Can you tell who pushed a button?

Airtable Questions
1

Can Airtable detect who pushed a button in an interface? I’d like to have a button that updates a record dynamically based on who pushes it.

2

Yes, if you add a user/collaborator field to your base, you can update that field with the “current user”. Check out the screenshot below:

Update current user
Update current user1096×474 75.3 KB

3

Oh, fantastic! Do you know if it is also available when using “Trigger an Automation”? Can Airtable tell who triggered the automation based on who pressed the button?

4

The automation does not know who pushes the button.

However, if you can use an editable field like a single select instead of the button to trigger the automation, you can tell who changes the single select. Use a “last modified by” field and set it to watch only the single select field. The last action in the automation can reset the single select.

It does not have the same look and feel as a button, but it does make the capabilities you want possible.

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5

The impetus for this question is I’m tracking multiple trainings and I wanted a way to update someone’s training date and the person who gave the training with the click of a button. I wound up going with the following solution:

  1. I created a user field called “Automation Collaborator” and a formula field that just has TODAY()
  2. I have a field for each training’s date and instructor. The instructor field links to instructor records.
  3. The button in the interface updates “Automation Collaborator” to the current user and the relevant date field to 11/5/1955.
  4. My automation watches the collaborator field and, depending on which training date field is set to 11/5/1955, changes the relevant date to TODAY(), and uses the name from the collaborator field to find the instructors.

Thanks to @ScottWorld and @Kuovonne for the suggestions and the information!

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