Nested line items - returning comma separated string

Hi @j-red 

Maybe give these more advanced native Zap apps a try if you don’t want to use a Code step:

Looping: https://zapier.com/apps/looping/integrations

Sub-Zap: https://zapier.com/apps/sub-zap-by-zapier/integrations

Storage: https://zapier.com/apps/storage/help

Hi @j-red 

JavaScript supports arrays and there are methods to handle working with them in a Code block: https://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_obj_array.asp

@j-red 

The JavaScript code in a Code step would be used to reconcile them to each other.

@j-red 

Check out some of these articles that may help: https://community.zapier.com/search?q=array&content_type%5B0%5D=article

Yep, this is a huge issue.

I have the same thing going on. I am trying to send a payload of data to PDFmonkey.io. I have posted on stack overflow as well: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67148831/zapier-breaks-down-arrays-of-objects-into-distinct-arrays-containing-the-keys-of

The problem is when you are writing the code, the output is basically perfect when you look at the test results.

When you go to access the data in subsequent steps, you expect a large payload but then zapier tries to be ‘smart’ and output the data by combining each of the values for the various keys into one big concatenated string separated by “,”.

Its honestly infuriating and at this point its better to build your own webapp with a web dev than it is to use zapier lol.

Hi @Troy Tessalone I am going to give this a while now.

For clarity’s sake, I have the initial catch as a raw webhook. What you are saying is to send the data output from the javascript app to a webhook by zapier and to catch the raw webhook right?

Just to clarify:

Step1: catch raw hook (this catches a raw hook from Airtable with a payload containing the record ID)
Step2: search Airtable base (searches the base using the record ID)
Step 3: code by zapier - javascript (inputs are three fields from Airtable, specCategory, specDescription, specName)
Step3a: split each of the inputs by the delimiter, loop over them and create a new object with specCategory[i], specName[I], specDescription[i]
Push that new object to the created array payload = []
Output = {payload};

When the payload is parsed by zapier it seems to do something where it goes through each object in the payload array and concatenates each of the values according to the similar key.

So the idea would be to then output the code by zapier output to a POST request and send the POST to a URL. Then create a new catch webhook (the URL to which we are POSTing) and run the rest of the steps from there?

@Troy Tessalone unfortunately the issue resides in the output for the code step.

When I have another step after the code, the only output options I have is the prettified ‘smart’ code by zapier output.

For example you can see in these images:

{
  Doors and Windows (Internal): [{
  specCategory: "Doors and Windows (Internal)",
  specDes: "they look uggo",
  specName: "door leafs"
}, {
  specCategory: "Doors and Windows (Internal)",
  specDes: "twist n shout",
  specName: "door handles"
}],
  Electrical: [{
  specCategory: "Electrical",
  specDes: "zip zap",
  specName: "storm spirit"
}],
  Kitchen Appliances: [{
  specCategory: "Kitchen Appliances",
  specDes: "yeh cook it honey",
  specName: "oven"
}, {
  specCategory: "Kitchen Appliances",
  specDes: "put yo hood up",
  specName: "range hood"
}]
}

Actual Output selection to looks like this. If I could put in the entire payload to a POST request and catch it with another raw webhook then I probably wouldn’t need to even do this entire process in the first place as code by zapier would output a raw JSON object which would be perfect.

 

@SeanWilson 

Here are some code articles with JavaScript examples that may be useful:

@Troy Tessalone alright we are getting somewhere mate!

I have the following which I have now done that very much helps. Just stringify the payload!
 

let string = JSON.stringify(grouped);

output = {payload: [string]};

The only problem I have now is PDFMonkey won’t accept it because of: “invalid token at JSON position ‘x’”

I think I had a similar issue to you in sending stuff to Quick books and created what may get seen as a pretty inelegant hack by just using an array - but it does mean that my entire invoicing provcess and also freelance billing / payment process is automated from Salesforce through to QB and back (I use Airtable as a staging table for ease of visualisation) 

This is the zap - and the hack is effectively deciding on a maximum number of line items that will be possible in an invoice and then using a form for these.  

https://zapier.com/shared/d26f8e78a9737d6f7352acbf54223d405b904133

If you need to create the line description using some form of concatenate and look up - i can’t see this being too difficult either

I have no experience of coding - so please be nice in the comments if this is either way off base or the ugliest solution you have ever seen

Russell

Hi All,

Thanks for the help, however I took the easy way out with this one. I am lucky enough to know the API developers for the trigger action and am getting them to add the job number on the invoice item level so that I have it in the same level of the message.

Sorry for everyone reading this hoping for an answer who doesn’t have the luxury of this approach.