Airtable automation trigger: When a form is submitted

To start creating an automation, from the open base of your choice click on Automations in the upper left corner of your screen to open the automation configuration window. Click the + Create automation option to begin the setup process. If you would like, you can rename the automation right away to make it easier to understand what it does.

1. Next, you will need to click + Add trigger option.

2. Once clicked, the available triggers will be displayed for you to choose from. Choose the When a form is submitted option.

3. Under the “Table” section, select the table containing the view you want this automation to watch.

4. Under the “Form” section click Select a form.

5. From here, choose the standalone form or form view of your choice.

It’s important to test the trigger at this point so that you can utilize dynamic tokens in the automation action steps. This trigger allows you to pull in information from the record that triggered this automation such as record ID or created time (when the form was submitted). Those are just a few examples, but there is much more information that you can potentially use in later automation steps.

Check out our help center’s Automation actions section to learn more about each action Airtable offers.

Just as one example, a helpful action you can pair with this trigger is the update record action. You can then categorize records (by single select field for instance) that are created from a form. This is beneficial for situations when there may be a mix of records being created externally (via a form) and internally (by Airtable collaborators). We cover this use case example below.

Again, be sure to test all of the steps in the automation that you are building. Once every part of the automation has tested successfully, you’ll likely be ready to turn the automation on. Find the red colored “OFF” toggle and click it so the automation now appears as “ON” in green.

To set this up, add the “Update record” action. Select the same table that you used in the trigger step and populate the “Record ID” field with the Airtable record ID option like shown below.

Next, choose a field to categorize the record as being created from a form. In our case, the “Submission Type” field will be updated with the option “External (via form)”.

After selecting the field to update along with the value to update it, run a test to ensure the action is working correctly. Now, whenever a new form submission appears in the selected table, the automation will update the record with the values set in the action.

No, each trigger is scoped to use 1 table at a time.

No, forms created in the standalone form builder or the form view can be submitted regardless of whether or not there is an automation containing this trigger. Instead, this trigger allows users to automate custom workflows after forms are submitted. In other words, this trigger is additive, but not mandatory.

The “When a form is submitted” trigger allows both base form views and standalone interface forms to be selected.

When an automation isn't firing when a form is submitted, the wrong form is likely selected in the trigger step. As a first troubleshooting step, we recommend verifying that the correct form is chosen in the automation’s configuration and ensuring that users are filling out the corresponding form accordingly.

Yes you can by utilizing an “Actual run time” token in one of the action steps of the automation you are building. To learn more about the “Actual run time” token as outlined in step 2 of this section in the timestamping automations article