View. What this means is that a Zap is NOT triggered on an updated record.

However, you can mimic an “updated record” action by creating a view in Airtable that filters on a field value. In the example you provided, assuming you have a table in which each record is a property, you would create a view called “Tenanted,” which filters on the property status field. When a property status changes to Tenated, you will have a new record in the “Tenanted” view. That will trigger the Zap, and you can create a Wunderlist task from it. Time-stamping the change would require a multi-step Zap, but it is certainly do-able with a paid plan.

Unfortunately, I think that this approach only works once per record because Zapier is watching record IDs. If a particular property goes from Tenanted to Vacant and back to Tenanted, I don’t know if the Zap would recognize the second instance as a “New Record” in View because the Airtable Record ID doesn’t change. You’d have to check with Zapier support, or set up a test case, where you do exactly that – change the status from Vacant to Tenanted to Vacant and then back to Tenanted and see if the second change to Tenanted triggers the Zap.

The other approach is to tweak your base structure and your workflow. In your base, you could conceivably create a “Status” table alongside your property table. In the Status table, each record would represent a change in Status for a given property. For each record, you might have fields for Prior Status, New Status, TimeStamp and a linked field to properties. Make the TimeStamp field a date field and click the box that says “include a time field.” Whenever you add a record, click “Today” (at the bottom of the calendar input) in the TimeStamp field and it will give you a date and time. Voila, you have a timestamp. In the Status table, you would create a view called “Tenanted” which would filter on the “New Status” field for the value “Tenanted.” In that case, each status change is a new record, and would thus trigger the Zap to record a task in Wunderlist.

Rereading this, I can see that it’s a bit abstract, but I hope it helps. Maybe someone with more experience like @W_Vann_Hall has a better idea…

[W_Vann_Hall]

If you’re essentially giving each manager a spreadsheet and having them overwrite cells with new values, then, yeah, you’re going to have problems tracking changes in Airtable as currently implemented.

I’m a big fan of audit trails, though — so I would have built the system with each [Property] record containing a one-to-many linked-record field pointing to a [Statuses] table. Each [Statuses] record would contain such fields as {Date}, {Status}, {Notes} — whatever you need to track. Now, when a manager changes a property’s status, instead of modifying a cell value, he or she would click on the {Status} field to drill through to the [Statuses] table, create a new record, and update its values.

Here’s where it gets a little baroque…

In the [Property] record, create a field called {Current}, configured as a roll-up of {Statuses::Date} (that is, the {Date} field in the [Statuses] table), with an aggregation function of MAX(values). Complementarily, in the [Statuses] table define a {Current} lookup field retrieving the value of {Property::Current}.

Now, for any [Statuses] value you wish to display in a [Property] record, within the [Statuses] table define a {Current [whatever]} formula field using this formula:

'IF({Date}={Current},{[whatever]},BLANK())`

For instance, the formula for {Current Status} would be

IF({Date}={Current},{Status},BLANK()}

Finally (honest!), back in [Property] define a field to display the current value, as either a lookup or a rollup of {Statuses::Current [whatever]}. For instance, {Property::Status} might be a lookup of {Statuses::Current Status} or a rollup of {Statuses::Current Status} using a CONCATENATE(), ARRAYCOMPACT(), or ARRAYJOIN() aggregation function. (There are subtle differences in how each of these options returns the result. You may wish to experiment to find which best supports your application.)

With such an implementation, the ‘date last updated’ is baked in. What’s more, you now have [something of]* a record of who changed what when.

I know my description makes this seem a real dog’s breakfast, but it is much easier to implement than describe. Take a look at this post and the demonstration table linked in the fourth reply.

Again, not a solution, if you’re simply having managers overwrite a field’s value, and certainly not a replacement for the much-needed ‘last updated date’ Airtable field; instead, it’s an example of how one can achieve better-than-equivalent functionality with a little restruturing of the base.

[yood]

+1 I would also like this for my API integration

[Hann_Yew]

+1 for “last modified” as well! we were surprised to find that this doesn’t exist, and it’s hugely inconvenient for project management, filtering

[Jordan_Friedman]

I use Airtable for my property managers to update all of their respective property statuses. i would like an easy way to see when the last time they have updated their tables (should be every day).

what’s the best way to accomplish this?