Five Ways to Automate Airtable with Zapier
Zapier is an online automation tool that allows users to connect and automate workflows between various web applications without the need for coding. Airtable is a cloud-based, low-code platform that combines the functionality of a spreadsheet with the features of a database, enabling users to create custom applications and workflows. By integrating Airtable with Zapier, users can automate repetitive tasks, streamline data entry, and create powerful workflows that sync data between Airtable and other apps, saving time and increasing productivity.
It’s true that many organizations face common tasks that can be time-consuming and costly, like manually entering data from forms into spreadsheets, updating records across multiple systems, or sending repetitive email notifications. These manual processes can lead to errors, delays, and reduced productivity, which can ultimately impact an organization’s bottom line. By leveraging the power of Zapier and Airtable, organizations can automate these tasks, eliminating the need for manual data entry, ensuring data consistency across systems, and enabling real-time notifications and updates. Automating these processes with Zapier and Airtable can handle many of the most manually demanding tasks & provide huge improvements to your bottom line.
Let’s jump into a few automations that you can set up for free, today, to instantly improve your workflows.
1. Automatically create Airtable records from new form submissions
One of the most impactful and straightforward automations that you can set up with Zapier and Airtable is one that automatically creates client profiles in Airtable when a new client submits a form on your website.
How the automation works
This automation works by establishing a connection between the form on your website (either custom or set up with another app like GravityForms or High Level) and your company’s Airtable database, via Zapier. That’s right, Zapier is the connection app that lets all the apps in your ecosystem send data back and forth between each other. So when a new form is submitted on your site, it triggers a Zapier automation that stores the data submitted in said form, walks it to your Airtable database, and creates a new row with all that data. No manual labor required.
Why it’s useful
Of course there are some huge advantages to automating your workflow this way. In addition to saving your own time, you’re likely saving money that you would have otherwise been spending on someone to fulfill manual entry for you. That could be a specialist or a sales rep, but in any case, they’re likely better off spending their time on more high-ROI tasks. The other benefit of automating this process is that you’ll never “forget” to add a lead to the database – everything will be where it should be.
Example: A marketing agency using this automation to streamline lead capture
We’ve worked with many agencies who have implemented automations like this. One marketing agency owner completely automated her lead generation onboarding process – delegating the work of setting up new contacts completely – so that she can focus all of her time and attention to creating lead lists & closing clients.
Step-by-step guide
Here’s how to build an automation that creates a new Airtable record every time a form is submitted on your site:
- Setting up the form in a tool like Google Forms or Typeform
Create your form using a tool like Google Forms or Typeform, ensuring that you include all the necessary fields to capture the information you want to store in Airtable. Make sure to give your form fields clear and descriptive names, as this will make the mapping process in Zapier easier. - Creating a new Zap in Zapier
Log in to your Zapier account and click on the “Make a Zap!” button to start creating a new automation. This will guide you through the process of setting up your Zap step by step. - Selecting the form tool as the trigger app
In the trigger step of your Zap, search for and select the form tool you used to create your form (e.g., Google Forms or Typeform) as the app that will initiate the automation. Choose the specific trigger event, such as “New Response” or “New Entry,” depending on the form tool you’re using. - Choosing Airtable as the action app
In the action step of your Zap, search for and select “Airtable” as the app where you want to create new records based on the form submissions. Choose the “Create Record” action event to create a new record in your specified Airtable base for each new form submission. - Mapping form fields to Airtable fields
In this step, you’ll match the fields from your form to the corresponding fields in your Airtable base. Zapier will display the available fields from both apps, allowing you to create the necessary connections. For example, you can map the form’s “Name” field to the Airtable “Name” field, the form’s “Email” field to the Airtable “Email” field, and so on. - Testing and activating the Zap
Before activating your Zap, test it using real data to ensure that the Airtable records are created correctly. Submit a test entry through your form and let Zapier fetch the submission data. It will then attempt to create a new record in your Airtable base based on the mapped fields. If the test is successful, click “Turn on Zap” to activate your automation. From now on, whenever a new form submission is received, Zapier will automatically create a corresponding Airtable record with the submitted data.
2. Update Airtable records based on changes in Google Sheets
Syncing your Airtable and Google Sheets databases is a great way to keep using both applications, while keeping all your information up to date and preventing multiple copies of data. You can set up your automation to sync both ways, but today we will be focusing on updating Airtable automatically whenever a change is made to a specific Google Sheet.
How the automation works
It works like this: whenever a row is added, removed, or edited in the Google Sheet that we specify in our automation, a corresponding Airtable record will also be added, removed, or changed.
