Trigger doesn't filter properly.

The issue is that the condition in my code always evaluates to True, regardless of whether the status_changed variable has changed or not. This is because my code assigns a default value of “Not started” to the previous status of the Status Text variable, if it is not available. Then it compares it with the current status of the variable, which is never equal to “Not started”, and thus the condition is always satisfied. I need to modify my code to retrieve the actual previous status of the Status Text variable, instead of using a default value, so that the condition only evaluates to True when there is a change in the status. I tried removing the “Not started” default value, but then the code doesn’t even run, because it doesn’t pull any data.

This is how my “Filter by Zapier” looks like:
 

So how would I go about doing what I actually want to do, which is having the Discord action run if and only if the variable(s) in the Status Text field change?

I am the developer of this code. ChatGPT suggested to remove the “Not started” value in the input_data.get(“previous_step.Status (Text)”) or “Not started” line, but that does not work for me. I need to pull the data from the input_data variable and compare it, as part of the algorithm I’m designing, and ChatGPT does not understand that the function must pull data, it only understands that I need to fix an error and hap-hazardly hard-codes a solution into the code. As I explained, removing the or Not starter causes the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
      File “<string>”, line 28, in the_function
NameError: name ‘output_data’ is not defined

Can you please advise me on how to achieve what I want, which is to trigger the Discord action only when the variable(s) in the Status Text field change? I appreciate your assistance and expertise as Zapier support, and I would expect Zapier support to know their own product and how to fix issues with it :)

UPDATE: So I updated my code to be the following:

 

"# Define a function to check if the "Status (Text)" column values have changed
def check_status_change(input_data):
    # Get the current "Status (Text)" value from the input data
    current_status = input_data["Status (Text)"]

    # Get the previous "Status (Text)" value from the input data of the previous step
    # If the input data is not available, default to "Not started"
    previous_status = (
        input_data.get("Value", "Not started")
    )

    # Check if the current "Status (Text)" value is different from the previous value
    if current_status != previous_status:
        # If the values are different, return True to indicate a change
        return True
    else:
        # If the values are the same, return False to indicate no change
        return False

# Call the function with the input data
status_changed = check_status_change(input_data)

# Print the result to the console
print(status_changed)"

Now the function runs, but status_changes is always false because the value never changes, it compares itself, and of course the same value never changes.

My question now is, which Zapier “steps” do I need to implement into my workflow so that it can compare the values of the Status Text field to see if they’ve changed or not? