Filter on View or Automation Conditions

Airtable Questions
1

Hi guys,

As of now, I use both filtering views and conditions on records as automation triggers. But in your opinion, is there some best practice to follow on that topic? I assume there must be some pros and cons to both options. I’d be curious get the take from experts out there.

Thanks for your help.

2

In general, I prefer using a condition as an automation trigger because all of your logic is contained right there within the automation itself.

However, using views as a trigger can be helpful when you have a very complex set of conditions that you need to filter your records on. The filters on views give you significantly more customizability & complexity than what you can get when you use the Airtable “when a record matches conditions” trigger.

But when using a view, the key thing to be aware of is that you don’t want other people accidentally changing the filter, so be sure to lock the view to try to prevent that from happening.

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3

Some automations are triggered off of filtered views because that trigger existed before it was possible to enter conditions directly into the automation trigger itself.

In general I prefer the “when record meets conditions” trigger for several reasons:

  • all of the logic is in one place versus spread across a view and the automation itself
  • you don’t have to worry about someone else accidentally changing the view filters

However, there may be some times when it makes sense to trigger off a view instead:

  • you need condition groups in the filter, which are currently only available in filtered views, and not in automation conditions
  • you are in the early stages of development and figuring out the conditions and want to check to make sure that the correct records meet the conditions
  • you have workflows that involve interacting with the same filtered view that triggers the automation. For example, a filtered view might show all the records that need attention, and an automation might send an email with a summary of those records and a link to the filtered view.
  • you have several different automations that need to be separate automations, but they need to trigger off the same set of conditions.
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4

@ScottWorld @Kuovonne
Thank you for those detailed explanations. It’s much clearer to me now.

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