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How do I work with lists of records in automations?

  • February 19, 2021
  • 3 replies
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Ruchika_Abbi1
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I’m trying the following in my automation;

  1. Trigger is when record in Offer table changes status.
  2. First Action is Find Records from a Customer Table
  3. Second Action is to Create Records in Marketing Table for each of the customers from #2 above.

However, I don’t know how to do that. Is it possible to iterate a list in automations?

Regards,
Ruchika

Best answer by ScottWorld

In 2023, Airtable added the ability to iterate through a list of records that were found in an automation action.

However, this feature has several major limitations:
1. Airtable will only find up to a maximum of 1,000 records.
2. You can’t use conditional actions if you iterate through records.
3. You have very limited sorting options.

So for now, your best bet for handling all of this would be to use Make’s advanced automations for Airtable.

Make has no limitations, so you can combine unlimited conditionals and iterations in the same automation. And it even automatically iterates through found records for you, unless you want it to aggregate your records as a group. It also gives you advanced sorting options for your records. All of Make’s features go way beyond what Airtable’s automations can handle.

If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread. For example, here is how you would instantly trigger a Make automation from Airtable.

I also give live demonstrations of how to use Make in many of  my Airtable podcast appearances here.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

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3 replies

ScottWorld
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  • Brainy
  • 8792 replies
  • Answer
  • February 19, 2021

In 2023, Airtable added the ability to iterate through a list of records that were found in an automation action.

However, this feature has several major limitations:
1. Airtable will only find up to a maximum of 1,000 records.
2. You can’t use conditional actions if you iterate through records.
3. You have very limited sorting options.

So for now, your best bet for handling all of this would be to use Make’s advanced automations for Airtable.

Make has no limitations, so you can combine unlimited conditionals and iterations in the same automation. And it even automatically iterates through found records for you, unless you want it to aggregate your records as a group. It also gives you advanced sorting options for your records. All of Make’s features go way beyond what Airtable’s automations can handle.

If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread. For example, here is how you would instantly trigger a Make automation from Airtable.

I also give live demonstrations of how to use Make in many of  my Airtable podcast appearances here.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld


Ruchika_Abbi1
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  • Author
  • Inspiring
  • 40 replies
  • February 20, 2021

Thanks for the response! I’ll check Integromat.
Yes, definite oversight… Perform actions on list should be a feature.


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Just for anyone else looking, As of February '23 this does appear possible with repeating actions, at least it solved my similar issue, so recommend looking into it: https://support.airtable.com/docs/repeating-groups-of-automation-actions


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