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6/7/2022 – BuiltOnAir Live Podcast Full Show – S11-E06
Duration: 55 minutes
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FULL EPISODE VIDEO
Watch the full video of the show. See below for segment details.
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In This Episode
Welcome to the BuiltOnAir Podcast, the live show. The BuiltOnAir Podcast is a live weekly show highlighting everything happening in the Airtable world.
Check us out at BuiltOnAir.com. Join our community, join our Slack Channel, and meet your fellow Airtable fans.
Todays Hosts
Alli Alosa – Hi there! I’m Alli 🙂 I’m a fine artist turned “techie” with a passion for organization and automation. I’m also proud to be a Community Leader in the Airtable forum, and a co-host of the BuiltOnAir podcast. My favorite part about being an Airtable consultant and developer is that I get to talk with people from all sorts of industries, and each project is an opportunity to learn how a business works.
Kamille Parks – I am an Airtable Community Forums Leader and the developer behind the custom Airtable app “Scheduler”, one of the winning projects in the Airtable Custom Blocks Contest now widely available on the Marketplace. I focus on building simple scripts, automations, and custom apps for Airtable that streamline data entry and everyday workflows.
Dan Fellars – I am the Founder of Openside, On2Air, and BuiltOnAir. I love automation and software. When not coding the next feature of On2Air, I love spending time with my wife and kids and golfing.
Show Segments
Round The Bases – 00:03:47 –
Following Articles Used in this Segment:
[BuiltOnAir Community] Slack | general | BuiltOnAir
[Reddit] Airtable vs Google Sheets: the ultimate guide (TLDR Airtable = awesome) : Airtable
[BuiltOnAir Community] Slack | airtable-help | BuiltOnAir | 1 new item
[BuiltOnAir Community] Slack | airtable-help | BuiltOnAir
Automate Create – 00:28:10 –
Watch as we review and work through automations. One limitation of Airtable automations is the inability to loop through a list of records returned from a search step. Scott Rose shows how to implement looping capabilities through the use of another automation.
Field Focus – 00:42:03 –
A deep dive into the MultiSelect as Tags MultiSelect – How to utilize Multiselect fields to enable personalized tagging
Automate Create – 00:49:15 –
Watch as we review and work through automations. Sometimes you need multiple automations to run sequentially one after the other. Alli walks through how to implement that technique with Automations.
Full Segment Details
Segment: Round The Bases
Start Time: 00:03:47
Roundup of what’s happening in the Airtable communities – Airtable, BuiltOnAir, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
Following Articles Used in this Segment:
[BuiltOnAir Community] Slack | general | BuiltOnAir
[Reddit] Airtable vs Google Sheets: the ultimate guide (TLDR Airtable = awesome) : Airtable
[BuiltOnAir Community] Slack | airtable-help | BuiltOnAir | 1 new item
[BuiltOnAir Community] Slack | airtable-help | BuiltOnAir
Segment: Automate Create
Start Time: 00:28:10
Airtable Automations – How to Loop in Automations
Watch as we review and work through automations. One limitation of Airtable automations is the inability to loop through a list of records returned from a search step. Scott Rose shows how to implement looping capabilities through the use of another automation.
Segment: Field Focus
Start Time: 00:42:03
Learn about the MultiSelect as Tags – How to utilize Multiselect fields to enable personalized tagging
A deep dive into the MultiSelect as Tags MultiSelect – How to utilize Multiselect fields to enable personalized tagging
Segment: Automate Create
Start Time: 00:49:15
Airtable Automations – Triggering many automations at the same time
Watch as we review and work through automations. Sometimes you need multiple automations to run sequentially one after the other. Alli walks through how to implement that technique with Automations.
Full Transcription
The full transcription for the show can be found here:
[00:01:42] Welcome to the BuiltOnAir podcast. [00:01:45] Season 11, episode 6. [00:01:46] Good to be with you [00:01:48] this Tuesday morning, [00:01:49] we've got a full group with us today. [00:01:52] We've got Alli and Kamille [00:01:54] back as always. Welcome, [00:01:56] Good morning. [00:01:57] Good to have you with us [00:01:59] and we've got a new [00:02:00] but regular face with us [00:02:01] Scott Rose. Welcome. [00:02:03] Thank you so much. [00:02:04] I'm so excited to be here. [00:02:06] I think you lead for [00:02:07] you probably are the leader [00:02:10] for most posts on the Airtable [00:02:12] community [00:02:13] and I think you also might be [00:02:16] most guest appearances on our podcast now, [00:02:22] I think, so welcome back. [00:02:24] Always good to have you [00:02:26] regular face in all [00:02:28] communities. So if you haven't heard [00:02:31] Scott Rose's or seen his name, [00:02:33] that probably means you haven't [00:02:35] been hanging out in any of the communities [00:02:37] lately. [00:02:39] So good to have you with us. [00:02:41] As always, I'll go through today's show [00:02:45] because Scott's a regular, [00:02:46] we typically will do a deep dive, [00:02:48] but if you don't know Scott's story, [00:02:50] we've shared it at least once or [00:02:52] twice on the podcast. [00:02:53] So check out some of his previous segment. [00:02:56] So we're gonna just do [00:02:58] content and and demos for you today. [00:03:01] So it'll be chock full of [00:03:02] fun stuff to learn. [00:03:04] So as always, we'll go through [00:03:05] the communities [00:03:06] and talk about what's going on in [00:03:07] Airtable, [00:03:08] then we will do a spotlight on On2Air, [00:03:12] our primary sponsor. Then Scott will walk [00:03:14] through using automations [00:03:17] and how to reenact looping and automations [00:03:20] and then he'll also do a demo on [00:03:23] using multi selects for for tagging and [00:03:26] personalized views [00:03:28] and then we'll have Alli go through [00:03:32] also another automation [00:03:34] on triggering multiple automations [00:03:36] at the same time [00:03:37] and then we'll end with a [00:03:40] quick spotlight for BuiltOnAir. [00:03:42] So with that we'll [00:03:44] start with our Round the Bases [00:03:46] and talk about what's [00:03:48] going on in the Airtable [00:03:49] community [00:03:51] first. This one is from the [00:03:53] technical side of Airtable. [00:03:56] So I thought I'd [00:03:57] start with the fun geeky stuff. [00:04:01] If you wanted to know a little bit [00:04:04] behind the scenes [00:04:05] of what's going on [00:04:07] under the hood of Airtable, [00:04:08] the engineering team [00:04:10] Andrew Wang who's on the [00:04:12] who's an engineering manager [00:04:14] over storage at Airtable [00:04:16] is goes through and talks about [00:04:19] how they migrated their [00:04:21] my sequel database. [00:04:22] So this was news to me. [00:04:24] I didn't, I don't you know [00:04:26] have much insight [00:04:27] into what's under the hood [00:04:29] but they kind of peel back [00:04:30] the onion a little bit [00:04:31] here and so all of our bases [00:04:33] that we're building [00:04:35] are backed by my sequel which [00:04:37] is one of probably two [00:04:39] most popular open source databases [00:04:43] it's been around [00:04:44] for a while long time [00:04:46] if you've used if you built any [00:04:48] you know WordPress or anything [00:04:50] that's the database that [00:04:52] that goes along with [00:04:53] WordPress and many other [00:04:55] open source projects. [00:04:57] So that was news to me. [00:04:59] This article talks about [00:05:01] a big upgrade from [00:05:02] version 5.6 up to version 8 [00:05:04] and [00:05:05] how they dealt with it. [00:05:06] So this is probably, [00:05:08] you could probably [00:05:09] remember that they [00:05:10] were going through some [00:05:12] some major outages of the database [00:05:14] and I think they had one big [00:05:16] upgrade planned right? [00:05:17] That they announced and it [00:05:19] wasn't, it wasn't too bad, [00:05:21] it was only down for [00:05:22] a couple of seconds I think. [00:05:23] So, he talks about how [00:05:25] the transition went pretty smoothly, [00:05:28] they didn't have to roll back, [00:05:29] they had everything in place [00:05:31] if they needed to [00:05:31] roll back but they didn't have to [00:05:34] and so that was probably [00:05:36] when they did that [00:05:37] big upgrade [00:05:39] sometime last year, [00:05:40] I can't remember when that was [00:05:42] but kind of cool if you [00:05:44] like the geeky, nerdy stuff [00:05:47] of under the hood of [00:05:48] Airtable, this