Airtable automation trigger: When record matches conditions

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 record matches conditions option.

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

4. Under the “Conditions” section click + Add condition.

5. From here, if you are unfamiliar with the process of creating conditional logic in Airtable, then consult this support article.

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 last modified time.

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

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.

Automations run on GMT since that is the default timezone that Airtable operates on behind the scenes. When setting up time-based conditions in Automations you may need to adjust times manually or create a formula to auto-adjust times so that the conditions evaluate according to your timezone.

Triggers do not work retroactively. Records that matched the conditions before the automation was configured and turned on will not cause the trigger to run. The record will need to “change states” for the trigger to recognize the conditions being matched.

As a workaround, you could clear out the data from multiple records (just one of the fields related to conditions you've set will need to be cleared) and then press CtrlZ (undo). This will cause the record to change states, thus triggering the automation to run. Using this workaround, it's important to think about how clearing data out might affect other automations or workflows. Be cautious when using this method.

Alternatively, if you find yourself needing to update existing data in your tables we recommend checking out the Batch update extension.

If the data in another table is referenced in an action step, then you might be able to reference that information via a token, dynamically using the + button.

However, data in other tables may need further connection via linked record, rollup, count, or lookup fields in order to be referenced in your automation. Think of it this way, if the table you are using in the trigger step isn’t connected via linked record relationships to the other table that you want to pull information from, then the automation has no awareness to be able to inherently make that connection. In these instances, you will want to go and work on the base design a bit more, return to the “Automations” tab, retest the trigger step, and then add in those linked record relationship’s information.