Join a live training! Introducing Airtable Automations

Overview

Automations allow you to configure custom trigger-action workflows directly within your Airtable base. This will allow you and your team to save time by automating repetitive tasks, increasing communication efficiency, and reducing the overall margin of error.

Automations are scoped to individual bases and can be found next to the Share button in a base on desktop/browser versions of Airtable. Automations on our iOS and Android apps are unavailable at this time.

Automations can only be created/edited by individuals with Owner or Creator permissions. Collaborators with Editor level permissions and below will be able to view but not edit Automations.

An automation consists of a trigger followed by one or more actions. 

A trigger is a specified event that initiates the automation. Available triggers include:

• When a record enters a view (Note: records that leave and re-enter a view will trigger again)
• When a record is created
• When a record is updated
• When a record matches a condition

An action is a step that performs a task such as sending an email. When the trigger fires and the subsequent actions are complete, the automation is said to be executed. 

There are many actions currently available:

• Send an email
• Create record
• Update record
• Send a Slack message
• Send a Microsoft Teams message
• Run a script (*Unavailable to customers on Pro-trial or Creator plans)
• G Suite actions (Send email from Gmail account, Create new row in Google Sheet, Create a response to a Google Form, and Create a Google Calendar event)
• Create issue in Jira Cloud
  
• Create post action for Facebook Pages
• Create Twitter tweet 

Tips to ensure proper setup

💡 It's important to know whether or not your base has any field or table editing permissions set up at the "Creators and up" level. You can think of Automations as having "Editor" level permissions. Therefore, if any fields or tables are restricted by higher permission levels, then your automations will not be able to effectively create, update, or read information from those records.

💡 Before creating an automation, creating a view solely for that automation or set of automations is suggested. Take advantage of the power of filters here.

💡 Consider when you want the record trigger and subsequent action to occur. Is it when a record is created, a status is changed or when all fields in a record have been populated and the record is considered 'complete'? Some ideas include:

• A status field changed to 'Ready to send email' or other appropriate phrase for the particular action.
• A 'Created On' field using the created time field type. Set the view filter to only include records before today. This will create a delay on when records are sent.
• Use a form. By only using a form to create new records, all fields are added simultaneously upon submission. Ideal for automations that trigger when a record is created.
• For a simple way to mark a record as complete, add a checkbox field.

💡 Make sure the first record in the view has a value in all the fields needed in your automation. During creation, you will be prompted to test your automation with a real record. At the moment, usable fields are derived from the test result of the trigger. If a test field is blank, it will not be shown in the setup.

💡 Consider locking the view and adding a note that editing the view filters could cause unintended automations to run.

💡 When troubleshooting your setup, if you see a ”Received invalid inputs” error, try re-testing the trigger to get an updated snapshot. 

• When you change your base, we don’t update the test record that’s being “saved” in the trigger, so testing later actions is using a “stale” record that doesn’t reflect your changes.

💡 Be aware of circular automations. This can occur when an automation re-triggers itself.

• Example: a trigger for 'When a record enters a view' followed by an action to 'Create record' in the same view. This trigger/action pair creates an infinite loop of automations.

💡 Having a grasp of record_ids within Airtable can be very useful for Automations. 

Current limits

If you’d like, you can add up to 25 automations to a base. Additionally, you can create up to 25 actions in one automation. Where applicable, an action can use outputs from previous actions in the same automation.

Run limits

Our system counts an automation “run” each time a trigger is invoked. This means that both failed and successful automation attempts will count against a workspace’s monthly run allowance. 

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