is a good article to read. [00:05:51] Yeah, I read through it [00:05:53] and I got through roughly [00:05:54] half of it understanding and [00:05:55] then they got through, [00:05:58] we started going over the [00:05:59] the technical ins and outs [00:06:01] of like what could go wrong [00:06:03] if we do it poorly [00:06:05] and that's when I, [00:06:06] my level of understanding [00:06:07] just sort of went out of the window, [00:06:08] but for the first part [00:06:11] like you Dan, I was like [00:06:14] not necessarily surprised, [00:06:15] but like I learned through [00:06:17] this article that it's all [00:06:18] based on my sequel and it's, it was [00:06:21] interesting because I [00:06:22] remember working in WordPress and [00:06:24] my sequel being not, [00:06:26] you know, the funnest thing [00:06:28] to use and it's [00:06:30] not to me I don't find it easy to [00:06:32] navigate and I can't imagine [00:06:34] trying to run my business [00:06:36] purely on a my sequel [00:06:37] database and so it was just [00:06:40] you know it made me appreciate [00:06:42] the ui that Airtable [00:06:44] puts on top of what is [00:06:45] already a database. [00:06:47] Yeah. [00:06:49] Yeah it's kind of interesting [00:06:51] because my sequel doesn't [00:06:53] doesn't inherently [00:06:55] have kind of the [00:06:59] some of the features [00:07:00] of other databases [00:07:02] like no sequel databases. [00:07:03] I actually my preference is post [00:07:06] Postgres. [00:07:06] That's the database that I use for [00:07:09] our product [00:07:10] And also another open source one. [00:07:12] So I wish they would [00:07:14] have gone with postgres [00:07:15] I think that's the more robust [00:07:17] of the two [00:07:18] the postgres and my sequel are kind of [00:07:21] the two standard bearers [00:07:23] for open source databases. [00:07:26] But I guess it's also [00:07:27] good that they did go [00:07:29] with an open source one [00:07:30] I think for scalability that [00:07:32] they're not paying some [00:07:34] huge license fees [00:07:35] to expand their database. [00:07:37] So welcome to our guests. [00:07:39] You've got some hecklers Scott already. [00:07:43] Incredible. [00:07:44] I love it. I love it. [00:07:46] My stand up comedian [00:07:47] dreams are coming true. [00:07:48] Yeah, that's right, very good. [00:07:51] Alright. Any other comments [00:07:53] on that before we move on? [00:07:56] You know I really like that [00:07:57] this engineering blog, [00:07:58] I've been poking around out a [00:07:59] little bit. There's another one [00:08:01] I thought was interesting [00:08:02] in the last couple of [00:08:02] weeks about [00:08:03] it was like the case of the missing [00:08:05] data or sell a case of the [00:08:07] missing cell or something, [00:08:08] there's a bug that I've noticed [00:08:09] where like a whole [00:08:10] column will just be empty [00:08:12] until you refresh [00:08:13] even though there is data in it. [00:08:15] And like they go into like [00:08:17] trying to track down [00:08:18] that bug and why it existed. [00:08:20] And it was really interesting. [00:08:21] There. It is, Yeah, [00:08:22] the curious case of the missing cell. [00:08:25] Yeah, they're engineering blog. [00:08:27] They do some more in depth, [00:08:29] not too frequent but [00:08:32] but good stuff on there. [00:08:35] So if you're an engineer [00:08:37] that wants to join, this is Airtable. [00:08:41] This is a good resource [00:08:42] to get up to speed [00:08:44] on what they're working on. [00:08:46] Alright, let's jump over [00:08:48] to the BuiltOnAir community [00:08:49] in our slack group, [00:08:50] a couple of threads [00:08:52] that I thought were worth pointing out. [00:08:54] Ben Bailey who was a guest [00:08:56] on our podcast [00:08:58] asks if Airtable automation is [00:09:00] triggered while it's [00:09:01] already actively running, [00:09:03] do the instances just run in [00:09:04] sequence? [00:09:05] If so, is there a maximum number [00:09:07] of runs that can queue up? [00:09:09] So [00:09:11] it was actually pretty timely [00:09:14] Ben Green who [00:09:16] is also involved in the community [00:09:18] talks about [00:09:20] he actually had just asked [00:09:22] the Airtable support and [00:09:26] he says if it takes the automation [00:09:29] three seconds to perform the necessary [00:09:31] actions for one record [00:09:33] and the automation is triggered [00:09:35] for 6000 records. [00:09:36] It will take approximately five hours [00:09:38] for the automation to process [00:09:40] all of the records. [00:09:44] Let's see. [00:09:47] So basically [00:09:49] it will take [00:09:51] so they are [00:09:53] so they are sequential [00:09:55] is what he's saying right? [00:09:58] Yeah. Yeah [00:10:00] I think they'll all just queue up [00:10:02] but they'll compare [00:10:04] in time. [00:10:05] I really wish that Airtable [00:10:07] would come out with some higher level [00:10:09] like [00:10:10] or I guess no more granular [00:10:12] I guess the opposite [00:10:13] of higher level like tools to [00:10:14] look at your automation runs [00:10:16] or even search through them like [00:10:18] I can't if I get a notification [00:10:20] that like something fails. I mean like [00:10:23] sometimes the link does work [00:10:24] but I don't know [00:10:25] I just I want to be able to search [00:10:26] for a certain thing [00:10:27] like you can in Zapier. [00:10:29] Yeah there's a couple of things [00:10:32] I think can be tied [00:10:33] into the activity bar for a [00:10:35] particular record. [00:10:37] If you open it up [00:10:38] it will tell you [00:10:39] this record was edited by the API [00:10:42] using whoever's api key. [00:10:44] So it'll tell you [00:10:45] which user is attributed to [00:10:47] and then it will also say [00:10:49] this record was edited by automations. [00:10:51] It'd be great if you could like click that [00:10:53] event in the activity log [00:10:55] and it would open up [00:10:56] the automation panel and talk [00:10:58] about that run like obviously there's [00:11:00] being on what plan you are. [00:11:02] It's either two weeks [00:11:03] or like a year or whatever [00:11:05] the amount of time [00:11:06] that information is stored. [00:11:07] I'm fine with that limit still [00:11:08] being applied [00:11:09] because at some point [00:11:11] you're just gonna have to [00:11:13] deal with something happening like [00:11:15] three months ago. [00:11:16] Just that it happened, it's over. [00:11:19] But if you just got [00:11:21] a notification that your automation is [00:11:24] you know failed or whatever, [00:11:25] it would be nice if you could access it [00:11:27] from a couple of different places and I [00:11:28] feel like the activity bar [00:11:30] would be a good place to do it. [00:11:31] That would be a good place. [00:11:33] And there's another thing [00:11:34] also which I think they [00:11:35] can improve upon [00:11:36] if you have multiple automations [00:11:38] running simultaneously, [00:11:39] there's no excuse me, [00:11:41] there's no overarching run log. [00:11:43] It's similar to what [00:11:44] you're talking about, [00:11:45] everything that's happening, [00:11:47] you have to go into each [00:11:48] automation [00:11:50] one at a time [00:11:51] and I found out that [00:11:52] if you have automations [00:11:53] that are running on [00:11:53] hundreds of records, erroneously [00:11:55] you actually can turn off [00:11:58] that automation [00:11:59] and it will eventually stop the queue. [00:12:02] So let's say your automation is [00:12:04] supposed to be running for 500 records. [00:12:05] If you turn it off it [00:12:07] might run for the next 10 [00:12:09] 15 20 records but it will [00:12:10] eventually stop. [00:12:12] But you have to go into each [00:12:14] automation, I had a client where [00:12:17] we accidentally triggered [00:12:18] seven automations simultaneously [00:12:20] because a field got deleted [00:12:23] and we had to go into [00:12:25] each one of the seven [00:12:27] automations [00:12:28] to turn them off [00:12:29] while they were running. [00:12:30] It would have been nice to have like [00:12:31] sort of a big kill switch [00:12:33] well and they recently added [00:12:36] sections to automations [00:12:37] so you could put your [00:12:38] automations in their little folders. So [00:12:40] I think you should probably [00:12:42] be able to for a particular folder say [00:12:44] stop all or turn on, turn on off. [00:12:48] I'd love to see like [00:12:50] you know like a current usage section [00:12:52] or something like I [00:12:53] don't know, we're saying like [00:12:55] or like these are running [00:12:56] or these just ran like a [00:12:57] whole just a mass list because I've [00:13:00] similar to what you