Zapier integration - make triggers Instant

[Julian_Kirkness]

Hi

I am finding I am using Zapier to automate stuff in a client project and it would be much more useful if the integration were of the Instant type (as some other database products have with Zapier).

Example use cases

1. I have an app where a user can add an article to a table and the app needs to then work out which clients are due to receive that article based upon some logic (Javascript largely) in a Zap.
2. I specialise in HR software generally - in a leave app you need to be able to create records for each day of a leave (so that you can properly analyse it). This involves comparing the date for each day with the employee’s working pattern and also a list of public holidays to determine which ones are actually leave days. This should happen immediately when the ‘parent’ record is created.

I believe that this would greatly increase the flexibility of the product.

[Jake_Spirek1]

Yes this is a dealbreaker for me. I need it to be instant. Guess I’ll have to use Typeform or look into the Slack workaround. Hopefully Airtable makes some progress.

[Dylan_Sather1]

Hi y’all,

I’ve setup webhooks for new records and record updates using a combination of Airtable’s Slack notifications and Pipedream (think Zapier, but optimized for webhooks). This utilizes the Slack solution some of y’all described, and gives you a developer-friendly way to send custom HTTP POST requests out to some endpoint. You can write custom JavaScript to modify any of the events from Airtable / Slack, and it’s all free!

For example, if you add a new record to a base, you’ll get a webhook out with a JSON payload sent to a custom HTTP endpoint for that update:

[
  {
    "tableId": "tbl98fitgvmmAR8aX",
    "recordId": "recltHKU7vKAv7bhW",
    "updates": [
      {
        "field": "Name",
        "newValue": "NEW RECORD"
      },
      {
        "field": "Status",
        "newValue": "CLOSED"
      }
    ]
  }
]

I documented the setup in a Medium post:

https://medium.com/@dylan.sather/airtable-webhooks-with-slack-pipedream-8a394a763fa9

and this Pipedream pipeline:

https://pipedream.com/@dylburger/airtable-slack-messages-webhook-p_wOCgpB

(apologies for the formatting, the Community site wouldn’t let me include any direct links in this post)

I’d love feedback on whether this helps solve anyone’s issues getting webhook notifications for record creation / updates.

Feel free to personally reach out if you need help getting it working — more than happy to help.

Dylan