10/26/2021 – BuiltOnAir Live Podcast Full Show – S09-E07

Duration: 60 minutes

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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.

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.

Show Segments

Round The Bases – 00:02:31 –

Field Focus – 00:08:27 –

A deep dive into the Autonumbers Autonumber – Learn about autonumbers and how to fake them 

Automate Create – 00:29:34 –

Watch as we review and work through automations. Write an automation to generate autonumbers

Scripting Time – 00:42:13 –

Explore Scripting with “Scripting autonumbers”.

An advanced way to build auto numbers via a script.

Full Segment Details

Segment: Round The Bases

Start Time: 00:02:31

Roundup of what’s happening in the Airtable communities – Airtable, BuiltOnAir, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Segment: Field Focus

Start Time: 00:08:27

Learn about the Autonumbers – Learn about autonumbers and how to fake them

A deep dive into the Autonumbers Autonumber – Learn about autonumbers and how to fake them 

Segment: Automate Create

Start Time: 00:29:34

Airtable Automations – Autonumbers with Automations

Watch as we review and work through automations. Write an automation to generate autonumbers

Segment: Scripting Time

Start Time: 00:42:13

Scripting Time: Scripting autonumbers

Explore Scripting with “Scripting autonumbers”.

An advanced way to build auto numbers via a script.

Full Transcription

The full transcription for the show can be found here:

[00:01:42] Well, good morning everyone.
[00:01:44] Welcome to an interesting
[00:01:46] episode of BuiltOnAir.
[00:01:47] My name is Kamille
[00:01:48] and I'm joined by Alli.
[00:01:50] Hello.
[00:01:51] Unfortunately Dan won't be
[00:01:53] able to join us today.
[00:01:55] So I'll be running the show
[00:01:57] and boy will I be winging it. But
[00:02:01] we'll see how that goes.
[00:02:05] this is a webcast where
[00:02:07] we talk about all things Airtable,
[00:02:09] I don't have too many updates
[00:02:11] that I've selected, but,
[00:02:13] I have the update that
[00:02:15] is most near and dear to my heart.
[00:02:17] The infamous sandwich bet I believe has
[00:02:20] finally been settled
[00:02:21] and we can give a little bit of
[00:02:23] Airtable history if you will.
[00:02:26] Sure
[00:02:27] we're gonna start there.
[00:02:29] All right.
[00:02:31] So the scripting app,
[00:02:33] is this the sandwich bet? Yes. So
[00:02:36] This post was from February 25, 2021,
[00:02:41] but this isn't the first time that
[00:02:46] this sort of topic had come up.
[00:02:49] So essentially back in 2020 or late 2019,
[00:02:53] Airtable released the scripting app
[00:02:55] as well as the custom apps development
[00:02:57] environment, both of which
[00:02:59] had a disclaimer saying
[00:03:01] they are free for the next
[00:03:02] six months.
[00:03:03] Well those six months came
[00:03:05] and went and Airtable
[00:03:07] extended it and I believe they
[00:03:09] extended it again
[00:03:10] after that. And that's
[00:03:13] yeah, that's where we got
[00:03:15] to this point where
[00:03:16] someone on the forums ask,
[00:03:18] hey, is this,
[00:03:19] you know, is that real?
[00:03:21] And
[00:03:22] there was some discussion back and forth.
[00:03:25] I said, I don't believe they'll
[00:03:28] extended again
[00:03:29] and Bill says that he thought
[00:03:32] that they would.
[00:03:33] So Bill French is another
[00:03:35] frequent commenter on the forums,
[00:03:38] very knowledgeable about all things
[00:03:41] even beyond Airtable, database related.
[00:03:43] And so we had this sort of back
[00:03:46] and forth about whether
[00:03:48] or not this extension
[00:03:50] would come again.
[00:03:51] This is a very important
[00:03:52] sort of concept that's going on
[00:03:54] because scripting unlocked
[00:03:56] so many doors for so many people.
[00:03:58] It was
[00:03:59] sort of a game changer
[00:04:01] for a lot of people's base setups
[00:04:03] and so it was very
[00:04:04] important whether or not that
[00:04:06] remained a free feature
[00:04:08] versus a pro feature,
[00:04:09] Kuovonne jumped in.
[00:04:11] We eventually started a bet
[00:04:14] where Bill proposed that if
[00:04:16] they,
[00:04:18] you know, stop
[00:04:19] Extending it and making it free
[00:04:21] forever that I would owe him
[00:04:23] a sandwich and then
[00:04:24] the reverse, if they made
[00:04:26] it a pro feature,
[00:04:27] he would owe me a sandwich.
[00:04:28] That was February 25, 2021
[00:04:32] I think they extended it again after that
[00:04:37] there's a lot,
[00:04:38] I'm scrolling through,
[00:04:40] there's a lot happening.
[00:04:42] And then in August,
[00:04:44] 0
Jordan Scott who is the

90
00:03:06.1000 --> 00:03:09.340
new community sort of liaison
[00:04:49] from Airtable side came in
[00:04:51] and she recognized the bet,
[00:04:53] which I thought was very
[00:04:54] funny because this
[00:04:57] post had existed prior to her
[00:04:59] joining Airtable I think.
[00:05:00] So she was going back
[00:05:02] and reading all of like
[00:05:04] the
[00:05:05] the post with a lot of activity
[00:05:07] on them found this bet,
[00:05:08] and acknowledged it and
[00:05:09] said, well sorry, we couldn't settle it.
[00:05:12] This was August 2021 more time passes.
[00:05:18] Again now it's September 21
[00:05:21] that it's been extended to
[00:05:23] the end of August is it
[00:05:24] going to be extended again?
[00:05:27] And then Jordan comes back
[00:05:29] and says actually they've
[00:05:31] made it officially free for
[00:05:33] everyone that's both scripting
[00:05:35] and I believe the custom block
[00:05:38] A. P. I. So, everyone gets
[00:05:41] to use it for free now. Great news,
[00:05:44] it does mean that I lost the bet, so
[00:05:48] you gotta ship Bill a sandwich.
[00:05:51] Yeah, you know, bittersweet.
[00:05:55] I just thought that was a funny
[00:05:58] addendum that happened last week
[00:06:03] and it sort of encapsulated
[00:06:05] a it's a major announcement.
[00:06:06] I don't know how,
[00:06:08] you know,
[00:06:09] announced this was because
[00:06:11] this is a reply to a very old thread,
[00:06:13] I don't recall if this,
[00:06:15] there was a separate thread
[00:06:16] that went over this
[00:06:17] but you know,
[00:06:20] if you hadn't already heard
[00:06:22] here's your announcement
[00:06:24] that scripting is now free.
[00:06:26] I do believe the run a script
[00:06:29] action in an automation
[00:06:31] is still a pro feature.
[00:06:33] So there's three different things
[00:06:36] we're kind of talking about
[00:06:38] the custom apps, sdk
[00:06:39] if you haven't already used it,
[00:06:41] you might not use it.
[00:06:43] It's very, it's much more hands on,
[00:06:45] a little bit more complicated
[00:06:47] and requires a
[00:06:47] little bit more familiarity
[00:06:49] with javascript,
[00:06:51] but scripting a lot of people
[00:06:52] had used with the script app
[00:06:54] which lives in the
[00:06:55] apps sort of side bar
[00:06:57] and then the run a script action
[00:06:59] is something that exists
[00:07:01] within an automation and there
[00:07:02] are some differences between that and the
[00:07:04] scripting app.
[00:07:07] I believe that one is
[00:07:09] still a pro plan or higher.
[00:07:12] Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:07:14] I've never actually validated that but
[00:07:18] I mean we can test,
[00:07:20] it's the Wild West this episode
[00:07:22] we're actually going to
[00:07:24] be doing a lot of automation
[00:07:27] slash scripting
[00:07:28] sort of
[00:07:30] work here.
[00:07:33] I just wanted to go through that
[00:07:35] and that's more or less the end of this
[00:07:36] thread.
[00:07:37] But
[00:07:39] other than that I couldn't find
[00:07:43] too many sort of announcements or
[00:07:47] sort of major discussion threads
[00:07:50] that hadn't already been solved.
[00:07:53] There is,
[00:07:54] I did see this morning on Reddit,
[00:07:57] there is a new
[00:07:59] third party that allows you to
[00:08:03] query Airtable via SQL
[00:08:05] I'll see if I can pull
[00:08:07] that up but I don't
[00:08:09] have that link available.
[00:08:13] But other than that,
[00:08:16] what I was going to do with
[00:08:18] 0
this episode was going to