Why it’s useful
It’s very common for different teams or individuals to use different applications for storing data within the same company. Strategically this often gets in the way of cross-team collaboration, especially when advanced workflows built on years of data aren’t compatible with each other. With Zapier, this is an easy problem to solve. In ten minutes, you can set up a simple automation that keeps your databases synced at all times.
Example: A sales team using this automation to keep Airtable in sync with their Google Sheets CRM
It’s easy to imagine a hypothetical scenario where a sales team uses this automation to sync Airtable with other databases in their ecosystem. Let’s take a case where they’re using Google Sheets because it’s already set up to coexist with their CRM and with other teams. An automation like this would standardize data across teams while allowing them to use their apps of choice, so when a sales rep adds a new row or updates a cell in Airtable, it will get instantly updated in Google Sheets as well, and vice versa. Let’s get into how to set this automation up:
Step-by-step guide
Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough on how you can sync Airtable with Google Sheets in just thirty minutes:
- Setting up the Google Sheet
Ensure that your Google Sheet is properly formatted and contains all the necessary columns for your CRM data. This may include columns for lead information, contact details, deal stages, and any other relevant data points. - Creating a new Zap in Zapier
Log in to your Zapier account and click on the “Make a Zap!” button to start creating a new automation. This will take you through the step-by-step process of setting up your Zap. - Selecting Google Sheets as the trigger app
In the trigger step of your Zap, search for and select “Google Sheets” as the app that will initiate the automation. Choose the specific trigger event, such as “New Spreadsheet Row” or “Updated Spreadsheet Row,” depending on your requirements. - Choosing Airtable as the action app
In the action step of your Zap, search for and select “Airtable” as the app where you want to perform the desired action. Choose the specific action event, such as “Create Record” or “Update Record,” based on whether you want to add new records or update existing ones in your Airtable CRM. - Mapping Google Sheets columns to Airtable fields
In this step, you’ll match the columns from your Google Sheet to the corresponding fields in your Airtable CRM. Zapier will display the available fields from both apps, allowing you to create the necessary connections by clicking on the fields and selecting the appropriate columns. - Setting up filtering conditions (if needed)
If you want to add specific conditions to determine which rows from your Google Sheet should trigger the automation, set up filtering conditions in this step. For example, you may want to sync only rows where the “Deal Stage” column equals “Closed Won.” - Testing and activating the Zap
Before activating your Zap, test it using real data to ensure that the automation works as expected. Zapier will fetch a sample row from your Google Sheet and attempt to create or update a record in your Airtable CRM. If the test is successful, click “Turn on Zap” to activate your automation. From now on, whenever a new row is added or updated in your Google Sheet, the corresponding record will be automatically synced to your Airtable CRM.
3. Send automated email notifications for new or updated Airtable records
In many cases, it’s critical for one member of an organization to constantly be in the know about new entries that are added to a database. Sales leaders, for example, should know when a contact has reached a certain stage in the sales pipeline. There are many ways to set this up automatically with automations, but the most time tested is probably through email. Below, we’ll walk through how to set up an automation that sends an email notification whenever an Airtable record is added or updated.
How the automation works
Using Zapier as the “connector” app, we will set up an automation flow that triggers when an Airtable record is added or changed, after which Zapier will grab the information from that record and use it to craft an email to someone. The automation is simple yet powerful.
Example: A sales team using automated notifications to stay informed
Way back at my first job out of college, I built financial models for sales teams at one of the biggest corporate behemoths in the United States. Sales calls would often take upwards of two hours, and yet they were mostly filled with updates from low level sales reps on where clients were in the pipeline. Very long meetings like that took a toll on everyone, and tracking lead status was often chaotic.
One solution would have been for the sales reps to send reports to sales leaders ahead of the call, reducing the need for in-person updates. That would have forced the organization further into a “reporting” mindset, which in orgs of that size can often reduce productivity to a crawl and negatively impact performance. With an automation like this, the sales leaders on my team would have been able to have a clear and frequent updates delivered right to their inbox, without the need for reporting. Sales reps can focus on selling and organizing their database. It’s a win-win.
