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.

[Julian_Kirkness]

What’s the latest on that?

[Tuur]

Going strong. A couple of companies are live now. I’ll get back to you!

[Malachy_Tarpey]

Is Slack still the only integration that has an instant trigger for trello?

I have a problem running a trigger in Trello to send new comments to Airtable. Because the zap doesn’t seem to trigger instantly it is only being triggered on the most recent comment and is skipping comments in between each time zapier runs.

[ROBERT_W_CLAYTO]

Any updates on this? This feature would really be a game-changer for boosting Airtable’s credentials as a powerful productivity tool

[ROBERT_W_CLAYTO]

Hopefully, Airtable won’t make us find workarounds when they could easily make our lives easier :thinking:

[Aaron_Wiener]

+1 please add webhooks or make zaps instant similar to how slack does it

[nnnnneil]

+1 for instant zaps, not workarounds!

[Julian_Kirkness]

I’ve been thinking about this some more in relation to Airtable’s paradigm of updating fields as you enter them (as opposed to other databases which normally submit entire new records or record updates at once).

The problem here is that you may not have all the data you need for the Zap entered when the Zap triggers and this can cause significant problems with your logic (and unexpected/incorrect behaviour). For instant Zaps, in particular, there would need to be some notion of your interaction with a record as a whole being complete (or have them triggered by specific field changes).

I think this is probably an issue with Zapier integration with Airtable as it is now - if your timing is unlucky. You could have a Zap run when you’ve just started entering a record - this would have incomplete data and may not do what you need it to do - and of course it won’t run again for that record.

You can get around this if you use Integromat instead of Zapier in that you can set up Scenarios which find records based on search criteria and perform actions on them. You aren’t then limited to running the process only once per record.

[Tuur]

Yeah, the problem is more or less the same with every solution since Airtable does not support real transactions (or post-leave / post-edit triggers). Without a mechanism like that you can never be sure when a user is ready with updating a record.

I’ve been creating workarounds by reloading the record after e.g. 30 seconds to check if it has been changed again.

Is this possible with Integromat?

[Julian_Kirkness]

Hi

Effectively, yes - because you can search for records (or filter them inside Integromat). Integromat doesn’t have Instant triggers from Airtable either though - but depending on your account you can run them up to once a minute.

Post leave triggers would be a good idea though - maybe triggered only if the record is ‘dirty’ (i.e. has been changed). Implementing these as instant / web hook based triggers would be ideal.