186
00:06:39.1000 --> 00:06:41.380
be sort of an overview
[00:08:21] of
[00:08:22] auto numbers and how to fake them.
[00:08:25] Let's do it.
[00:08:26] Okay. So I have,
[00:08:28] I've pulled aside this particular
[00:08:38] thread on the Airtable forums as
[00:08:39] it is a little bit older.
[00:08:42] It is essentially asking for
[00:08:48] Well let me back up.
[00:08:49] So Airtable has a field type
[00:08:52] called auto number and it
[00:08:54] does exactly what it says it does.
[00:08:56] If you have 10 records, it will number the
[00:08:58] first one one, the second one two,
[00:09:00] the third one three,
[00:09:02] all the way down to 10.
[00:09:03] If you were to delete any one
[00:09:06] of those 10 records and add another record
[00:09:09] after that the new record
[00:09:11] would be labeled 11.
[00:09:12] It wouldn't go back and find
[00:09:14] whichever one is missing
[00:09:15] and fill in that gap.
[00:09:16] there are some limitations
[00:09:18] to the auto number field.
[00:09:20] It does not allow you to
[00:09:21] have a prefix. So you can't say
[00:09:25] like the year, the current year-1-2-3 etc.
[00:09:29] And you can't really have auto numbers
[00:09:33] for different clients.
[00:09:35] So if you wanted to say
[00:09:37] job number one for client a,
[00:09:38] job number two for client A
[00:09:40] and then job number one
[00:09:42] for client B couldn't
[00:09:43] really do that with the auto number field.
[00:09:45] And so there's pros
[00:09:47] and cons to using it.
[00:09:49] But it's somewhat limited
[00:09:51] and so this is essentially
[00:09:53] what this user had run
[00:09:55] across. They wanted to have essentially
[00:09:59] an auto number that ran by
[00:10:02] whichever field whichever
[00:10:04] record a record in a
[00:10:06] second table was being into two.
[00:10:09] So I came up with a solution that uses
[00:10:17] links records which they had
[00:10:18] already had in place.
[00:10:20] They were linking clients to
[00:10:21] orders and then using roll ups
[00:10:24] and formulas and then
[00:10:26] a simple automation to
[00:10:29] sort of fake the appearance
[00:10:30] of an auto number.
[00:10:32] And so we're going to go over
[00:10:33] that solution in a second.
[00:10:35] So I have recreated essentially
[00:10:39] what that setup would be.
[00:10:41] I have a few clients
[00:10:44] and each of those clients
[00:10:46] is linked to an order. So you know
[00:10:50] what is the client name,
[00:10:52] and then I have a regular
[00:10:54] number field not an auto
[00:10:55] number. Just to sort of demonstrate.
[00:10:59] If I were to insert
[00:11:01] an auto number,
[00:11:04] you notice there's no settings
[00:11:06] that you can add and it will just 12345.
[00:11:09] Well I don't want jane doe
[00:11:10] to continue on from john doe
[00:11:12] two completely different
[00:11:14] numbering system that I want to do. So
[00:11:16] just to illustrate why that wasn't
[00:11:18] the best solution in this case.
[00:11:20] But you'll notice that my
[00:11:23] regular number field goes 1213.
[00:11:26] I deleted a record. That's why 134.
[00:11:31] That's this sort of behavior that I want.
[00:11:36] I have a look up field that's
[00:11:39] saying what is the next client order?
[00:11:41] If I go back to my client's field,
[00:11:44] you'll notice I have a roll up field
[00:11:47] that's asking what is the largest number
[00:11:50] that has been linked to
[00:11:52] this particular client.
[00:11:53] So in john doe's case that would
[00:11:55] be four
[00:11:57] This formula is literally just saying
[00:12:00] take that maximum order and add one to it.
[00:12:04] That's the next number in a linear list.
[00:12:08] Going back to my orders table.
[00:12:10] That's what you're seeing here.
[00:12:11] So that five is the next number.
[00:12:16] This was should remember was testing
[00:12:24] in an alternate solution to this,
[00:12:27] you don't really need it for this.
[00:12:29] But
[00:12:31] if I look at my simple automation,
[00:12:34] I mean close that down.
[00:12:36] So I have an automation
[00:12:38] for when record matches
[00:12:40] conditions. What I want to do is find
[00:12:43] records in my orders table where the
[00:12:46] client order number is blank
[00:12:49] and where client is not blank.
[00:12:52] So if I were to make
[00:12:54] a new record,
[00:12:56] hopefully nothing should happen. Yes.
[00:13:00] So I don't want this to start numbering
[00:13:02] until I've linked it to a client because
[00:13:04] it doesn't know what the
[00:13:06] next order number is yet. So
[00:13:08] Let's say let's do John because
[00:13:10] I know the next order number is five.
[00:13:14] If I give it a second.
[00:13:18] You'll notice a whole bunch
[00:13:19] of things are highlighted.
[00:13:21] But that's because all of
[00:13:22] those records happened to
[00:13:23] be linked as well.
[00:13:24] It found what the next client order
[00:13:26] was which was five, as we had said,
[00:13:28] put that number into this field
[00:13:32] done using the update record action step.
[00:13:36] We are updating the same record
[00:13:38] that we found with our trigger
[00:13:40] and we're inserting for the value
[00:13:42] in the client order number field.
[00:13:44] The value of the client next order field.
[00:13:48] So because all of these records
[00:13:51] are linked together
[00:13:52] using regular Airtable sort
[00:13:54] of functionality.
[00:13:56] The formula and the roll up
[00:13:58] and look up fields are all
[00:14:01] updating themselves.
[00:14:02] So they know that the next
[00:14:04] order number is now six.
[00:14:06] So if I were to keep going
[00:14:09] And do John Doe again this would be six.
[00:14:14] I love it. And then all the other
[00:14:16] ones turn to seven.
[00:14:18] So if I am just going to
[00:14:19] group by clients of things
[00:14:21] you can see this a little bit better.
[00:14:25] If I do
[00:14:26] one for jane doe you'll see
[00:14:29] that she gets it too
[00:14:31] and it's completely separate
[00:14:33] from john doe's numbering system.
[00:14:36] Recently this week
[00:14:38] someone had found that
[00:14:40] older post was from around July
[00:14:43] when I had presented this solution
[00:14:47] and they discovered I'm going to turn this
[00:14:50] off really quickly.
[00:14:55] They discovered if you were
[00:14:58] to go in and duplicate a record,
[00:15:01] it comes in with the value
[00:15:03] of client order number already filled in.
[00:15:06] Well that means that my trigger
[00:15:09] for this automation
[00:15:10] won't fire for that record.
[00:15:13] It's looking for when client
[00:15:15] order is empty, which it isn't.
[00:15:17] So the solution there would
[00:15:19] be either to once I've
[00:15:21] duplicated the record to
[00:15:23] delete that value
[00:15:24] and then give it a second.
[00:15:26] and now it will do it
[00:15:29] but that's annoying.
[00:15:30] And sometimes you might forget.
[00:15:32] So my solution there
[00:15:34] was you can only do this for pro
[00:15:37] and enterprise bases
[00:15:38] but if you go into edit
[00:15:40] field permissions
[00:15:42] and set this to nobody
[00:15:44] and then turn on,
[00:15:45] allow this field to be modified by
[00:15:48] automations.
[00:15:49] Now if I duplicate this jane doe record,
[00:15:55] wow, it doesn't come in
[00:15:57] with a client order number.
[00:16:00] So there's actually no change
[00:16:02] that you need to make
[00:16:03] to your formula field,
[00:16:04] your roll ups, your lookups
[00:16:06] or your automation,
[00:16:07] all you have to do is change the
[00:16:09] permission level for the
[00:16:11] client order number field
[00:16:13] and there's pros and cons to that.
[00:16:15] Remember that an auto number,
[00:16:17] an actual auto number field
[00:16:19] is calculated,
[00:16:19] meaning you couldn't edit that field
[00:16:21] anyway. So if you think of it like
[00:16:23] that you're not losing functionality
[00:16:25] but it does make this a little
[00:16:27] bit less flexible because
[00:16:29] if you wanted to go
[00:16:30] back and renumber a whole bunch
[00:16:32] of old records,
[00:16:33] you would have to remember to
[00:16:34] turn
[00:16:35] the field permissions back on
[00:16:37] so you can do all of that
[00:16:38] and then turn them back
[00:16:39] off so that you can continue
[00:16:41] with this functionality
[00:16:42] but it is possible.
[00:16:44] That's so interesting I guess I never
[00:16:47] like thought about how if you
[00:16:49] do it like... I can't talk, to the field
[00:16:51] permissions. Like I didn't realize
[00:16:53] that duplicating it
[00:16:55] would actually blank that
[00:16:56] value out. Like
[00:16:58] yep, I didn't think of it first either,
[00:17:01] which is why should read number is a
[00:17:03] field. So what I was trying to do
[00:17:05] was to answer that
[00:17:07] second person's question,
[00:17:08] what do you do if you
[00:17:10] duplicated record
[00:17:11] and it comes and filled.
[00:17:12] So I had started to build this
[00:17:14] formula saying okay well if
[00:17:18] if the field is blank,
[00:17:20] if the client order number
[00:17:22] is blank or if the order
[00:17:24] number equals the next client order equal
[00:17:28] output. Yes otherwise output no, but that
[00:17:31] that's not
[00:17:32] accurate. Like I couldn't get this portion
[00:17:36] of the formula to say
[00:17:37] what I wanted to say.
[00:17:39] What I was trying to say was if
[00:17:41] this is six and this is also six
[00:17:44] which is very difficult
[00:17:46] to do with a formula
[00:17:48] without several roll ups or look ups
[00:17:53] aiding you
[00:17:54] so we this field is not helpful.
[00:17:58] I am glad I eventually remembered
[00:18:01] that field permissions, they're useful.
[00:18:04] Yeah
[00:18:05] it's so interesting though, I've
[00:18:08] struggled with trying to use
[00:18:10] the nobody option in
[00:18:12] field permissions because even
[00:18:14] when you say allow this field
[00:18:15] to be modified by automation
[00:18:17] and maybe this has
[00:18:17] been fixed but
[00:18:19] I've run into scripting errors
[00:18:20] where I've had an automated
[00:18:22] script trying to edit
[00:18:23] that field value
[00:18:24] and it gives an error
[00:18:25] and says insufficient permissions but
[00:18:27] it's literally a toggle right there.
[00:18:31] Yeah, so I can see that.
[00:18:33] I don't know if that's been fixed.
[00:18:36] I think it certainly
[00:18:38] should be because it is
[00:18:40] it's not not an automation.
[00:18:42] I get that it's a script
[00:18:43] but it is within an
[00:18:44] automation. So one should assume
[00:18:49] I wonder if you output
[00:18:51] the value in the script,
[00:18:53] you know like an output.set
[00:18:55] then used that to update
[00:18:57] the field. Maybe that would work.
[00:18:59] It
[00:19:01] it should because this is this is a
[00:19:06] this is a regular update,
[00:19:08] record action steps.
[00:19:09] So if instead of using from the
[00:19:11] trigger like we're doing here,
[00:19:13] if we had a step before
[00:19:14] this which was a run a
[00:19:14] script action
[00:19:16] it should be able to pull
[00:19:18] that in as the value
[00:19:20] that it's being updated.
[00:19:22] And while I'm in here
[00:19:24] I might as well test, wait
[00:19:29] what workspace is this on
[00:19:30] because I'm testing whether
[00:19:32] or not run a script is
[00:19:35] is
[00:19:38] a pro feature? Yeah pro feature so
[00:19:42] no okay, it's on temporary pro
[00:19:45] so that tells us nothing
[00:19:48] I have for everyone's
[00:19:52] Yeah that you can see behind the curtain.
[00:19:54] I have a whole workspace devoted to
[00:19:56] answering questions
[00:19:57] that I find other forums
[00:19:58] I should do that.
[00:20:00] It's better to just keep them separate.
[00:20:05] Oh my goodness,
[00:20:06] I've learned that the hard way
[00:20:08] and my workspace is just like
[00:20:10] so long just going and
[00:20:12] going and going and going
[00:20:13] and I've tried to like put in
[00:20:15] parentheses like example base.
[00:20:17] So that way I know
[00:20:18] not to delete it but like
[00:20:19] I accidentally deleted one base
[00:20:21] that I had put a link to
[00:20:23] on the forum like years
[00:20:24] ago and then I started getting everybody
[00:20:26] commenting like this space doesn't work
[00:20:28] anymore. And so I had to rebuild it,
[00:20:30] put a new one and I was like,
[00:20:31] oh no I've started to
[00:20:34] my strategy has changed, you
[00:20:39] way back, I used to build the whole base
[00:20:42] and then just share that base.
[00:20:43] So people could copy the configuration
[00:20:46] but that means you do have to keep that
[00:20:48] base forever because the person
[00:20:51] who you're directly
[00:20:53] replying to will copy it
[00:20:55] like that day or the next day
[00:20:57] when they see the
[00:20:59] someone has commented.
[00:21:00] but anyone who finds that
[00:21:02] post afterward is going to
[00:21:03] you know,
[00:21:05] look to see if they can do the same,
[00:21:07] answer a very similar question and if it's
[00:21:09] not there, then you kind of
[00:21:11] might get roped back into
[00:21:14] that very old question by
[00:21:16] then you've probably forgotten
[00:21:18] what the setup was
[00:21:19] if you deleted the base.
[00:21:21] And so what I've done
[00:21:22] I've started doing now is set up
[00:21:24] bases to test things out
[00:21:26] and then just screenshot with the
[00:21:30] what the configuration
[00:21:31] is so that I can delete the base
[00:21:33] when I feel like I don't
[00:21:34] need it anymore.
[00:21:35] But the answer is still
[00:21:36] there for everyone to see.
[00:21:38] Perfect.
[00:21:40] Yeah,
[00:21:41] I am now within a base
[00:21:43] that is currently on a free plan
[00:21:46] or free workspace and
[00:21:47] run a script is not available. So
[00:21:50] to answer the
[00:21:52] earlier question I had
[00:21:54] run a script is still a pro feature
[00:21:57] and I believe that
[00:21:58] was always the case.
[00:22:00] It was introduced separately
[00:22:02] from the script
[00:22:03] app and the custom apps
[00:22:05] sdk because automations
[00:22:07] didn't exist yet and when
[00:22:09] run a script was introduced
[00:22:11] it was always a pro feature
[00:22:13] so that hasn't changed.
[00:22:15] Excellent.
[00:22:17] Yeah.
[00:22:19] What was I gonna say?
[00:22:20] There's one thing I really
[00:22:22] wish that they would release
[00:22:23] and that is the option to
[00:22:25] run an automation
[00:22:27] based on a button being pushed
[00:22:29] without having to run a script.
[00:22:31] Like
[00:22:33] my workaround is like you hit
[00:22:35] the button it runs a script
[00:22:36] and the app like a
[00:22:37] scripting app to check
[00:22:38] which then couldn't
[00:22:40] start the automation.
[00:22:42] Yeah if we take a look at what are
[00:22:46] triggers are, our Airtable based triggers
[00:22:50] none of them really get
[00:22:53] what you want.
[00:22:54] So when record matches the condition
[00:22:57] will a button by itself
[00:22:59] doesn't change the conditions
[00:23:02] of the record. So you would be
[00:23:05] clicking the button and the button
[00:23:07] would fire a script and that script would
[00:23:09] check a checkbox or something.
[00:23:13] Or when form is submitted
[00:23:15] that's not really a button
[00:23:16] pressed when record is
[00:23:17] created obviously isn't
[00:23:19] when record is updated.
[00:23:21] That's kind of the same problem
[00:23:22] with when record matches
[00:23:24] the conditions pressing the button