Step-by-step guide
Here’s how to set up this automation yourself:
- Setting up the Airtable view
Create a specific view in your Airtable base that contains the tasks you want to notify your team members about. Ensure that the view includes all the necessary fields, such as task name, assigned team member, due date, and any other relevant information. - Creating a new Zap in Zapier
Log in to your Zapier account and click on the “Make a Zap!” button to start creating a new automation. This will guide you through the process of setting up your Zap step by step. - Selecting Airtable as the trigger app
In the trigger step of your Zap, search for and select “Airtable” as the app that will initiate the automation. Choose the specific trigger event, such as “New Record” or “New Record in View,” depending on whether you want to trigger the automation for all new records or only those added to a specific view. - Choosing Email by Zapier as the action app
In the action step of your Zap, search for and select “Email by Zapier” as the app that will send the email notifications to your team members. This action app allows you to customize the email content and recipient list based on the data from your Airtable trigger. - Customizing the email template
Use the available fields from your Airtable trigger to create a personalized email template for your team members. You can include the task name, assigned team member, due date, and any other relevant details in the email subject and body. Zapier allows you to use dynamic content by inserting field names wrapped in curly braces (e.g.,{{Task Name}}). - Setting up filtering conditions (if needed)
If you want to send email notifications only for specific tasks based on certain criteria, set up filtering conditions in this step. For example, you may want to notify team members only when a task is marked as “High Priority” or when it’s assigned to a specific individual. - Testing and activating the Zap
Before activating your Zap, test it using real data to ensure that the email notifications are sent correctly. Zapier will fetch a sample record from your Airtable view and attempt to send an email to the specified recipient(s). If the test is successful, click “Turn on Zap” to activate your automation. From now on, whenever a new task is added to your Airtable view (and meets any specified filtering conditions), Zapier will automatically send an email notification to the assigned team member(s).
4. Create Trello cards from new Airtable records
Keeping your project management tools in sync can be a time-consuming and tedious task, especially when you’re working with multiple platforms like Airtable and Trello. Fortunately, by leveraging the power of automation, you can streamline your workflow and ensure that your Trello boards always stay up-to-date with the latest information from your Airtable bases. Below, I’ll walk you through the process of setting up a Zapier automation that automatically creates Trello cards based on new records added to your Airtable views, saving you time and effort while keeping your projects organized and on track.
How the automation works
Here’s how this works – we will set up an automation where Zapier is listening for changes to your Airtable database. When a record is added, Zapier will grab the information in that record and create a new and completely customized Trello card. It’s done, no editing necessary.
Why it’s useful
Similarly to our Airtable / Google Sheets automation from earlier, this one is all about keeping your tools synchronized all the time. Instead of adding new items to two, three, or more apps, you only need to add them to Airtable, and the changes will instantly propagate to all the other apps in your ecosystem. It saves you time, reduces entry errors, and keeps your workspace organized so that your team can focus on high-impact activities.
Example: A content team using this automation to manage their editorial calendar
Imagine a content team at a busy digital marketing agency using Airtable to plan and organize their editorial calendar. They store all the relevant details for each piece of content, such as the title, author, due date, and publication platform, in an Airtable base. To keep their content production process running smoothly, they use Trello to manage the various stages of content creation, from ideation to publication. By setting up a Zapier automation that creates Trello cards from new Airtable records, the team can automatically populate their Trello board with new content tasks whenever a new entry is added to their editorial calendar in Airtable. This saves them the time and effort of manually creating Trello cards for each new piece of content, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks and that everyone on the team stays informed and on track.
Step-by-step guide
- Setting up the Airtable view
Create a specific view in your Airtable base that contains the records you want to use for creating Trello cards. Ensure that the view includes all the necessary fields, such as a title for the Trello card, description, due date, and any other relevant information you want to include in the Trello card. - Creating a new Zap in Zapier
Log in to your Zapier account and click on the “Make a Zap!” button to start creating a new automation. This will guide you through the process of setting up your Zap step by step. - Selecting Airtable as the trigger app
In the trigger step of your Zap, search for and select “Airtable” as the app that will initiate the automation. Choose the specific trigger event, such as “New Record” or “New Record in View,” depending on whether you want to trigger the automation for all new records or only those added to a specific view. - Choosing Trello as the action app
In the action step of your Zap, search for and select “Trello” as the app where you want to create the cards. Choose the “Create Card” action event to create a new Trello card for each new record in your Airtable view. - Mapping Airtable fields to Trello card fields
In this step, you’ll match the fields from your Airtable record to the corresponding fields in your Trello card. Zapier will display the available fields from both apps, allowing you to create the necessary connections. For example, you can map the Airtable “Title” field to the Trello card “Name” field, the Airtable “Description” field to the Trello card “Description” field, and so on. - Setting up filtering conditions (if needed)
If you want to create Trello cards only for specific Airtable records based on certain criteria, set up filtering conditions in this step. For example, you may want to create cards only for records where the “Status” field equals “Ready for Development” or where the “Priority” field is set to “High.” - Testing and activating the Zap
Before activating your Zap, test it using real data to ensure that the Trello cards are created correctly. Zapier will fetch a sample record from your Airtable view and attempt to create a Trello card based on the mapped fields and any specified filtering conditions. If the test is successful, click “Turn on Zap” to activate your automation. From now on, whenever a new record is added to your Airtable view (and meets any specified filtering conditions), Zapier will automatically create a corresponding Trello card with the mapped information.