just said Scott, [00:13:02] I mean like I'm [00:13:02] working on a big project, [00:13:04] I've got tons of automations [00:13:05] that's very intricate and [00:13:07] I'm trying to optimize [00:13:08] and it's really difficult [00:13:09] to figure out how to optimize [00:13:10] when I can't really see [00:13:12] the trail that easily. [00:13:14] Right. Yeah, exactly. [00:13:17] And one thing I'll point out [00:13:19] and Kuovonne talks about this [00:13:21] so it looks like [00:13:23] it's not sequential in the sense of [00:13:25] whenever each record is added, [00:13:27] but it is in series [00:13:29] so it does only do one at a time [00:13:33] but it's random or [00:13:35] we don't know [00:13:36] how it chooses which automation [00:13:38] process that gets executed next. [00:13:41] And so like you'll see like [00:13:44] in the list of the [00:13:45] history that will have multiple [00:13:47] in progress [00:13:48] and it's not in order of which one [00:13:50] runs, it's like one at a time randomly. [00:13:53] And so they may have under the hood, [00:13:56] maybe it's a random selection or [00:13:58] I don't know how they decide [00:14:00] which one they execute next. [00:14:02] Right. [00:14:03] So it's not necessarily [00:14:06] in series as [00:14:07] how they got created [00:14:09] or added to the queue. [00:14:12] That's good to know [00:14:13] if you're expecting them [00:14:14] to be in the order [00:14:15] like if you're looping through [00:14:18] like what Scott you'll show us [00:14:20] those all won't [00:14:20] happen in the same order [00:14:22] that they get added to the list. [00:14:26] I wonder if [00:14:26] I'm sorry I'm sorry. [00:14:28] I wonder if they get [00:14:30] if they get run in the order the [00:14:32] alphabetical order [00:14:33] by the underlying record I. D. [00:14:35] That might [00:14:37] that might be a thing [00:14:39] that'd be really difficult to test [00:14:42] maybe, yeah like maybe this is like the [00:14:45] created date of the record id [00:14:47] or the last modified date. [00:14:49] What I would assume [00:14:50] is you know how the first grid view [00:14:53] is like the like main view for if you're [00:14:55] like selecting from somewhere else? [00:14:57] I would assume that that might be [00:14:59] the order. That would be my guess [00:15:03] is in. [00:15:04] Interesting [00:15:05] but I don't know [00:15:07] if somebody's really bored, [00:15:09] they could experiment [00:15:10] and figure that out. [00:15:12] All of these sound like plausible [00:15:14] prescriptions to me [00:15:15] like you can make a sandwich bet [00:15:17] to see who is right now. [00:15:18] Yeah [00:15:21] I think all of us here [00:15:22] have a little bit too much [00:15:24] higher priority things to work [00:15:25] on. [00:15:27] I'm very concerned about this now. [00:15:29] Alright moving on. [00:15:32] I thought we give a shout out [00:15:35] anybody that's in Europe or [00:15:37] near London [00:15:39] Airtable is hosting a get together [00:15:42] a customer showcase. [00:15:44] So check that out. [00:15:46] Let's see what the dates are, June 28 [00:15:50] in London [00:15:51] at the we work. And [00:15:55] so yeah, so if you're out [00:15:57] in that neck of the woods, [00:16:00] oh, they've got Howie there, [00:16:03] wow [00:16:04] and Christy. Wasn't she at the, [00:16:09] at Dare table. Yeah. [00:16:11] Now we have to go to London. [00:16:13] Hold on. Wait a minute. [00:16:16] What about us though? [00:16:19] Wait, do they have a London office [00:16:23] right? [00:16:25] I think that's one of their newer offices. [00:16:28] So, you know, if this makes sense, [00:16:29] it's fine. [00:16:30] I'm not bitter. [00:16:31] Yeah, I think it [00:16:32] was international one too. [00:16:34] Yeah. [00:16:36] So they must, yeah, [00:16:37] must have. I mean, [00:16:39] I imagine they're just going out to visit [00:16:41] the office and, [00:16:44] but yeah, they could have [00:16:45] been visiting there Austin office [00:16:47] at the same time [00:16:47] we were there, but apparently not. [00:16:53] Yeah. Yeah, maybe they'll show your video. [00:16:57] Like Jen mentions. [00:16:59] Yeah. [00:17:01] So Alli and I [00:17:02] are both featured in a video. [00:17:05] I think it's technically [00:17:07] two different videos, [00:17:08] that are [00:17:10] Airtable promos. [00:17:11] Yeah, [00:17:14] they were great videos. [00:17:15] Very good. [00:17:19] I was so scared. [00:17:21] And like was posted in the, [00:17:24] in the BuiltOnAir community. [00:17:27] The first question that Scott and Bill [00:17:30] bring up are EU, European support for [00:17:33] all their product offerings [00:17:34] will be the first question asked. [00:17:36] I'm not, I'm not complaining. [00:17:37] I'm just trying to improve the product. [00:17:39] I think [00:17:40] I'm on that train too. I'm [00:17:42] one of those people who, [00:17:44] you know all of my [00:17:45] all but one of my clients were US [00:17:47] based and so we all use [00:17:49] the US dollar [00:17:50] and we all use the same date format. [00:17:52] However, there's, you know, [00:17:54] if you're gonna put an office [00:17:57] in London where [00:17:57] presumably they use [00:17:59] a different date formats and different [00:18:02] you know, [00:18:04] currency symbols and whatnot. I feel like [00:18:07] surely that has to be something [00:18:08] you talked about at your event [00:18:09] where you're like, [00:18:10] here's how our product [00:18:11] will improve your business. [00:18:13] If your business uses a [00:18:14] different currency symbol, [00:18:16] we've got to make it easier [00:18:17] for you to change that [00:18:18] symbol. [00:18:20] And European calendars [00:18:22] start on Monday instead of Sunday. [00:18:23] Oh, I didn't, [00:18:24] I didn't even know that. [00:18:26] I just knew it was a different ordering [00:18:28] of the month and the date. [00:18:30] But yeah, I know a lot of, [00:18:32] you know [00:18:32] South American countries as well start on [00:18:34] Monday as opposed to Sunday. [00:18:36] And you could, [00:18:37] you could adjust a lot of your formulas [00:18:40] to count your weeks [00:18:41] starting on Monday, [00:18:42] but the calendar view [00:18:44] is always Sunday through Saturday if [00:18:46] I'm not mistaken. And so, [00:18:48] and the date picker as well. [00:18:50] So there should be a, [00:18:51] you know, a global setting [00:18:53] that's like we consider Monday [00:18:55] the start of the week. [00:18:57] Yeah. And the phone number field [00:18:58] only works for US phone numbers, [00:19:00] although it just drops [00:19:01] the formatting [00:19:02] if you type too many numbers. [00:19:03] so that's okay. But [00:19:05] yeah, lots of little things like that. [00:19:07] Yeah. [00:19:09] Yeah. So we'll see. [00:19:11] We'll see maybe [00:19:12] this event will trigger some of that. [00:19:16] Alright, moving on, next one. [00:19:18] I thought this was a good [00:19:20] thing to be aware of. [00:19:22] Somebody asked the question [00:19:25] they're importing a CSB file [00:19:27] and they have a [00:19:29] number, a long number [00:19:30] that's probably like a serial id [00:19:32] or something and when [00:19:33] they import it the number is changing [00:19:36] and so they're like what's going on? [00:19:38] And so Rebecca gives a good help [00:19:41] saying it's probably, if it's a number [00:19:45] field then that number is too long [00:19:48] and so it's like rounding it [00:19:51] and so to treat [00:19:52] that as a single line field [00:19:54] in Airtable and just [00:19:55] treat it as text instead [00:19:57] of a number [00:19:58] and so that's what it was trying to be [00:20:01] maybe too smart and recognize that [00:20:04] that was a number [00:20:05] and converting it. [00:20:07] So something to be aware of [00:20:10] if you're doing [00:20:11] imports with long numbers. [00:20:14] Absolutely. [00:20:15] I can [00:20:16] in Excel too [00:20:17] scientific notation. [00:20:20] Hopefully that's not too big [00:20:22] of an issue with this particular use case. [00:20:24] Like hopefully they don't need it [00:20:26] to be actually a number [00:20:27] so you can do like [00:20:27] calculations with [00:20:29] if it's like a latitude and longitude [00:20:31] for instance that is [00:20:32] technically a number [00:20:33] but you don't ever need to add [00:20:36] anything to it so [00:20:37] you know, it's fine [00:20:38] if it's a single line text field. [00:20:40] Hopefully that's the case [00:20:41] here. [00:20:41] Yeah. Yeah. So [00:20:43] good reminder [00:20:44] dealing with stuff like that. All right, [00:20:47] next one. [00:20:48] This was just kind of a nice article. [00:20:50] This is from our friends at [00:20:51] whale sync. They were also [00:20:53] guests on our podcast [00:20:55] not too long ago but they do [00:20:57] a deep dive in comparing [00:20:59] Airtable with Google sheets. [00:21:01] So if you're not quite sure [00:21:03] the differences, if [00:21:04] you're still kind of learning that [00:21:06] this is a good resource or if you need to [00:21:08] convince your boss [00:21:10] on why to move to Airtable [00:21:12] from Google sheets or [00:21:13] spreadsheets in general, [00:21:15] there's a good resource [00:21:17] to compare the two. [00:21:20] Alright moving on [00:21:21] a couple Twitter tweets. [00:21:24] This is a good one from Mike [00:21:27] Cardona. [00:21:28] Just how kind of a strategy [00:21:31] of how to improve your formula game [00:21:36] and work with formulas [00:21:37] and learning them. [00:21:39] So he says first step [00:21:40] make a copy of 2-3 [00:21:42] of your favorite templates. [00:21:44] The goal is to recreate [00:21:45] the template yourself without cheating. [00:21:47] Start by picking one template [00:21:49] from the ones you copied, [00:21:50] study its structure, [00:21:51] click through each formula field [00:21:53] and understand why [00:21:54] how the formulas were used [00:21:56] or their absence stalls [00:21:58] play and learn them [00:21:59] and avoid using [00:22:00] avoid templates that use scripts [00:22:02] unless you have a basic [00:22:04] understanding of programming. [00:22:06] So basically just [00:22:07] a strategy for learning formulas. [00:22:08] Just looking at existing, [00:22:10] the universe is full [00:22:12] of templates that I'm sure have [00:22:14] amazing, [00:22:15] if you really want to look at formulas, [00:22:17] find some templates created by [00:22:19] a Mr V. [00:22:21] W Van Hall. Thank you. [00:22:24] That's for the advanced Formula class. [00:22:33] This guy has some really nice [00:22:35] content mike Cardona, [00:22:37] I follow him on LinkedIn [00:22:38] and he's always posting [00:22:39] some really good stuff, [00:22:41] yep, yep. Yeah, [00:22:42] we should get him on the show sometime, [00:22:44] so Mike, if you're listening, come on, [00:22:47] I'd love to have you on. [00:22:49] All right. [00:22:52] This is a good one. [00:22:54] so we talked about this a lot [00:22:55] and actually I think [00:22:56] I might have mentioned this, [00:22:57] I was like, somebody needs to collect [00:22:59] all these open source Airtable [00:23:00] alternatives [00:23:01] so we have like a repository, [00:23:03] they should have done this in [00:23:05] Airtable, but [00:23:08] if you're looking for alternatives [00:23:10] or maybe you need to [00:23:12] host your own Airtable [00:23:13] equivalent. This article [00:23:15] is a good one [00:23:17] that walks through all the different [00:23:20] alternatives out there [00:23:22] and gives you the pros and cons [00:23:25] relative to Airtable. [00:23:27] So worth checking out, [00:23:31] there's quite a few of them [00:23:32] and there's probably more actually [00:23:34] this one only has, [00:23:35] it's only three. So yeah, [00:23:37] I think there's even more out there [00:23:39] then what is in this list, So, [00:23:42] but there are things [00:23:44] that you just can't replace in Airtable, [00:23:47] like the community [00:23:49] and the headaches, [00:23:53] you must have the bad with the good. [00:23:58] Okay, [00:24:00] have you guys seen the new commercial? [00:24:03] Yeah. Oh no, I haven't seen it. [00:24:05] Okay, so Airtable, [00:24:07] I think Alli saw this first. [00:24:09] We talked about it last time [00:24:11] but we didn't show it. [00:24:12] I thought it was worth [00:24:13] highlighting the, we'll air it [00:24:15] I don't know if the audio will work. [00:24:17] I forgot to check my audio. [00:24:19] So tell me if you can hear this. [00:24:27] have a breakdown barriers that leave teams disconnected, organize all your [00:24:33] workflows, data and people in one place [00:24:36] and respond to [00:24:37] the challenges at a moment's [00:24:39] notice [00:24:39] how can you create a system [00:24:42] to take you from what if, to [00:24:45] we will, to we did. [00:24:47] This is how. Airtable. [00:24:53] How can you transform [00:24:57] what do you think? [00:25:01] It's good. [00:25:02] I think very, very good. [00:25:05] Yeah, pretty basic. [00:25:07] But I mean it kind of like [00:25:09] has the big enterprise, [00:25:10] you know, like the [00:25:12] service now and salesforce feel to it. [00:25:16] So it'll be interesting [00:25:17] to see if this helps with their [00:25:20] brand awareness. [00:25:22] Yeah. Has anyone seen it on tv yet? [00:25:25] I don't watch tv. I don't know. [00:25:30] Yes, [00:25:31] they said [00:25:32] they said it was going to air [00:25:34] during the French open. [00:25:35] Right. Oh no, the US open [00:25:37] the US open. [00:25:38] So I don't think it's aired yet. [00:25:40] On national tv [00:25:41] because that's still a couple weeks away, [00:25:45] wow. I wonder what sort of effect. [00:25:47] I wonder if there will be a huge influx of [00:25:48] new users coming to Airtable [00:25:50] after that airs [00:25:53] Yeah, we'll see. [00:25:54] We'll be we'll be ready for them. [00:25:57] Yes. Yeah, so we'll see that [00:26:00] I've been seeing actually [00:26:02] quite a few who is, [00:26:03] there was another [00:26:04] kind of more startup-y [00:26:05] software company that wasn't huge, [00:26:07] that is doing national advertising. [00:26:10] I did see them on tv [00:26:12] but I was surprised. [00:26:15] I can't remember who it was. [00:26:18] Click up, [00:26:19] Click up. I've seen [00:26:21] yeah, click up does a ton. [00:26:22] There was another one [00:26:23] that I just started noticing. [00:26:26] If I remember, I'll post it. [00:26:27] But [00:26:29] yeah, so we'll see. [00:26:30] But yeah, they're definitely [00:26:32] trying to, you know, [00:26:32] play with the big boys, [00:26:35] so to speak [00:26:36] and you know, compete with like the [00:26:39] bigger brand names. [00:26:43] All right, so that concludes [00:26:45] our Round the Bases [00:26:47] and what's going on, keeping [00:26:49] you up to date, [00:26:50] No announcements unless [00:26:52] a lot of times [00:26:52] they come out during the [00:26:53] show. So I haven't seen any [00:26:55] new features released in Airtable. [00:26:59] So we'll see what's going on [00:27:02] so quickly spotlight on On2Air [00:27:05] our primary sponsor. [00:27:06] It's an all one toolkit [00:27:07] to run your business on Airtable, [00:27:09] a suite of apps [00:27:10] that do a variety of different tasks [00:27:12] that you likely need [00:27:13] if you are relying on Airtable [00:27:16] to execute any aspect [00:27:18] of your business. Today, [00:27:19] I just want to spotlight [00:27:21] a new template [00:27:22] that we posted on our website. [00:27:24] So if you're in the e commerce space [00:27:27] and you already have [00:27:29] you already have [00:27:30] your e commerce site built out, [00:27:32] but you want to replicate [00:27:34] that information in [00:27:35] Airtable. [00:27:36] This is a free template [00:27:38] that you can download [00:27:39] from our site that goes into more [00:27:41] detail on how you might [00:27:43] organize your store inside of Airtable. [00:27:46] So [00:27:47] check it out on our resource section [00:27:49] on our website at on2air.com [00:27:51] shoutout to Hannah [00:27:53] who put this together for us. [00:27:55] And some cool stuff in there. So [00:27:58] check that out [00:28:00] and many more stuff at on2air.com [00:28:03] with that, Scott [00:28:04] if you want to get your screen ready, [00:28:08] we will learn about automations [00:28:10] and looping [00:28:11] and how to implement looping [00:28:15] with automations. [00:28:18] All right, [00:28:20] let's see. [00:28:25] Oops sorry, my security settings [00:28:28] to allow me to share [00:28:29] but let's see. It'll probably [00:28:31] oh no it's making me quit [00:28:33] and relaunch my browser. [00:28:34] So I think I'll be right back [00:28:35] two second. Sorry I didn't even realize [00:28:40] going back to work. [00:28:42] I was just gonna say Jan and the [00:28:49] BuiltOnAir community posted [00:28:51] that Howie was a guest [00:28:54] on the station of podcast. [00:28:56] I haven't seen the episode. [00:28:59] Oh there you go. [00:29:00] Well I think he's saying, [00:29:02] I think he's saying [00:29:03] at the at the London event he'll [00:29:05] be speaking for [00:29:06] Got it [00:29:08] yeah. [00:29:10] So [00:29:12] all right Scott. [00:29:13] There we go. Infinity screen. Ready [00:29:17] screen. Okay cool. [00:29:18] You guys can see my whole screen right? [00:29:21] Oh yeah, do it like that. Okay [00:29:24] cool. I can't see you guys [00:29:26] but I'm looking at my screen. [00:29:29] So this is something [00:29:31] that's come up [00:29:32] a bunch of times in the forums [00:29:35] where people are trying to [00:29:38] schedule a [00:29:40] like a bulk email to a bunch of people [00:29:43] and send out that [00:29:45] an email to you know, 868 00:28:06,1000 --> 00:28:09,030 a whole group of people which is [00:29:49] actually [00:29:49] not really a problem in and of itself, [00:29:52] you can very easily schedule [00:29:53] emails to go out [00:29:55] at a certain time [00:29:57] unmasked basically, [00:29:59] but the problem comes [00:30:01] if you are trying to customize each email [00:30:05] you know like dear [00:30:06] first name comma, [00:30:08] you know, your last invoice amount is x [00:30:12] dollar amounts, [00:30:13] then that's where [00:30:15] the native [00:30:16] built in automations of Airtable [00:30:19] will sort of fail [00:30:20] you. So I'll sort of show you [00:30:22] what that would look like [00:30:24] and this is where [00:30:24] people get into a little bit of [00:30:26] trouble with the automations. [00:30:28] So I have here [00:30:29] a table of a bunch of contacts here [00:30:33] and [00:30:34] what you may think [00:30:36] you would want to do for that [00:30:38] is something like this, [00:30:39] you would set up your email [00:30:41] to trigger at a scheduled time. [00:30:43] So for example, [00:30:44] I want this email to go out [00:30:46] every week on Tuesday at one o'clock pm [00:30:49] and I'll just test this trigger here [00:30:52] and say step successful [00:30:54] and then the next step [00:30:56] that people want to do is they [00:30:58] want to find the specific records [00:31:01] that they want to send that email to. [00:31:03] So for example in this case [00:31:05] I want to find only the contacts [00:31:08] that have a tag of [00:31:09] newsletter. [00:31:11] And so if we actually [00:31:12] just go back out to my base [00:31:13] for a second, [00:31:13] you'll see. I have five contacts here [00:31:15] and three of them [00:31:17] are tagged with newsletter. [00:31:19] So if I go back in here, [00:31:20] I'm going to find the records [00:31:22] where the tags has any of newsletter. [00:31:24] I'm gonna test this action [00:31:26] and [00:31:27] you'll see [00:31:28] that it found those three records [00:31:29] right there. [00:31:30] And now [00:31:33] I want to [00:31:34] send out an email to these people [00:31:36] where I say dear Jane comma, [00:31:37] thank you for being a member [00:31:40] since you know whatever since the year X, [00:31:43] Y. Z. That you joined. [00:31:45] So I go to the next step [00:31:47] which is to send an email and [00:31:49] this is where [00:31:51] that idea will fail [00:31:53] because what happens is [00:31:55] the find records action [00:31:57] does not actually loop through [00:32:00] each record individually [00:32:02] for you to perform an action [00:32:04] on each record. [00:32:05] What it does is it actually returns [00:32:08] an array of record IDs [00:32:10] and it performs one action [00:32:13] on all of them as a group. [00:32:16] So this send an email action [00:32:18] will perform one action, [00:32:20] one email [00:32:21] to everybody as a group. [00:32:23] So right here, [00:32:24] if you specify [00:32:25] who do you want to send this email to? [00:32:27] I'm just going to delete this [00:32:29] for a moment here. [00:32:30] And if you click on the plus sign here, [00:32:32] I'm going to choose my find records [00:32:33] up here. [00:32:34] I'm going to click on continue [00:32:36] and well [00:32:37] going even further here and then [00:32:40] when I get down here to the field values, [00:32:42] I can click on continue again [00:32:45] and I will finally get to [00:32:47] the email address [00:32:48] and you'll notice that if I insert [00:32:50] well you can already see it happening [00:32:52] right there. [00:32:53] It's already giving me the [00:32:54] array of email addresses. [00:32:56] So if I insert this here, [00:32:59] it's actually giving me a comma [00:33:01] delimited comma, delimited set of email [00:33:04] addresses from those three records. [00:33:07] And similarly down here where I say dear, [00:33:10] and then first name, [00:33:11] it's actually the same thing [00:33:13] that just happened up there. [00:33:14] If I go through here, [00:33:16] you'll see that [00:33:18] I can only choose the list of [00:33:21] Oops, [00:33:23] I did the wrong thing there. [00:33:26] If I click on continue, [00:33:27] it just gives me the length [00:33:28] that gives me the number [00:33:28] three. [00:33:30] and if I choose insert [00:33:32] for the first name, [00:33:33] you can see if I move my mouse off of it. [00:33:36] It's gonna say Jane comma, [00:33:38] John comma Mary. [00:33:39] So, if I generate a preview here, [00:33:41] this is what the email will look like. [00:33:44] Dear Jane comma John comma Mary, [00:33:47] which is not what you want [00:33:49] and the to [00:33:50] will be to everybody separating a comma [00:33:53] delimited list there. So [00:33:56] that's the problem. [00:33:57] And so how do we solve that problem? [00:34:00] So there's [00:34:02] three ways that I know of doing it. [00:34:04] There's there may even be [00:34:05] more ways actually, [00:34:07] but the three easiest ways [00:34:10] or the three most common ways [00:34:12] I would say are you [00:34:14] can write a script to do that. [00:34:17] And Kuovonne, who's a friend of the show, [00:34:20] she loves scripting [00:34:22] and so that might be her [00:34:23] preferred approach. [00:34:23] I don't actually know java script or [00:34:27] I know like [00:34:28] two little bits of javascript, [00:34:30] so I don't usually [00:34:31] go down that approach go [00:34:33] down that path. [00:34:34] Another way to do it [00:34:36] is to use an external automation tool like [00:34:39] Zapier or make.com [00:34:41] formerly known as Integromat. [00:34:43] And you could be [00:34:45] do it with those tools, [00:34:47] those tools will actually loop through [00:34:49] your found sets. [00:34:51] I think Zapier does it? I actually [00:34:57] yeah, I mostly use make, [00:34:58] excuse me, let me get some water [00:35:01] but [00:35:03] If you want to stay natively [00:35:06] within Airtable, [00:35:07] there's actually a very clever workaround. [00:35:10] This is this actually the Ben Green [00:35:11] workaround. [00:35:12] Is he the man who discovered this? [00:35:13] Or many people discovered this [00:35:14] simultaneously. [00:35:16] We can attribute it to Ben Green. [00:35:18] Let's attributed to Ben Green [00:35:19] because this is actually [00:35:20] where I first got the [00:35:21] lightbulb aha moment for this. [00:35:23] So we're going to attribute it to him. [00:35:26] Basically the idea is [00:35:28] that since you end up [00:35:30] with this array of values, [00:35:32] what you can actually do [00:35:34] is you can put this array of values [00:35:37] into a linked [00:35:37] record field instead. [00:35:40] So what you can do is [00:35:43] I'm gonna go back [00:35:43] to my list of automations here. [00:35:45] And [00:35:46] actually [00:35:47] before I go to the next automation [00:35:49] which shows you how to solve this [00:35:51] problem, [00:35:51] let's take a look at what I've set up [00:35:53] in the table here. [00:35:54] So basically [00:35:55] this is my contacts table right here [00:35:57] and then I've set up a [00:35:59] separate table, an automation table. [00:36:01] This is technically what I sort of like to [00:36:04] consider, just like a utility table. [00:36:06] This table exists for no other reason [00:36:08] then [00:36:09] to solve this dilemma. [00:36:13] And so it basically [00:36:14] for the primary field, [00:36:16] I just have an auto number field. [00:36:17] You can, you know, [00:36:18] do anything you want [00:36:20] for the first field there [00:36:21] and then I [00:36:21] have a linked record field [00:36:23] that links back to [00:36:25] the contacts table right here. [00:36:28] And so now [00:36:28] I'm going to show you [00:36:30] what you would want to do [00:36:31] in your automation. [00:36:32] So we're gonna go into [00:36:33] this next automation here. [00:36:37] And this is the first of two automations [00:36:40] that we're gonna need in order to [00:36:42] make this happen. [00:36:43] So the trigger [00:36:45] is still the same. You know, [00:36:46] we're gonna send out this email [00:36:48] at a scheduled time [00:36:49] every week on Tuesday at [00:36:50] 1:00 pm. [00:36:51] It's gonna test this trigger right here. [00:36:54] Step successful. [00:36:54] The second step is also the same. [00:36:57] So [00:36:57] we are going to [00:36:59] find records where the tag [00:37:01] has any of newsletter. [00:37:02] So I'm going to test this action [00:37:05] and [00:37:05] it's gonna bring up [00:37:06] those same three records again [00:37:08] those three people [00:37:09] are the ones we want to [00:37:10] send the newsletter to. [00:37:11] But now this is [00:37:12] where the trick takes place. [00:37:15] So you can actually do this a couple [00:37:17] different ways. [00:37:18] You can either create a record, [00:37:20] you can update an existing [00:37:21] record. [00:37:22] I usually like to create [00:37:23] a brand new record [00:37:25] just to keep everything [00:37:26] nice and [00:37:27] clean and notice [00:37:28] so I can actually, [00:37:30] in a way I have my own history [00:37:32] of this automation run [00:37:33] in the table. [00:37:34] But you can also just [00:37:35] do an update record as well. [00:37:37] So I'm going to create a record [00:37:39] and I'm going to [00:37:40] create it in that utility table [00:37:42] in that automation table. [00:37:44] And what I'm gonna do is [00:37:48] in the linked record field [00:37:50] in the context [00:37:51] field right here. What I'm gonna do is [00:37:53] I'm gonna put in the array [00:37:55] of the record I.Ds [00:37:57] that it found [00:37:59] from the find record step. [00:38:01] So to get to that [00:38:02] I'm just gonna delete this here [00:38:03] and I'm gonna click on the plus sign here. [00:38:05] I'm going to choose my find record step. [00:38:08] And I'm going to go into records [00:38:10] and then [00:38:10] it says make a new list of Airtable [00:38:12] record ID. [00:38:13] And if I move my mouse off of this [00:38:15] you can already see [00:38:16] what it's gonna look like. [00:38:17] Those are the internal record I.Ds [00:38:19] for the three records that it found. [00:38:21] So I'm gonna insert that there [00:38:24] and that's it [00:38:25] that's all you need to do [00:38:27] and if I run this as configured let's [00:38:29] take a look at what happens. [00:38:30] I'm gonna run the test here [00:38:32] and it shows me [00:38:33] that the record was created [00:38:35] and it shows me [00:38:36] that those three contacts [00:38:37] are now in the linked record field. [00:38:39] So if I go back to my grid view here [00:38:43] here it is here's the new record [00:38:45] that was just created [00:38:47] and all three of those [00:38:48] contacts are now linked [00:38:50] to this record. [00:38:51] So if I go so this is an auto number six [00:38:54] here. [00:38:54] And if I go back to the context table [00:38:57] you'll see [00:38:57] that all three of these [00:38:58] contacts have the number six [00:39:01] added to them. [00:39:02] And so now [00:39:04] now it's very very easy [00:39:06] to send out individual emails [00:39:08] to each one of these [00:39:09] people because all we need to do [00:39:12] is create a brand new automation [00:39:15] that triggers [00:39:17] when this particular field gets updated. [00:39:21] And what that does [00:39:22] is that will trigger [00:39:24] on one record at a time. [00:39:26] So if we were to actually go in here [00:39:28] and create that automation [00:39:29] we could just say [00:39:31] when a record is updated [00:39:33] and we will choose our contacts table. [00:39:37] And [00:39:37] we don't actually need to [00:39:39] choose a view that's optional. [00:39:41] And we're going to monitor [00:39:43] this linked record field, [00:39:45] the email table field. [00:39:46] And [00:39:48] so it's only watching [00:39:49] this one field for when this gets updated. [00:39:53] And [00:39:53] what we'll do is we'll go back in there. [00:39:57] Let's just use a suggested record, [00:39:59] it's gonna find one of those [00:40:01] and then [00:40:02] for our add action [00:40:04] now what we can do finally is [00:40:07] we can send an email [00:40:09] and now when we choose from the first step [00:40:14] you will see that it's no longer [00:40:16] a list of emails to choose from. [00:40:17] It's just one email. [00:40:18] So you insert the email there [00:40:20] and you could say test here [00:40:22] and now you can say [00:40:23] dear [00:40:25] and you can choose first name, [00:40:29] first name here [00:40:30] and you can say thank you for, [00:40:32] you know, you can do whatever you [00:40:34] want there for joining us. [00:40:36] And now when we generate the preview here, [00:40:39] you'll see that this is just [00:40:42] one email [00:40:43] to Judy at example.com [00:40:45] and it says dear Judy. [00:40:47] So the solution is [00:40:49] that the scheduling [00:40:51] will take place in this first email, [00:40:55] then the actual running of the automation [00:40:57] will take place here, [00:40:58] then I would probably rename it [00:41:00] something like this. [00:41:01] So I can keep these straight [00:41:03] to be. [00:41:04] So I would sort of number these [00:41:06] so I know that [00:41:07] these two go together. [00:41:08] You can even group them [00:41:09] in their own folder [00:41:11] and that is how [00:41:12] you solve that problem natively [00:41:15] in Airtable. [00:41:18] Very nice. Very cool, [00:41:21] definitely comes in handy. [00:41:24] It does. [00:41:26] I don't know, [00:41:27] it's not really a disclaimer. [00:41:28] But just to just to note if you're [00:41:30] doing this particular method [00:41:32] and say [00:41:32] you wanted to send that email to those [00:41:34] three people, [00:41:35] you'd have four automation runs in total, [00:41:38] the one to set the or to [00:41:40] watch the scheduled time [00:41:41] and then the three sending of the emails. [00:41:44] So just [00:41:44] remember it's always [00:41:46] the list of people you're sending it to [00:41:48] plus one. [00:41:50] Right. [00:41:52] Absolutely. Yes, yes. [00:41:56] Alright. Good stuff Scott. [00:41:58] Are you ready to move on again? [00:42:00] Sure, [00:42:00] sure. Keep going with Scott [00:42:03] Scott's got so much to share with us, [00:42:05] he's gonna do the next [00:42:06] segment as well using multi selects. [00:42:08] Great. So [00:42:09] this actually came up yesterday [00:42:12] with a client of mine, [00:42:13] let me share my screen again. [00:42:15] We're going to build this together. [00:42:18] They had [00:42:21] oops [00:42:22] oh here we go, [00:42:23] sorry about that. [00:42:25] Oops, we got the thing. 1282 00:40:46,1000 --> 00:40:47,710 Okay cool. [00:42:27] So this actually came up with a client of [00:42:30] mine yesterday, [00:42:32] they had a couple of apps they had [00:42:35] the SMS app [00:42:36] and the Page Designer app [00:42:38] and I'll just bring up the Page [00:42:40] Designer app here real quick [00:42:42] and [00:42:44] and what they were trying to do was [00:42:48] they were trying to [00:42:50] actually create some [00:42:52] name labels for a specific [00:42:55] group of people [00:42:56] and they were also trying to [00:42:58] send out text messages [00:42:59] to groups of [00:42:59] people and [00:43:01] this is really really basic [00:43:03] but what they were trying to do [00:43:04] was they were like [00:43:05] hey you know [00:43:06] we just wanna we don't actually know [00:43:08] who the people are in advance [00:43:10] that we want to send the text messages to. [00:43:12] We don't know the people in advance [00:43:13] that we want to print out the [00:43:15] name labels for. [00:43:17] And so they were like, [00:43:18] can we just check off [00:43:20] these records here? [00:43:21] Like we just want these three people, [00:43:23] they just showed up at the event. [00:43:25] These are the three people now [00:43:26] that we want to [00:43:27] send into the Page Designer app [00:43:29] or these are the three people [00:43:31] that we want to [00:43:32] send into the SMS app [00:43:33] which they had [00:43:35] configured with their Twilio account [00:43:37] and [00:43:39] as far as I know, [00:43:40] there's no way [00:43:41] to check off these three records [00:43:43] and have those [00:43:44] apps recognize them. [00:43:47] unless you guys know [00:43:48] of some way to have these check marks, [00:43:50] there is a way [00:43:51] if it's built into the app, [00:43:53] I was going to bring that up. [00:43:58] Yeah, the apps a p I [00:43:59] has the ability to look at a [00:44:02] active view [00:44:03] and which records are checked or [00:44:05] where your mouse is clicked. [00:44:06] But the Page Designer and SMS app [00:44:10] were not built with that [00:44:12] functionality [00:44:14] used anywhere, so [00:44:15] wouldn't that be amazing [00:44:17] if they did that across the board [00:44:19] for all their native apps? [00:44:21] It would be nice. [00:44:22] So right now [00:44:23] for Page Designer specifically, [00:44:25] like we could see its grid view [00:44:28] as the selected view. You know, [00:44:30] I could imagine an implementation where [00:44:33] in