Is it possible to get notified when an Automation in Airtable finished the run? I would like to see it when the the trigger for automation was manual. I have a few 100’s records and when the automation runs it takes a while. I’d like to know when the automation is finished on all records in the database. The number of records changes.
Is there a way to get notified when Automation completed the job?
Background:
Specifically I use Automation to generate the 2-hour links to image attachments stored in Airtable Attachment field. This original post listing the options lists it all and basically to a non-technical user like me Airtable Automation (or make) is the only option.
I use Cloudinary for other stuff but still prefer Airtable to manage images. This is another option here for a little script in Airtable marketplace and still works (image below)
Unfortunately I do not have Scripting enabled in Airtable Automations on my plan so I can’t do any tricks with that.
The plain Automation in Airtable does the fine job for me. I run in by pushing a tick box.
Generate a record in an Airtable log and then trigger a new automation that send you an email or an SMS or something, eh?
Are you using a repeating group in your automation? If so, you cannot get notification directly from the automation itself, as you cannot add actions after the repeating loop is completed, and you cannot use conditional actions with a repeating group.
On the other hand, if you are using a repeating action without scripting, you can only process a maximum of 100 records in a single run. And with a manual trigger, it shouldn’t take very long to process 100 records.
If you are not using a repeating group, then things get a little murkier. One option is to add a Find Records action at the tail end of your regular automation actions to check if there are any more records to process. Then add a conditional action that only runs if the Find Records action returns zero records.
However, not using a repeating group would result in you needing to use one automation run for every record, and hundreds of records to process, this seems very wasteful, especially since you cannot acquire more automation runs if you run out.
But since you are manually triggering the automation by selecting a checkbox field, why don’t you manually run the the script that you link to? It should run fast enough that you don’t need a notification to find out when it is done. Scripting extension is available to all workspaces with no installation limits.
So if I use repeating, then it runs faster and runs as 1 automation run? Okay, and how will I know it is finished before I trigger for 2nd time if I have more than 100 records to process?
If I do the non-repeating group - Find records action - I try to avoid it because it is very slow, it takes ages to complete through a few 100’s of records in my table.
Automation runs are counted per trigger, so processing 100 records in a repeating group costs only one run. Whether those records are processed faster, I don’t know. I haven’t done tests. I find automations to be slow compared to a well written scripting extension (not run in an automation).
Like I said, you cannot easily do this in the same automation. There are various convoluted workaround that involve using a control record to keep track of how many records there are to process. For example you could create a new record in a control table that links to all the found records and each record can unlink itself when it is processed. Then have a second automation that triggers when the control record doesn’t have any more linked records.
This second automation could even do a search to see if there are any more records to process, and then trigger a second run of the first automation to process the additional records, and then only send an email when there are no more records to process.
But why go through all this work? You run the automation by manually selecting a checkbox field. Just manually run the script in scripting extension instead.
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