[00:23:26] alone does not update
[00:23:27] the record at scheduled
[00:23:28] time is not even connected
[00:23:30] to any particular record.
[00:23:32] So that's even worse in
[00:23:34] this in this case
[00:23:35] and when record enters
[00:23:36] the view again there's no change to the
[00:23:38] actual
[00:23:41] conditions of the
[00:23:44] record itself. So
[00:23:46] I mean you could do
[00:23:49] this instead of having,
[00:23:56] you make a button field
[00:23:58] and just do that for the
[00:24:00] formula you could have
[00:24:03] you know the button
[00:24:04] you click the button and it
[00:24:05] runs the script and it does
[00:24:06] something like check a
[00:24:08] checkbox or you could fire the
[00:24:10] you could fire something else,
[00:24:13] send something to a web hook or do
[00:24:18] so you have a you have a lot
[00:24:19] more control if you do
[00:24:21] actually use a button field,
[00:24:22] if you
[00:24:24] run, you know,
[00:24:25] have this automation be triggered when
[00:24:28] the done field equals
[00:24:31] check,
[00:24:32] you could do that, just you lose out on
[00:24:37] a couple of things.
[00:24:39] It's a lot easier to accidentally
[00:24:41] fire if you use an actual
[00:24:42] checkbox field. I know,
[00:24:44] I stopped doing that
[00:24:45] actually, I use a single select that only
[00:24:47] has one option.
[00:24:48] Yeah, that's actually,
[00:24:49] you know that I would say that's better
[00:24:51] because I was about to say you
[00:24:53] also lose, you could change
[00:24:55] this label to say
[00:24:55] like
[00:24:56] fire automation or some descriptive text.
[00:25:00] You would be able
[00:25:02] to get that same sort of vibe
[00:25:04] if you were to do
[00:25:05] a single select
[00:25:12] run automation. Exactly.
[00:25:15] And then you would just do that.
[00:25:17] It's much more purposeful. Right.
[00:25:19] Yeah. And way less likely
[00:25:21] to accidentally fire.
[00:25:23] Yes, I've had that happen a few
[00:25:25] times recently with just other clients and
[00:25:28] I mean like how did this get sent?
[00:25:30] And it's like, oh well somebody check the
[00:25:32] box, so we should not
[00:25:34] have a checkbox anymore.
[00:25:36] I mean ideally not. But
[00:25:39] so that's that's sort of the
[00:25:42] general overview of how you could use
[00:25:46] A one step automation
[00:25:49] that's only looking at the single record
[00:25:55] to sort of fake your own
[00:25:58] custom auto number.
[00:26:00] And one more time just to
[00:26:02] demonstrate if I delete two
[00:26:05] the next number is still four
[00:26:06] because it's looking at the maximum
[00:26:08] if I were to do this again,
[00:26:10] It should output four and
[00:26:12] then this should change to five.
[00:26:15] So you have all the same
[00:26:16] functionality that you would
[00:26:18] have had with auto number.
[00:26:19] But now custom for each
[00:26:21] client or whichever you're
[00:26:23] linked record field is
[00:26:25] yeah this is a really great work around.
[00:26:30] I used it in my like wedding base.
[00:26:32] I was trying to get really
[00:26:34] nerdy and number
[00:26:34] like ideas that I had.
[00:26:36] So every time I add a
[00:26:37] regular topic would be like idea
[00:26:39] 1234 Blah Blah Blah.
[00:26:42] But it was funny at first I
[00:26:43] did it in a really silly way.
[00:26:45] I did it with the
[00:26:45] count field.
[00:26:46] It was thinking that way
[00:26:48] because that would that would definitely
[00:26:50] screwed things up.
[00:26:52] So it's like if you just demonstrated
[00:26:54] if you were to delete a
[00:26:55] record
[00:26:57] then you would end up
[00:26:58] with two number threes. Like
[00:27:00] for example.
[00:27:01] Insert
[00:27:03] count. So
[00:27:06] we're talking about
[00:27:08] orders.
[00:27:11] Yeah so here's that difference.
[00:27:14] So we have
[00:27:16] 1,3 and 4.
[00:27:17] So the maximum order is four,
[00:27:19] meaning the next order should be five,
[00:27:22] but there's only three that are linked.
[00:27:25] So if we were to have this next order
[00:27:28] number be if I change this my automation
[00:27:31] I think might, no it won't actually
[00:27:33] because no. All right,
[00:27:36] I'll just change it back before,
[00:27:38] so if I change this to
[00:27:39] count plus one,
[00:27:41] the next order number is four for jane,
[00:27:44] even though four is already here.
[00:27:47] So that's you know, a sort of gotcha.
[00:27:49] Yeah, that's the way you don't want to do
[00:27:52] it
[00:27:53] go with Kamille's first version.
[00:27:56] I mean it took me a second
[00:27:58] to sort of figure
[00:27:59] this out because I think that's
[00:28:01] not the first time someone
[00:28:02] has asked that on the
[00:28:02] forum, it's not
[00:28:05] necessarily the easy thing
[00:28:07] to just come up with.
[00:28:09] But you know, also while we're here,
[00:28:11] before we move on to the advanced version,
[00:28:14] you'll notice I have a third client
[00:28:16] called Mark Smith. And you know,
[00:28:17] because he's linked to nothing,
[00:28:20] his his maximum order is zero
[00:28:22] because there's nothing attached to it.
[00:28:24] So zero plus one is one.
[00:28:26] So just so you know,
[00:28:28] you don't, when you start with
[00:28:29] this method it works from the get go.
[00:28:32] Right.
[00:28:32] Exactly.
[00:28:34] Excellent. Super useful.
[00:28:36] I think it was a Justin
[00:28:40] Justin Barrett friend of the show. Yes,
[00:28:43] he came up with like a way
[00:28:45] to do it before automations existed
[00:28:48] and it was like absolute insanity.
[00:28:51] Just like
[00:28:51] genius way.
[00:28:52] Like it was literally like just with
[00:28:55] lookups roll ups and I can't
[00:28:56] even it was like a substitute function
[00:28:58] to substitute all the numbers before.
[00:29:00] It's up now. And like oh my God,
[00:29:02] it was like wow,
[00:29:04] that was really cool. I
[00:29:08] I never figured that one out.
[00:29:11] It worked, but you know,
[00:29:13] today is a today is an
[00:29:15] automation themed today,
[00:29:19] so that's the simple way to do stuff.
[00:29:21] Yes.
[00:29:24] here I have a base that
[00:29:26] I've called auto test where I just,
[00:29:29] anytime someone asks
[00:29:30] an automation based question,
[00:29:33] I will put it in here
[00:29:36] and sort of test things out.
[00:29:38] But the purpose of this
[00:29:41] if you were to read the names
[00:29:44] of some of my automation tests,
[00:29:47] there's more complicated ways
[00:29:49] to auto number records.
[00:29:51] These however involve
[00:29:53] scripts. So
[00:29:58] the best way to do it,
[00:29:59] I think it's just to jump
[00:30:01] into the automation itself,
[00:30:02] so
[00:30:05] this one requires a different
[00:30:09] trigger doesn't require
[00:30:10] different trigger,
[00:30:11] just uses a different one.
[00:30:12] This one is simply
[00:30:13] when a new record is created
[00:30:16] and then there's a script,
[00:30:18] so instead of going straight to
[00:30:23] going straight to an update record,
[00:30:25] there's a script that runs before it.
[00:30:30] So I have a
[00:30:35] A field in table one
[00:30:38] that is the year week, so 2020,
[00:30:42] You can see right here, 2020-42.
[00:30:45] So the 42nd week of the year,
[00:30:47] 2020, what this script is attempting
[00:30:50] to do is to find all of the records that
[00:30:54] were produced that week
[00:30:56] and then number them like that.
[00:30:58] So the advantages here
[00:31:00] is
[00:31:00] I don't have to link them
[00:31:02] to a table full of week numbers.
[00:31:05] which is what a simple solution required,
[00:31:08] it required you to have records
[00:31:10] linked together so you could get
[00:31:12] a roll up of the maximum
[00:31:14] of the numbers that