5. Backup Airtable records to a Google Sheet on a scheduled basis
Regularly backing up your Airtable data is crucial to ensure that you always have a secure copy of your important information. By automating the process of backing up your Airtable records to a Google Sheet on a scheduled basis, you can have peace of mind knowing that your data is protected and easily accessible whenever you need it.
How the automation works
This automation uses Zapier to connect your Airtable base with a Google Sheet, allowing you to automatically backup your Airtable records on a recurring schedule. You start by setting up a view in Airtable that contains the records you want to backup. Then, you create a Zap in Zapier that triggers on a schedule (e.g., daily or weekly) and fetches the records from your Airtable view. Finally, the Zap updates a designated Google Sheet with the fetched Airtable data, creating a backup of your records.
Why it’s useful
Automating your Airtable backups to Google Sheets ensures that you always have an up-to-date copy of your data, protecting you from potential data loss due to accidental deletions, system failures, or other unforeseen issues. Additionally, having your Airtable data in a Google Sheet makes it easier to share with others, perform analyses, or create visualizations using tools like Google Data Studio.
Example: A finance department using this automation for data backup and analysis
A finance department at a large company uses Airtable to track and manage their expenses, budgets, and financial projections. To ensure the safety and integrity of their financial data, they set up a Zapier automation that backs up their Airtable records to a Google Sheet every night. This automated backup process gives them peace of mind and allows them to easily share the financial data with other stakeholders in the company. Furthermore, having the data in a Google Sheet enables the finance team to perform more advanced analyses and create visualizations to better understand their company’s financial health and make data-driven decisions.
Step-by-step guide
- Setting up the Airtable view
Create a specific view in your Airtable base that contains the records you want to back up to a Google Sheet. Ensure that the view includes all the necessary fields you want to include in your backup. - Creating a new Zap in Zapier
Log in to your Zapier account and click on the “Make a Zap!” button to start creating a new automation. This will guide you through the process of setting up your Zap step by step. - Selecting Schedule by Zapier as the trigger app
In the trigger step of your Zap, search for and select “Schedule by Zapier” as the app that will initiate the automation on a recurring basis. Choose the frequency at which you want the backup to occur, such as daily, weekly, or monthly. - Choosing Airtable as the action app
In the first action step of your Zap, search for and select “Airtable” as the app from which you want to retrieve the records for backup. Choose the “Find Records” action event to fetch the records from your specified Airtable view. - Selecting “Find Records” action and setting up the view
Configure the “Find Records” action by selecting your Airtable base and the specific view you set up earlier. You can also add filtering conditions if needed to refine the records that will be backed up. - Adding a Google Sheets action to update a sheet with the Airtable data
In the second action step of your Zap, search for and select “Google Sheets” as the app where you want to back up your Airtable records. Choose the “Update Spreadsheet” action event to update an existing Google Sheet with the data from your Airtable view. Map the Airtable fields to the corresponding columns in your Google Sheet. - Testing and activating the Zap
Before activating your Zap, test it to ensure that the backup process works as expected. Zapier will retrieve records from your Airtable view and attempt to update your Google Sheet with the fetched data. If the test is successful, click “Turn on Zap” to activate your automation. From now on, your Zap will run on the specified schedule, fetching records from your Airtable view and updating your Google Sheet with the latest data, creating a recurring backup of your Airtable records.
Conclusion: Recap of the five automations
In this article, we explored five powerful automations that leverage the integration between Zapier and Airtable to streamline workflows and boost productivity. These automations included automatically creating Airtable records from new form submissions, updating Airtable records based on changes in Google Sheets, sending automated email notifications for new or updated Airtable records, creating Trello cards from new Airtable records, and backing up Airtable records to a Google Sheet on a scheduled basis. Each of these automations addresses common challenges faced by organizations and provides efficient solutions to save time and reduce manual effort.
The benefits of using Zapier to automate Airtable workflows
Zapier’s ability to connect Airtable with a wide range of other apps opens up countless possibilities for automating workflows and streamlining processes. By leveraging Zapier’s automation capabilities, organizations can eliminate manual data entry, ensure data consistency across multiple platforms, and enable real-time updates and notifications. Automating Airtable workflows with Zapier not only saves time and reduces errors but also allows teams to focus on higher-value tasks that contribute to business growth and success.
Tags: Airtable, Automation, zapier.