If you like instant automation,
there's a good chance. You're a huge fan of web hook triggers. The web hook can be most easily activated
with the push of a button from inside of air table. And it's going to trigger your automation
to instantly activate and do whatever magic you have set up
for it on the backend. But the frustrating part about this is
it always opens up that web hook URL in another window. And then you've got to just close out
that window and it's just an extra step. So wouldn't it be cool if there was
a way for you to do all of that, the instantaneous automation web
hook trigger without the extra window pop-up well, if you want to learn how to stick
around and let's get into it, Hey, welcome back to the channel. If
you're new here, my name is Gareth. I'm the owner at GAP Consulting, where we help you to organize and automate
your business, using no code tools, if that's of interest and you want to
learn more about all of the stuff that we do to help check out the links below, we'll have them pasted all around this
video and don't miss my upcoming live webinar training. This is a training
that I do once a week, 100% live, and we hop on and talk about how
you can leverage automation to empower your business so
that you can save more time. I personally save 20 hours per week of
my own time and I help my clients do the same. So if that's of interest, check
out the free webinar link below, sign up at Gareth Pronovost dot com
slash webinar dash registration. And even if you can't attend live, I will
send you the replay of that training. So check it out, link below,
but without further ado, let's get into how we're going to build
this awesome web hook trigger without actually pushing a button. So first things first let's hop on into
my air table and explain the setup. So we could easily create a button
field here. And as I mentioned, we could assign a web hook to it. We could append the record ID of each
record to that button so that when we push the button, it triggers the web hook with that
specific record ID and information involved. But as we said, we don't
want that extra window popping up. So how can we avoid it? So let's
imagine instead of pushing a button, we have some very specific things that
we're looking for in order to trigger this automation. For example,
in my case, I'm saying, Hey, this status field needs
to be updated to third. So status first and foremost, I've got
four different status for a second, third, fourth, whatever
these are in my case, third is going to be the magic
status that triggers the automation. So when I change one of these status to
third, I want that to act as the button, but of course, it's not going to open a
new URL. What it is going to do though, is pop into a specific view. So we need to build a specific view
that filters in only those records that we want to trigger the automation. This is very similar to if you built
a standard automation that watches a specific view, but as you probably know, if you build a standard watch
view automation trigger, it can take five to 15 minutes
before the automation triggers. And we don't want to wait
that long though. Instead, we're going to tighten up that
timeframe using our web hook trigger, but we still need this view
in order to get things going. So we set up a filter for this view
where the status is third. All right. So only when a record enters this
view will, the next thing happened. And that next thing is actually an
automation built inside of air table. Now air, table automations
activate very quickly, not quite as fast as a web hook
trigger, but pretty darn fast. Usually within five seconds
of the conditions being met. So inside of air table automations, we are building an automation that
says when a record enters this view specifically that status
view equals third. So only when a record pops into
this status equals third view, will this trigger the automation? Great. Now we run a script now, full
transparency. I am not a script writer, as I've said many times on this channel. This is a script that I found inside
of the air table, community forums, a great resource if you're
not already using it. So thank you to the people who comment
there and provided this amazing script. So what we're doing now inside
of our air table automation, after the record enters the
view of status equals third, then we want this script to operate. And so what we need to do inside
of here is first and foremost, get into the code. We need to make
sure that we add an input variable. We need to bring in the record ID
of the record that triggered this automation in order to do that,
simply say, add input variable, give it a name and assign
the value. In my case, I'm calling it record ID and I'm assigning
the value of course of the record ID. Now, if you can't find the record
ID, what you need to first do, let's pop back into our database is
make sure to give it a record ID. Now, if you're not familiar, a record ID is automatically assigned
to every record in air table. When it comes into existence,
we don't normally see this ID, but you can access it by
writing a formula record, underscore ID open, closed parentheses, and that will bring up or display the
record ID for every single record in that database table. All
right. So back to our code, then we are simply writing these three
simple lines here, let the URL equal. And then inside of here, we're