[00:31:15] have been counted thus far
[00:31:16] and adding one to that maximum, yada,
[00:31:18] yada yada.
[00:31:19] This one, nothing is linked to anything.
[00:31:22] I'm just doing some sort of
[00:31:24] an auto number based on
[00:31:26] meta. You can do this by the year
[00:31:29] something was produced.
[00:31:30] You don't have to get
[00:31:31] down to the week if you didn't want to.
[00:31:34] In this example it's a year and week.
[00:31:38] So a fairly simple script, only 12 lines.
[00:31:43] You start off with getting
[00:31:45] the input config
[00:31:46] I have just one config variable
[00:31:48] which is the year week.
[00:31:52] The reason why this is able to come in
[00:31:54] if you recall the trigger was when
[00:31:56] record was created.
[00:31:58] This is a formula field.
[00:32:00] So that value would have
[00:32:02] been there at creation
[00:32:03] and it's doing it based on date created.
[00:32:06] So there's no real input
[00:32:08] anyone has to do for this.
[00:32:12] I'm getting the table that the
[00:32:14] record has come from.
[00:32:16] I'm querying all the
[00:32:17] records. We've talked about this
[00:32:19] before on the show.
[00:32:20] We have a strikethrough
[00:32:21] across select records a sync
[00:32:24] because they've depreciated
[00:32:26] calling this function
[00:32:28] without also specifying which
[00:32:31] fields you wanted to look at.
[00:32:34] This script was written before
[00:32:36] that change had been made.
[00:32:39] That is interesting. I actually,
[00:32:42] I don't think I was here when
[00:32:44] I think you were on honeymoon
[00:32:46] while you were on
[00:32:46] your honeymoon,
[00:32:47] they depreciated that function.
[00:32:49] It's still, I think it's still
[00:32:51] kind of works, but you will get like a,
[00:32:55] you know, the script editor
[00:32:57] doesn't like it, so
[00:33:00] that's so interesting.
[00:33:01] I just ran into this yesterday, I was
[00:33:03] I had somebody write to me
[00:33:05] and they were like,
[00:33:06] hey this script keeps timing out
[00:33:07] and my browser keeps refreshing
[00:33:08] and I was like weird, I'm seeing the same
[00:33:10] behavior
[00:33:12] and that's how I fixed it
[00:33:13] was I to find like a
[00:33:15] definitive list of all the fields I needed
[00:33:18] and then it ran. No problem,
[00:33:20] but I am behind the times
[00:33:23] and was not aware that
[00:33:24] they had depreciated it.
[00:33:26] So that is really good to know.
[00:33:29] Well folks,
[00:33:29] you heard it here,
[00:33:31] they've depreciated that
[00:33:33] function with that.
[00:33:35] So you, you saw me type in
[00:33:37] the select records
[00:33:39] a sync accepts an object.
[00:33:42] So for either fields or sort as
[00:33:44] key values. So
[00:33:47] I typed in an object with the key
[00:33:50] of fields and fields
[00:33:51] accepts an array of field
[00:33:53] names or IDs. So I know I'm only
[00:33:56] looking at the year weak field.
[00:34:00] So that's the only one I passed in.
[00:34:03] So now you no longer
[00:34:05] see the strikethrough. Going through,
[00:34:08] I am querying all of the records
[00:34:11] and I'm just trying to find
[00:34:15] how many records
[00:34:17] Have the same year, week as this one.
[00:34:21] So
[00:34:23] that means
[00:34:26] the at some point
[00:34:28] when it's clearing through
[00:34:30] all of the records,
[00:34:31] it's going to get to the same
[00:34:37] it's going to get to the same
[00:34:39] record that triggered this script,
[00:34:40] so no matter what,
[00:34:42] you're not going to end up with zero,
[00:34:44] at least one record has the same
[00:34:47] year week and that one record
[00:34:49] is the record that fired the script. So
[00:34:52] yeah,
[00:34:54] I have accounted for that error. Yes.
[00:34:57] it's going to return the number
[00:35:01] of records that matched,
[00:35:04] so at least one or
[00:35:05] some greater number of records.
[00:35:08] And then I'm out putting that
[00:35:10] number of records as the position.
[00:35:12] So we had talked about in our
[00:35:15] simple example,
[00:35:16] the difference between using count
[00:35:18] and maximum
[00:35:20] this in this, what the script is doing is
[00:35:23] using the count method and not maximum
[00:35:25] you could edit the script to be,
[00:35:28] to use the reduced function
[00:35:31] to find the maximum
[00:35:33] of every
[00:35:39] of every auto number faked auto
[00:35:41] number that is found.
[00:35:43] This would require some
[00:35:44] adjustments to what the script is doing.
[00:35:46] Right. But just to relate it back to the
[00:35:48] other example,
[00:35:50] it's basically following this method
[00:35:53] out putting the number of records
[00:35:55] that have the same year, week
[00:36:00] and then the next step is
[00:36:03] to simply update that original record,
[00:36:05] you could update the record
[00:36:08] from within the script itself.
[00:36:10] I separated them
[00:36:12] out because,
[00:36:14] and I wanted to keep the original
[00:36:16] script sort of clean and simple.
[00:36:17] And for explanation purposes
[00:36:20] I think it's easier to see
[00:36:24] each constituent part of
[00:36:26] a solution of a solution by itself.
[00:36:29] So the actual updating
[00:36:31] of the record,
[00:36:32] we're taking the record ID from whichever
[00:36:34] one file fired the automation
[00:36:37] and I'm building a custom auto number
[00:36:41] as opposed to doing this with
[00:36:43] a two separate fields
[00:36:44] and a formula to concatenate
[00:36:45] things together. I'm taking the
[00:36:49] original year week that it came in on.
[00:36:52] Let me see if I could scroll
[00:36:54] and find where that is.
[00:36:56] Yeah, we're looking at
[00:36:57] we're looking at these
[00:37:00] at these two fields the year week
[00:37:03] and then
[00:37:05] the auto number
[00:37:07] and then space dash space
[00:37:09] the position from the scripts.
[00:37:11] You can see it's coming
[00:37:12] from the second step
[00:37:13] which would have been
[00:37:14] the run the script action.
[00:37:15] So I think this is on,
[00:37:18] who knows if I run this,
[00:37:20] will it work? I hope.
[00:37:23] Love it.
[00:37:25] I might have to I remember
[00:37:27] seeing update thing.
[00:37:29] Yeah, I might have to do this.
[00:37:36] Okay. One of my automation
[00:37:38] but it's doing the other,
[00:37:41] I've done two separate automations that
[00:37:43] it's doing at the same time. So
[00:37:47] Okay there.
[00:37:48] Perfect. That's a fun experiment.
[00:37:51] There's two like I
[00:37:53] showed the start there's
[00:37:54] two different auto number,
[00:37:57] script based things
[00:37:59] that I have going in this table
[00:38:01] output into different fields
[00:38:04] and I forgot that they were both on
[00:38:07] so it auto numbered it
[00:38:08] using this method first
[00:38:10] and then the 2nd one
[00:38:11] which I was actually waiting for
[00:38:13] love it.
[00:38:14] So if I were to keep,
[00:38:16] let me change my group to be
[00:38:21] by year week.
[00:38:25] So
[00:38:27] because it's a
[00:38:29] because it's a calculated field,
[00:38:31] I can't just create a new one
[00:38:34] within that group. So
[00:38:36] going down here to create
[00:38:38] a new record there, you can see it's
[00:38:42] auto numbering by the week
[00:38:44] itself without having to link
[00:38:47] to some other record in
[00:38:48] order to come up with the maximum.
[00:38:53] Yeah, that's awesome.
[00:38:54] And it looks like the
[00:38:56] other one you're doing is
[00:38:58] like making sure you're setting it to a
[00:39:02] like consistent length,
[00:39:03] so you've got the least zeros
[00:39:06] which I do that a lot.
[00:39:07] I really like to have everything like
[00:39:10] perfectly like I think it's so
[00:39:12] much easier to read.
[00:39:13] Yeah, I think for a lot of
[00:39:14] people, they are going to
[00:39:16] want to follow a similar sort of
[00:39:22] process for leading zeros
[00:39:25] for this type of auto numbering.
[00:39:28] So I've seen this particular format
[00:39:31] a lot just like the year dash and then
[00:39:34] you might have
[00:39:35] 1000 jobs in the year,
[00:39:37] so you might want four
[00:39:38] digits instead of three.
[00:39:39] Like I have at the end.
[00:39:41] But it's sort of keep it
[00:39:43] makes things just easier to read
[00:39:45] in this case, you know,
[00:39:48] a year is always four
[00:39:50] characters. And then the year
[00:39:52] week is also always two characters.
[00:39:55] So this is going to be consistent.
[00:39:59] Oh no it's not because
[00:40:00] the first few weeks I think,
[00:40:02] but you can change that
[00:40:03] within
[00:40:04] how you've done this.
[00:40:06] I've done week number
[00:40:08] if you want to force leading zeros
[00:40:10] this is outputted as a string anyway
[00:40:12] because there's spaces and dashes.
[00:40:14] You could do something like
[00:40:20] this
[00:40:24] two and then do
[00:40:30] and
[00:40:31] I think
[00:40:33] that's not right.
[00:40:35] 00. Yeah
[00:40:39] 00 and the actual week number
[00:40:42] and then get the right
[00:40:44] most two characters from
[00:40:46] that to get you.
[00:40:49] Yeah the exact same position
[00:40:50] because all of these had two characters.
[00:40:52] And I can't
[00:40:54] none of these were done in January.
[00:40:58] So I don't know,
[00:40:59] I can't
[00:41:00] demonstrate that that worked.
[00:41:03] But sure. You can't time travel.
[00:41:05] Yeah,
[00:41:05] I like that method too
[00:41:07] using the right function.
[00:41:09] Somebody had posted that
[00:41:11] recently because I posted
[00:41:13] something using
[00:41:14] I like doing it with the repeat.
[00:41:16] But I feel like that's
[00:41:18] what you just did is so much cleaner like
[00:41:22] way less characters to type.
[00:41:24] Well it really depends
[00:41:26] on the format you want this
[00:41:28] auto number to take,
[00:41:29] to take the form of.
[00:41:31] So if you wanted a great many number
[00:41:33] of leading zeros,
[00:41:34] I would have done repeat.
[00:41:35] Yeah, if you have like 10,
[00:41:37] well it's Airtable so you're
[00:41:39] going to run out of
[00:41:40] Space in your in your base very quickly.
[00:41:42] 10,000 records a year.
[00:41:45] But like if you had
[00:41:46] 10,000 records a year,
[00:41:48] you would want that many
[00:41:50] number of
[00:41:53] leading zeros at the start
[00:41:56] to make sure that it comes
[00:41:58] out as a consistent length.
[00:42:01] Exactly. So repeat would come in handy.
[00:42:05] So that's that's advanced
[00:42:07] automation number one.
[00:42:11] I have two more I think
[00:42:12] I just want to do auto number
[00:42:14] by groups because this one
[00:42:15] is harder to explain.
[00:42:18] Perfect.
[00:42:23] and I've changed things so
[00:42:28] let's see.
[00:42:29] Yeah,
[00:42:31] okay, I'm trying to remember the precise
[00:42:36] set up for
[00:42:41] for this automation
[00:42:42] and I've gone around
[00:42:44] and changed how all of my groupings
[00:42:46] have been made. But
[00:42:49] in this we're currently looking at,
[00:42:53] we have a table that is grouped
[00:42:56] by two different fields
[00:42:59] linked to table two
[00:43:01] and then grouped again by check.
[00:43:05] So if I go into my
[00:43:07] auto number by groups table
[00:43:12] it consists of a single
[00:43:14] action step after the trigger
[00:43:19] and you'll see that it's
[00:43:20] much longer but not
[00:43:22] too long.
[00:43:24] Right.
[00:43:25] So it actually has no input variables.
[00:43:28] It's going all based on
[00:43:33] You know, everything is happening
[00:43:35] within this script, so it's not using
[00:43:38] a trailing update record action step.
[00:43:40] Everything is happening within the script
[00:43:42] because I need to actually update
[00:43:45] multiple records at once.
[00:43:47] What this script is
[00:43:48] doing
[00:43:49] is
[00:43:51] asking first what is the
[00:43:53] table that we're looking at
[00:43:55] and a particular view,
[00:43:57] you don't have to include
[00:43:59] a view necessarily If you
[00:44:01] wanted to renumber everything
[00:44:03] within the table at once,
[00:44:04] you could or if you want
[00:44:05] to do a select number within
[00:44:07] a particular grit,
[00:44:09] particular view you could.
[00:44:11] It's querying all those
[00:44:13] records from the chosen view.
[00:44:15] I have a variable I've called group path.
[00:44:19] So it is an array of in my case two
[00:44:22] fields link and check,
[00:44:26] going back this is going to
[00:44:28] become obnoxious very quickly
[00:44:30] exiting in and out
[00:44:31] of this automation,
[00:44:32] but if we go back to this grid view
[00:44:35] I've changed the name
[00:44:36] of the field,
[00:44:37] it used to just be called link.
[00:44:40] linked to table two and
[00:44:42] check.
[00:44:43] So that's what it's referencing. So
[00:44:51] I'll just do that. So it's clear
[00:44:54] Group path. So
[00:44:56] in scripting and custom apps
[00:44:59] we can't we don't really
[00:45:01] have access to what
[00:45:02] field a view is being grouped by.
[00:45:05] That's not something
[00:45:08] that's exposed via
[00:45:09] the api it's just something
[00:45:11] that's visually there
[00:45:12] when you're looking at
[00:45:14] something within Airtable,
[00:45:16] which is why I've had to construct this.
[00:45:18] So you have to know what if you wanted
[00:45:21] to include a similar functionality
[00:45:23] in your base,
[00:45:24] you would have to know what the
[00:45:28] table is being grouped by.
[00:45:30] I know it's grouped first
[00:45:32] by linked to table two,
[00:45:33] which is why that's the first
[00:45:35] item in the array
[00:45:36] and the second field
[00:45:37] is being grouped by this check.
[00:45:41] then I have, this is more complicated
[00:45:44] than I remember I have ranked by main
[00:45:47] points. And then rank field name rank.
[00:45:50] So what it's doing essentially
[00:45:53] is looking at the
[00:45:56] all of the groups
[00:45:57] that I have for this particular view
[00:46:01] and then some numerical field that
[00:46:06] that indicates
[00:46:10] in this case it's points.
[00:46:12] But some numerical differentiation
[00:46:15] between the
[00:46:15] different records within that group.
[00:46:17] I want to know who
[00:46:19] has the best score
[00:46:21] within that particular group.
[00:46:24] You could simplify this particular
[00:46:27] script down if you just wanted to do,
[00:46:30] what order do they appear in
[00:46:32] within that group. So
[00:46:34] this one isn't necessary
[00:46:36] if you don't have that number field.
[00:46:39] If you wanted to do just
[00:46:40] what order do they appear
[00:46:41] within that group
[00:46:42] you could.
[00:46:43] But that's not particularly
[00:46:45] useful because the order
[00:46:47] something might appear in a
[00:46:48] group,
[00:46:49] you know, might not make sense.
[00:46:51] If I could re sort these things around it,
[00:46:54] it wouldn't
[00:46:57] It's not letting me because
[00:46:59] I've sorted by whatever, you know,
[00:47:01] you know. So
[00:47:06] now that I'm back in this table,
[00:47:10] you'll see
[00:47:12] these people have various
[00:47:14] different points
[00:47:15] that they've been awarded for
[00:47:16] whatever reason. So 2569, 15.
[00:47:19] I want to know comparatively
[00:47:23] of the eight people within this group,
[00:47:25] or eight records within this group,
[00:47:27] how does this record
[00:47:29] fair against those eight?
[00:47:31] Right. So
[00:47:33] perfect.