addition to [00:44:35] the dropdown of views, there's, [00:44:37] you know, a checkbox that says [00:44:39] look at this view [00:44:40] and then [00:44:41] only checked records in this view, [00:44:43] like that could be [00:44:44] one way that they could add that feature [00:44:47] totally, totally. [00:44:49] Yeah, and this was yeah, [00:44:51] so this was the yeah, [00:44:52] this is the exact challenge that [00:44:54] they faced yesterday [00:44:55] because it doesn't say like, [00:44:56] you know, just check records [00:44:57] only, [00:44:58] they were sort of [00:44:59] at a loss of what to do. [00:45:01] And so their first instinct was [00:45:03] to actually create a checkbox field here. [00:45:07] Because [00:45:08] if you check off [00:45:10] a couple of your records here, [00:45:13] then of course you can either [00:45:15] create a new view or, you know, [00:45:17] just filter the existing view [00:45:19] for time saving purposes [00:45:21] right now and they can [00:45:22] just filter this [00:45:23] to just the check records and, [00:45:25] you know, let's say this became their, [00:45:28] you know, [00:45:28] checked [00:45:29] record view or whatever. [00:45:32] Then the Page Designer [00:45:34] and the SMS app could pull [00:45:36] from just these filtered records, [00:45:38] but [00:45:38] of course the problem that they quickly [00:45:40] discovered almost immediately [00:45:42] was that when they have a staff [00:45:44] of 20 people using [00:45:45] Airtable [00:45:45] and everyone's trying to [00:45:47] check at the same time. [00:45:48] somebody else's check marks are [00:45:50] interfering with their check marks. [00:45:53] So this list is constantly expanding and [00:45:55] shrinking when they actually [00:45:56] don't want it to [00:45:57] because somebody else's is [00:45:58] checking these things off. [00:46:00] So my solution for them, which is very, [00:46:02] very simple, [00:46:04] is just to use [00:46:05] a multi select field. [00:46:06] So this is a multi select field that's [00:46:08] already called tags [00:46:10] and I had them [00:46:11] create tags that they want to use. [00:46:14] So the different people [00:46:15] in the company [00:46:16] would just create their own tags. [00:46:18] So Nancy could have her own tag. [00:46:20] You know Beth could have her own tag. [00:46:23] They could even get more [00:46:24] fine tuned. [00:46:25] And you know Nancy might just be creating [00:46:27] like a barbecue [00:46:29] party list [00:46:30] and you know she could just get [00:46:32] even more fine tuned [00:46:33] like that. [00:46:34] You can basically add [00:46:36] as many tags as you want. [00:46:37] And then the key thing [00:46:39] is to create your own view. [00:46:41] So I'm just going to [00:46:42] duplicate this view [00:46:44] and then [00:46:45] Nancy can make this her own view, [00:46:48] she could even make it a personal view [00:46:50] if she wants. She can switch from [00:46:51] collaborative to personal. [00:46:53] So only she can [00:46:54] edit the view configuration. [00:46:55] She would have to change it on her end. [00:46:57] To personal view. [00:46:59] And then from that point forward [00:47:02] you can filter by the tags. [00:47:06] And she can choose [00:47:08] what she's trying to do right now. [00:47:10] So she can say where the tags has any of [00:47:13] either Nancy or her [00:47:15] barbecue party list [00:47:16] and then all of the people that she's [00:47:18] tagged will show up. [00:47:20] There's only one right now [00:47:22] that I tag and then she can just [00:47:24] switch these apps [00:47:26] to focus only on her view. [00:47:28] So it's not quite as simple as just [00:47:31] going [00:47:32] check, check, check, check, check [00:47:33] all the way down. [00:47:34] But it is a very easy way [00:47:37] to just tag people. [00:47:39] All you gotta do is just use a [00:47:41] multi select field [00:47:43] and then create your own view [00:47:46] that's filtered by the tags [00:47:48] and then you can get some, [00:47:50] you know, [00:47:51] some nice results [00:47:52] or the results [00:47:53] that they were looking for basically [00:47:56] very nice, [00:47:58] very simple. [00:47:59] Sometimes it's those simple, [00:48:01] simple things, [00:48:02] you know that make a huge difference. [00:48:06] I think that's one of the things [00:48:08] about Airtable is you know, [00:48:09] somebody like there's the obvious way [00:48:11] of like what you said is like can't I just [00:48:13] check these boxes [00:48:14] and being able to think okay, [00:48:16] you might have to think a little [00:48:18] bit differently to solve it, [00:48:20] but there is a way to [00:48:22] overcome that challenge. [00:48:23] So it's just figuring out those [00:48:26] new ways of thinking. [00:48:28] Yeah, totally [00:48:30] awesome. Thank you Scott [00:48:32] for sharing your wisdom [00:48:34] with us and two very useful [00:48:36] tricks that [00:48:37] hopefully people can add [00:48:38] to their repertoire. [00:48:41] Totally. Good stuff. [00:48:42] Thank you so much. [00:48:44] Let me do a quick spotlight or [00:48:47] highlight if you [00:48:48] haven't joined our BuiltOnAir community, [00:48:49] please join us. [00:48:50] We'd love to have you participate. [00:48:52] We'd love to have you on the [00:48:53] podcast. [00:48:54] If you've got something cool to share [00:48:56] tricks that you've learned [00:48:57] using Airtable, [00:48:59] reach out to us, join our slack community. [00:49:02] Sign up for our newsletter [00:49:04] builtonair.com/join and we'd love to see [00:49:07] you in our community [00:49:09] in the future. [00:49:10] So with that [00:49:11] we're now gonna learn from Alli [00:49:13] and go back to automations [00:49:16] go for it. [00:49:17] Alright. [00:49:18] I don't know [00:49:19] if you guys could see me [00:49:20] during Scott's first demo but I [00:49:22] was smiling so big [00:49:24] because literally Scott the way [00:49:26] everything you just set up is [00:49:28] basically exactly the same thing [00:49:30] as what I'm about to demo. But with [00:49:32] but what it's everything [00:49:34] is the same but what? [00:49:35] With a little bit of a twist. [00:49:37] Oh nice. I love it. [00:49:38] It's so funny, right? [00:49:39] Like I was like what are the chances [00:49:40] of that? [00:49:41] I was like oh wait this looks like [00:49:43] it's very similar [00:49:43] to what I'm gonna [00:49:44] do it but it's different, [00:49:46] it is a little bit different. So [00:49:49] essentially [00:49:50] the this I'm solving basically [00:49:53] the exact same problem that Scott was [00:49:55] posing. [00:49:56] However with one more thing, the [00:50:00] the beauty of what Scott showed [00:50:01] and what I'm about to [00:50:03] kind of I guess expand a [00:50:04] little bit on [00:50:05] is [00:50:06] that you can schedule this [00:50:07] at a scheduled time [00:50:09] which is something that's [00:50:10] really [00:50:12] an Airtable. I mean obviously [00:50:13] you can set up one email [00:50:14] to go out at a scheduled [00:50:15] time [00:50:16] but what if you want to send [00:50:18] individualized email [00:50:20] as Scott suggested [00:50:22] or use like that weekly digest [00:50:24] that Airtable comes with [00:50:26] and one of their built in [00:50:27] automations if you want to [00:50:28] send like a personalized one [00:50:31] to each person, [00:50:32] and you want to do that [00:50:34] at a scheduled time, [00:50:35] that can be really tricky to do [00:50:38] And also this allows you to avoid [00:50:41] using the Now function, [00:50:43] which I am trying to [00:50:44] do in all of my projects now [00:50:46] because it can really [00:50:48] impact your performance [00:50:50] because it has to reevaluate so often [00:50:52] if you have a lot of complex [00:50:53] relationships, using now [00:50:55] can really bog you down. [00:50:57] So I'm trying to switch [00:50:59] a lot of everything to this kind of method [00:51:03] so [00:51:04] very similar to Scott's, [00:51:06] the only difference here [00:51:08] is that instead of the find records step, [00:51:10] I'm actually running a script. [00:51:12] So I've just scheduled [00:51:14] an automation to go out every week [00:51:17] on Mondays and [00:51:18] my script essentially [00:51:20] what I wanted to do [00:51:21] is find the records on this table [00:51:24] where each line here [00:51:26] is representative of a person [00:51:29] that is in charge of a set of vehicles, [00:51:31] this is the base I used to demo a lot [00:51:33] with [00:51:35] but I want to send each person [00:51:37] a list of the vehicles [00:51:38] that they are responsible [00:51:39] for so that they can say, [00:51:41] yep, yep, yep, [00:51:42] this is verified, [00:51:43] Everything is all set [00:51:45] and essentially [00:51:46] I have a very simple script that runs [00:51:49] And we'll show that quickly, [00:51:52] it's just 13 lines of code [00:51:53] that basically is just saying [00:51:55] alright, go look at the audit groups table [00:51:58] and I've actually limited [00:52:01] limited it down to just a specific view. [00:52:04] This is a trick that I use often [00:52:08] this view is filtered to, [00:52:11] you know, I only want a subset [00:52:12] of these emails going out, [00:52:14] like maybe I have a [00:52:14] tag that says active or inactive, [00:52:16] I could use that here. [00:52:17] And I also want to make sure that [00:52:19] they actually have vehicles to send on the [00:52:20] report [00:52:21] and that they have an [00:52:22] email address to send to [00:52:24] because if they don't have [00:52:25] an email address, the report would fail [00:52:27] and I just don't want to [00:52:28] send an empty report [00:52:29] because I don't think that's [00:52:30] valuable [00:52:31] in this case. [00:52:33] So I'm actually pointing the script [00:52:35] to this particular view so that I'm not [00:52:37] selecting all of the records [00:52:39] on this table [00:52:40] and I have more control over who's [00:52:41] going to receive that email. [00:52:43] Best practice [00:52:45] that I forget all the time [00:52:47] is to lock this view, if you don't [00:52:49] remember [00:52:50] and you change the filters on this [00:52:52] next week, no one is going to get a [00:52:54] report or everyone's gonna get a report. [00:52:57] You're going to be confused. [00:52:58] So I always write something like [00:53:01] you know, if I'm being really [00:53:04] not lazy, [00:53:04] then I'll write out the actual script [00:53:06] that's watching it. [00:53:07] Sometimes I don't write anything. [00:53:11] So moving forward, [00:53:12] I have [00:53:13] just the script just selects everything [00:53:16] on that view [00:53:17] and then it goes through [00:53:19] each one of those records [00:53:21] and updates a field. [00:53:22] This send digest field here to send. [00:53:27] So if we look at [00:53:28] the options I have [00:53:30] in this single select [00:53:31] it's just send or sent. [00:53:33] And actually this makes [00:53:36] this is a method I've been using [00:53:37] really often [00:53:38] to trigger automations with [00:53:39] because [00:53:40] then if you have an interface setup [00:53:42] you could use a button in an [00:53:44] interface to set this value [00:53:46] and trigger off your [00:53:48] automations as you want. [00:53:49] Kind of like ad hoc. [00:53:53] So as soon as that gets set to send [00:53:56] for example [00:53:58] then I have a second automation. [00:54:00] This does involve just like Scott's [00:54:01] another automation [00:54:03] but essentially only triggered when [00:54:06] that is set to send [00:54:08] and then it's gonna go [00:54:10] find records [00:54:11] basically now it follows exactly the same [00:54:13] thing as the built in weekly digest [00:54:16] where it'll go find records [00:54:19] but it makes use of this [00:54:21] really awesome feature [00:54:23] where you could use a dynamic [00:54:25] value rather than a static value [00:54:28] in your automation. [00:54:29] So you could pull in the record I. D. [00:54:31] of the record that triggered [00:54:32] this automation [00:54:33] and then go find the vehicles [00:54:35] that are tied to that record I.D. [00:54:37] One thing to note [00:54:38] is that these two values [00:54:40] do have to be a string I've found. [00:54:41] Or maybe not. [00:54:42] This one can be the record I.D [00:54:45] that triggered it but this has [00:54:46] to be a string [00:54:49] in order for this to work. [00:54:51] And then I want only [00:54:52] the vehicles that are verified [00:54:54] and so if I go [00:54:56] test that action, [00:54:59] I didn't pick up a new record [00:55:01] but this still works [00:55:03] and then I can send an email [00:55:06] and actually I got a little fancier [00:55:08] with this one I think [00:55:10] a while back. [00:55:12] This first grid up here [00:55:14] is just the built in Airtable [00:55:16] html grid which can [00:55:18] look very nice [00:55:18] but sometimes it's kind of finicky [00:55:20] and doesn't look great [00:55:21] underneath, this is like [00:55:23] actual html [00:55:24] that I've generated by using rollup fields [00:55:27] went over how to do that in a different [00:55:30] episode a few months ago I think. [00:55:33] But [00:55:34] just a couple of different examples there [00:55:36] and then finally I go back and I [00:55:38] update that record [00:55:40] to say sent as that single select field. [00:55:44] So that way next week when I go to [00:55:46] resend everything [00:55:48] it'll actually have changed the value [00:55:50] back from sent to [00:55:51] send [00:55:52] and there can trigger the automation again [00:55:55] for the next week [00:55:57] and that's it. [00:55:59] Nice, beautiful. It's like we planned that [00:56:03] use cases very good. [00:56:09] Got your insight so [00:56:10] many different ways that you can [00:56:13] pull that off but it is a [00:56:15] very common one that I think [00:56:16] people struggle with. [00:56:17] So I'm glad that we could [00:56:18] showcase multiple ways to tackle that. [00:56:22] Very serendipitous [00:56:23] that worked out well [00:56:25] just to point out [00:56:27] I like you know the solution [00:56:31] to use single selects to [00:56:34] trigger your automations [00:56:36] both in house and externally [00:56:38] if you're using make or [00:56:40] Zapier [00:56:41] and I especially like having [00:56:43] not just blank and run automation. [00:56:46] I like having blank [00:56:49] you know in progress [00:56:51] or ready to send [00:56:53] or something like that and then sent or [00:56:56] done as options [00:56:57] in the single select [00:56:59] because it allows you to say you know oh I [00:57:02] know I got an email from [00:57:04] make that one of my [00:57:06] automations failed and without [00:57:08] having to go in and look through the [00:57:10] history of which one failed [00:57:11] you could just look at your [00:57:12] base and say well this [00:57:13] is the only record that still says sending [00:57:16] and not sent. [00:57:17] So you know that's the one [00:57:18] that got hung up somewhere [00:57:20] and it also lets you put as a condition [00:57:22] for other automations if you need [00:57:24] things to run sequentially [00:57:26] to say [00:57:27] if this says sending [00:57:28] don't do anything else to [00:57:29] it that could be a condition [00:57:31] that you apply to your other [00:57:33] automations until that value is [00:57:36] sent. [00:57:37] Exactly. [00:57:39] I think it's a good [00:57:40] sort of [00:57:42] implementation of [00:57:45] you know having your automations be [00:57:48] either triggered directly by a person [00:57:50] making that sort of adjustment or [00:57:52] triggered elsewhere [00:57:53] and having things make sure that they run [00:57:55] in the sequence [00:57:56] they you know should. [00:57:58] Exactly. [00:57:59] And it actually [00:58:00] it makes it look really nice [00:58:01] on the interface. [00:58:02] Now if you have the button that [00:58:04] controls the single select [00:58:05] then you can expose [00:58:06] the single select under the button [00:58:08] and just have it not be editable. [00:58:09] So that way it will show [00:58:11] as the automation runs, [00:58:12] it'll show it's stepping [00:58:13] through and the user [00:58:14] is not just sitting there like, [00:58:15] I don't know it said updated, [00:58:17] but I don't know what happened. [00:58:18] I don't know what it updated [00:58:19] because the button isn't like [00:58:20] great yet. [00:58:21] But [00:58:22] there's a lot of cool things [00:58:23] you can do with it. [00:58:26] Good stuff. Alright, [00:58:28] well thanks for coming on the show Scott. [00:58:32] You're Welcome. [00:58:32] Sure to have you back [00:58:34] in a few months [00:58:35] and Kamille and Alli good to see you two. [00:58:37] And hopefully [00:58:40] yeah, we'll keep going. And [00:58:44] we'll hear, [00:58:45] I guess the London event [00:58:47] is a few months out. [00:58:48] I will clarify [00:58:49] Jan mentioned that [00:58:50] it actually was a podcast that he was [00:58:53] referring to. [00:58:54] So there's a podcast out there [00:58:57] with Howie, CEO of Airtable and [00:59:00] so we'll get the link from Jan [00:59:02] and post that in the community. [00:59:04] I'd like to hear it as well. [00:59:06] So thanks to all that [00:59:07] participated and we'd love to [00:59:09] see what you build on air [00:59:11] next time. Take care.
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