I plan to use Airtable to record order information from my website. These records will be used to build the product that the customer ordered. These products are custom.
I would like to be able to have the page designer automatically to output a PDF to the attachment field. I would also email this PDF as part of the customer order process workflow for our company.
You’re confused. Airtable would NOT need to build in SMTP features (unless they actually wanted to). The SMTP option in FileMaker is a completely separate option, having absolutely nothing to do with the Email Client option.
Airtable cannot inject anything into your email app without (a) authority, and (b) a scripting linkage of some sort.
Authority, no. I already mentioned this above.
A button of some sort, yes. That’s where the new button field will hopefully come in.
I would like this feature too. One of reasons I was drawn to Airtable was the automatic invoicing, but if the invoice isn’t sent to the customer automatically then it doesn’t feel that automatic to me. Please add this feature ASAP!
The Page Designer app still can’t be fully automated (which is a major bummer!), but in the meantime, you can pay extra $$$ to automate PDF document creation & emailing the PDF document via a tool like Formstack Documents.
You can manually trigger Airtable’s Formstack Documents app by clicking on a button in a button field. That will generate the PDF and place it into your attachment field for you. Then, you can create an Airtable automation to automatically send an email with that attachment whenever the attachment field is no longer empty.
Note that Formstack Documents is extremely pricey. Alternatively, you can use an external automation tool such as Integromat or Zapier to:
(1) Fully automate the entire process (i.e. you don’t even need a button click),
or
(2) Use cheaper PDF creation tools such as DocuPilot.
Also, MiniExtensions, for an additional $40 per month, also supports DocuPilot with this tool.
(Note that the Integromat link contains my personal referral code, so I would make a referral fee if you start paying for Integromat.)
p.s. If you have a budget for this project and you need to hire an expert Airtable developer & Integromat Partner to help you integrate anything that I outlined above, please feel free to send me a private message or contact me through my website at ScottWorld.com.
You’re welcome! Glad I could help! :slightly_smiling_face:
If you don’t have the time to figure it out, and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable developer to setup your Zapier automation for you, feel free to send me a private message or contact me through my website at ScottWorld.com.
(Although note that I rarely recommend Zapier these days, which is why I became a Registered Integromat Partner. Zapier has several major limitations with the platform as a whole (e.g. limited number of conditional paths, limited scheduling capability, no ability to duplicate steps, etc.), but Zapier also has major limitations when it comes to Airtable (for example, only being able to trigger once on a record forever with the “New Record in View” trigger). So unless there’s a very specific reason to stick with Zapier, I would highly recommend using Integromat as your automation platform of choice. It’s cheaper, more flexible, more customizable, more advanced, and more powerful than Zapier.)
Alternatively, You can use typeflow.us for generating pdf based on Airtable data. We use Google Docs as template. We offer a lifetime plan currently at 150$. This plan lets you generate as many pdf as needed.