[00:47:35] Back into the script.
[00:47:36] So many button clicks. Love it.
[00:47:40] so essentially you're ranking
[00:47:42] a group of records
[00:47:44] by how many points they have.
[00:47:45] Yes. Which is a far more complicated
[00:47:48] version of a auto number if you will
[00:47:51] because you've ordered things
[00:47:54] a very particular way,
[00:47:57] and now you're trying to
[00:48:00] Say one through in this case eight
[00:48:02] because there was eight
[00:48:03] in that group that we
[00:48:04] had looked at
[00:48:05] one through 8. What is their
[00:48:08] auto number based on all of this
[00:48:12] more complicated criteria
[00:48:13] which you couldn't really
[00:48:15] get at with just a formula
[00:48:16] alone.
[00:48:18] Well you could have if it
[00:48:19] was extraordinarily long formula maybe.
[00:48:24] And then from there we have
[00:48:26] this is fairly common
[00:48:27] I think with how other
[00:48:28] people set up their
[00:48:31] with their scripts having a two
[00:48:33] blanca raised one for batches and one for
[00:48:36] updates, updates is pretty common.
[00:48:38] Batches will become important.
[00:48:40] You'll see in a second
[00:48:42] and then this is where things
[00:48:44] start to get more
[00:48:46] complicated and hyper specific
[00:48:49] for this particular script. So
[00:48:52] I'm going to be explaining
[00:48:54] the logic of this script
[00:48:55] and then we will, when this
[00:48:57] video gets finalized,
[00:48:59] I will provide the link to get to
[00:49:02] the code of this script.
[00:49:04] So you don't have to copy everything down
[00:49:07] over the course of this episode
[00:49:10] is just sort of to go
[00:49:11] over the logic of what's
[00:49:12] happening and how it's numbering by group.
[00:49:18] So it is
[00:49:24] essentially what it's doing,
[00:49:26] it's trying to find for
[00:49:27] each of the records that
[00:49:28] are within table one
[00:49:31] It is putting together
[00:49:34] its own set of groups. So because
[00:49:38] scripting doesn't have access
[00:49:41] to what there's no group ID.
[00:49:43] So I have to make my
[00:49:44] own essentially.
[00:49:46] So what I'm doing is I have to
[00:49:50] two fields that I'm grouping
[00:49:52] by this part of the script
[00:49:55] is taking the value for
[00:49:57] each of those fields and can
[00:50:00] concatenating them together.
[00:50:02] So linked to table two.
[00:50:04] I think an example would have been
[00:50:09] applicant one
[00:50:10] and then check would
[00:50:12] have been true or false. So
[00:50:15] applicant one true is one group
[00:50:18] applicant one false
[00:50:20] is another group applicant
[00:50:22] to true applicant to false, et cetera.
[00:50:26] And then blank null might be a,
[00:50:30] you know, it might not
[00:50:32] be linked to anything.
[00:50:34] So null true, null false.
[00:50:35] Those are all of the groups
[00:50:37] that are probably within this base.
[00:50:40] And I'm essentially building together
[00:50:44] a series of batches.
[00:50:45] So batches started off as an empty array.
[00:50:49] I have put in,
[00:50:51] I'm filling it with a
[00:50:55] series of objects so
[00:50:58] that object will fill
[00:51:00] it in with the group.
[00:51:02] The group again is the composed
[00:51:05] a string of applicant
[00:51:07] one true applicant
[00:51:09] one false etcetera.
[00:51:10] And then the record IDs is going to be
[00:51:17] all of the record IDs
[00:51:19] that are within that group.
[00:51:21] And also I'm supplying it
[00:51:23] with the whole record object as well.
[00:51:25] You probably don't need both.
[00:51:27] I just chose to do both because I could
[00:51:30] The reason I'm doing this
[00:51:35] because it wants to find
[00:51:37] if that batch has already been found yet.
[00:51:39] If that group has already been found yet
[00:51:44] then just add the record I. D.
[00:51:47] And the record object
[00:51:49] to this already existing
[00:51:51] object within that array. If
[00:51:54] this is the first time the script
[00:51:56] has come across a record within that
[00:51:58] particular group,
[00:51:59] it has to create that object first.
[00:52:02] Which is why this if else
[00:52:03] is there
[00:52:04] and then from there
[00:52:07] it's looking at rank. So
[00:52:10] because this is happening
[00:52:12] in like a sequence.
[00:52:13] And because you're pulling off
[00:52:15] of a view instead of a table,
[00:52:17] there is a predictable
[00:52:19] order that records would
[00:52:21] come in on.
[00:52:22] So thinking back on it
[00:52:25] now because this view is already
[00:52:31] is already sorted by points,
[00:52:34] you might not necessarily need
[00:52:37] this portion.
[00:52:39] So you know in retrospect
[00:52:41] this script could be what could be more
[00:52:45] optimized and you'll notice up at the top
[00:52:47] it has that same problem with the
[00:52:49] strike the select records because I didn't
[00:52:52] go back and
[00:52:54] adjust for the for the
[00:52:55] fields that you would need
[00:52:57] right
[00:52:58] But now what it's doing
[00:53:01] is it's now finding the
[00:53:03] relative position that each
[00:53:05] of these
[00:53:07] records that were found
[00:53:09] within each group is
[00:53:10] the relative position against
[00:53:12] however many were found
[00:53:14] for that particular batch,
[00:53:16] that's what all that's happening.
[00:53:19] If there's no other ones,
[00:53:21] then it's rink is just one, right
[00:53:25] and then from there it's pushing
[00:53:28] to the update empty array which is at this
[00:53:31] point in the script hadn't
[00:53:33] been touched yet. It's pushing
[00:53:35] the format that the update records,
[00:53:39] a sync function requires.
[00:53:41] So update records,
[00:53:43] plural, a sync, needs an array
[00:53:47] of objects.
[00:53:49] The object must have the ID.
[00:53:51] So that's what I'm I'm filling it in
[00:53:55] and then the fields
[00:53:57] that need to be updated. So
[00:53:59] rank field name is
[00:54:01] the is where we're out putting,
[00:54:03] this is the first, this is the second,
[00:54:05] this is the third are
[00:54:07] fake auto number. If you will
[00:54:08] rank would be its relative position
[00:54:11] against all of the records that were
[00:54:13] found in that particular group.
[00:54:17] And then the record id
[00:54:19] is coming from whichever
[00:54:20] record we are currently
[00:54:21] iterating through.
[00:54:23] So it's doing this for every
[00:54:25] single record within that view.
[00:54:28] And the reason for that is
[00:54:30] unlike with the previous
[00:54:33] examples that we had
[00:54:34] shown where
[00:54:38] you know, time is a fairly linear thing.
[00:54:41] So auto numbering by week.
[00:54:43] You know, you're not,
[00:54:45] it's not going to suddenly
[00:54:47] be
[00:54:49] a previous week that it was before.
[00:54:52] it's and it's not going to,
[00:54:54] you know, all of the records
[00:54:56] that came before it chronologically.
[00:54:58] You know,
[00:54:59] still came first chronologically.
[00:55:01] So there's no need to go back and re
[00:55:03] number things that had
[00:55:04] already been numbered
[00:55:05] in this case, if you're trying
[00:55:07] to see who scored the most points
[00:55:10] in a
[00:55:11] competition or in a something
[00:55:15] where points are being
[00:55:17] updated continuously.
[00:55:19] Jim might get 10 points
[00:55:21] and he might be ranked number one. But if
[00:55:25] carl
[00:55:26] Carl comes in and he scores 12. Carl
[00:55:31] carl, our good friend Carl,
[00:55:33] if he comes and scores 12,
[00:55:34] well now he's number one,
[00:55:36] meaning you have to change Jim
[00:55:39] Jim I've already forgotten.
[00:55:42] Jim who used to be
[00:55:43] Number one is now number two.
[00:55:45] So you have to go back and
[00:55:47] re number jim
[00:55:48] You have to remember everything.
[00:55:50] So
[00:55:52] that's why this is doing it
[00:55:54] looping through several,
[00:55:56] several records every
[00:55:57] record within that
[00:55:59] chosen view as opposed to
[00:56:04] just doing the one
[00:56:06] that had recently been updated
[00:56:08] right.
[00:56:09] And it's another reason
[00:56:10] why everything is happening
[00:56:12] the script because
[00:56:12] the update record step
[00:56:14] only updates a single record.
[00:56:17] It can't do multiple
[00:56:18] records together.
[00:56:20] Exactly
[00:56:22] yeah. I love this.
[00:56:23] And this would I think
[00:56:24] I saw somebody recently,
[00:56:25] I think it was the facebook group.
[00:56:27] But they were asking about creating a
[00:56:29] leaderboard
[00:56:30] And this would be a really
[00:56:31] good solution for that.
[00:56:32] Because then you could limit
[00:56:33] your like you could just
[00:56:35] share a view
[00:56:35] and say you only want to share your top 10
[00:56:37] or whatever
[00:56:38] when it would be updated automatically.
[00:56:41] Because you can't you can't
[00:56:42] limit how many records are in a view,
[00:56:44] you could sort it but you can't say only
[00:56:45] show me the top 10, but
[00:56:48] But if you had a rank field,
[00:56:49] you would know it stops at 10.
[00:56:51] Yeah. You know. Yeah.
[00:56:54] That's funny.
[00:56:55] I use something similar
[00:56:56] to this too for a kind of a different
[00:56:58] use case. Like
[00:57:00] say you've got like a crm base
[00:57:03] and you've got like a bunch of
[00:57:04] interactions and notes
[00:57:06] all rolling up to a person for example.
[00:57:09] And you want that like
[00:57:11] I often will use like a big roll up
[00:57:13] field to show like
[00:57:14] time stamped
[00:57:16] interactions and all the notes,
[00:57:18] like all on the person's record,
[00:57:20] but that always ends up
[00:57:22] with the most recent being at the bottom.
[00:57:24] And a lot of people are like,
[00:57:26] well I want the most recent at the top
[00:57:28] and I'll use a script to say
[00:57:30] every time you add a new interaction to a
[00:57:32] particular person
[00:57:33] and I'll actually go
[00:57:35] and I'll have a view
[00:57:37] that is like sorted by what by date
[00:57:39] time. And I'll just kind of
[00:57:40] like force that
[00:57:41] to do most of the work for me.
[00:57:43] Like I'll select records,
[00:57:45] they sync and actually
[00:57:46] pass into that sorts that I want.
[00:57:48] So I'll use that and
[00:57:49] sort it when I select it
[00:57:51] and then just
[00:57:52] update the field.
[00:57:54] So grab all the link records
[00:57:55] as assorted value,
[00:57:57] filter them down
[00:57:58] to just that person and then
[00:57:59] update it with like
[00:58:01] literally just grab them all
[00:58:03] and sorting them and putting them back in.
[00:58:04] So it's always
[00:58:05] most recent at the top.
[00:58:10] It's hard out here
[00:58:12] is the moral of this story,
[00:58:15] right. And I don't understand
[00:58:18] like, and I know I've mentioned
[00:58:20] this Airtable before, but like,
[00:58:22] that would be such a
[00:58:23] great feature to have
[00:58:25] to like, just in a set of linked
[00:58:27] records, just be able to choose
[00:58:29] how they're sorted, like Yeah,
[00:58:31] I think it should be there,
[00:58:34] you know, under the hood
[00:58:36] lookups and roll up Well,
[00:58:38] roll ups sometimes
[00:58:41] lookups are arrays, so,
[00:58:43] you know, sorting arrays
[00:58:45] alphabetically
[00:58:47] it's not that hard
[00:58:48] to implement from a coding perspective.
[00:58:50] It would be nice if there
[00:58:52] was just a toggle
[00:58:54] that we could use to sort
[00:58:56] what a look up field
[00:58:58] displays and for linked record
[00:59:01] fields and you could
[00:59:02] use the batch update app but
[00:59:04] that's annoying
[00:59:05] to do every single time
[00:59:07] you wanna resort how linked records the
[00:59:09] actual field itself,
[00:59:11] how those values are sorted.
[00:59:14] It would be nice if that was just a thing
[00:59:17] to toggle that you could turn on,
[00:59:19] it would be awesome.
[00:59:21] Like, it really would. It would,
[00:59:23] I mean just like,
[00:59:24] you could like if they like how
[00:59:26] they did the conditions
[00:59:27] to like toggle for all up
[00:59:29] or count or look up something,
[00:59:31] you know, sort these records
[00:59:33] by X. Like yeah, that'd be great.
[00:59:36] I would want that added.
[00:59:40] but that, you know,
[00:59:42] that's the long and short
[00:59:44] of this somewhat complicated
[00:59:46] script to give
[00:59:47] you even more advanced
[00:59:49] auto numbering system
[00:59:50] that more or less takes into
[00:59:52] account
[00:59:54] how you've grouped records together.
[00:59:56] Again, the real magic is
[00:59:58] coming from this array.
[01:00:01] So it's not
[01:00:04] technically going by how
[01:00:05] you have grouped the records,
[01:00:07] it's just matching how
[01:00:08] you group the records,
[01:00:10] assuming you put in the value,
[01:00:12] the names of the fields
[01:00:14] the same way they appear in your
[01:00:16] group records settings.
[01:00:18] Right.
[01:00:20] Yeah, I love that. That's awesome.
[01:00:22] And that's like that allows
[01:00:24] you to do it
[01:00:24] with not just a linked record,
[01:00:25] like Yes, one of them is
[01:00:27] but you've got the
[01:00:28] check box too which is... Yes.
[01:00:29] Yeah. So yeah I think
[01:00:31] it's fairly agnostic towards field type.
[01:00:35] So attachments would be,
[01:00:37] it couldn't I don't think because every
[01:00:42] I think it comes in the attachment field,
[01:00:44] I think it comes in with a link to the
[01:00:46] file and every file has its own link.
[01:00:48] So that wouldn't help you at all.
[01:00:50] You would have one,
[01:00:51] you would have unique groups for every
[01:00:53] attachment field value.
[01:00:55] So aside from attachments,
[01:00:57] I think technically you could do
[01:01:00] any type of
[01:01:02] field in order to get the
[01:01:05] relative ranking
[01:01:07] for yeah,
[01:01:11] awesome.
[01:01:14] We're at we're at 9.01. Well
[01:01:17] an hour and one minute,
[01:01:18] I don't know what everyone's time zone is.
[01:01:22] Right. No worries.
[01:01:23] Alright, that's awesome.
[01:01:25] Well we, I think we survived
[01:01:27] the Wild West
[01:01:28] without our Fearless leader Dan.
[01:01:29] Yeah. hold on, hold on,
[01:01:32] shoot as soon as you said that,
[01:01:35] how do I stop,
[01:01:41] we did it, screens,
[01:01:44] yeah, curtains closing.
[01:01:47] Oh my God.
[01:01:50] Yeah, so like I said,
[01:01:51] I will find a place to put that script.
[01:01:54] I think it's on the forums already.
[01:01:57] if not I'll,
[01:01:59] I'll put it somewhere so so everyone can
[01:02:01] can see it's madness
[01:02:03] and all its glory and I'll fix the select
[01:02:06] records things so it's compatible with
[01:02:10] modern scripting if you will.
[01:02:13] Excellent,
[01:02:15] Awesome. Thank you Kamille.
[01:02:16] That was great.
[01:02:18] Yeah. Auto numbers.
[01:02:21] I love it. There's so many things
[01:02:22] you can do,
[01:02:23] there's so many things you can do
[01:02:24] if you absolutely force it
[01:02:26] using an automation.
[01:02:28] Yeah.
[01:02:30] Oh my goodness. Perfect. Alright.
[01:02:34] Well I believe that does it
[01:02:37] for us this episode
[01:02:39] tune in next week for a
[01:02:41] much more structured episode
[01:02:45] that talks less about auto
[01:02:48] numbers. Probably
[01:02:50] probably a little bit less,
[01:02:52] but still useful nonetheless.
[01:02:54] Right.
[01:02:56] Oh, thank you everybody