going to bring in our web hook. So if you're using Zapier or in my
case, I'm building this in Integromat, I'm going to bring in that web hook and
I'll show you how we get that in just a moment. Then we need to append it with
question mark record ID equals, right? And then we're closing
out that, that quotation, and then here is where we are going
to bring in that record ID. So again, let input config equal input dot config, and then we're going to fetch the
record ID that we just passed from the trigger. Now you don't have to know code. I certainly don't in order for this
to work, just follow step by step. What I've outlined here
and copy this code. I will be sure to paste it below
in the comments of this video, if you're watching on YouTube. So you
can just grab it from the comments there. Now, what this code allows us to do is actually
activate the web hook and append the web book with the record
ID. It's identical to, if we had created a button with the web
hook on it, the bonus here of course, is that we don't have to
open up that extra page. We don't have to actively
click that button. As soon as the record enters that view, it's going to trigger the web hook
based on this two-step automation. Now let's go into our automation tool
and see what happens when we activate the web hook. So, as I said, in my
case, I'm doing this in Integromat. This could be a two-step automation, but I've added a third step just
to make it a little bit more clear. First and foremost, we have our web hook. Go ahead and create your own web
hook and copy the web hook address to your clipboard. Remember, we're going to have to go back now
into our script and edit this little piece. This is unique to your specific web
hook for your automation that you build in either Integromat or Zapier.
So make sure to update this, to reflect your web hook because that
web hook right here is unique in every single case. Once we've got
that onto the next step, we're going to get a record in air table. Now this is the extra step that we
don't necessarily have to take in this example, because all I'm doing here is looking
at the record or getting that record, searching for it in my air table database.
You only need to perform this step. If you need more information
from the record, for example, let's flip back into the record. If
you need to know what the check box is, either yes or no. If you need to know what the status
is or what the name of the record is, or a future part of your automation, then you need to look up the record
so that you can find all that other information. In our case,
we don't need to know that, which is why this isn't
really a required step, but I wanted to outline it for you just
so you knew what was required in a more complicated case. Now in the third
step, now that we found the record, and by the way, we're finding it based on the record
ID that was passed in the web hook. Now that we found it, we're going to move
into the final step of the automation. And in our case, all we're going to do is check that box
so that when all of this is complete, we're going to mark the checkbox to be
yes or the record ID that activated the web hook in step one. So let's take
a look at this whole thing in action. Now that it's set up, make sure
your automation is turned on here. Also make sure that your automation in
air table is turned on and updated just in case you made any changes to the
code. And once we're all set with this, we'll go back into our grid view. That
is the view that has all of our records, and we'll make a change to this
one. And we'll update it to third. This in turn moves this
record into our other view, which triggers our
automation here to run the, that then sends the
information to the web hook, which then performs the automation
of coming back and checking the box. As you just saw there in real
time, it happens pretty darn fast, not quite as fast as hitting a button
because we have this extra step of running the script inside of air table. But otherwise this is a very fast way of
activating an automation and you get to skip the pain of having to open up a
window that does nothing and then closing out the window that does
nothing. It's just an extra step. And now you can totally bypass that
step. And if you're using Integromat, as we've talked about in previous videos, it's highly recommended that you use
web hooks to trigger your automations because it costs you a
lot fewer operations. When you're watching
records with Integromat, it has a tendency to chew
through your operations, and it's a longer wait time for you. So I strongly recommend that
you use a web hook as a trigger, and this is a great way to make
it a more seamless approach. I hope you got a ton of
value out of this video, if you did be sure to smash that like
button and subscribe to the channel, if you're not already, and I will
see you in the next video as always, I hope you found that to be
extremely helpful if you did. And you'd like to learn more swing by
our website and see how we can help. We offer a free air table crash course
that will help you level up in air table quickly. And we also
have some paid services, including hourly consultations
with our experts. We have some online courses
and a group coaching program. And for advanced needs, we can build a
bespoke solution for you from scratch. So swing on by, and I look forward
to connecting with you soon. Yeah.
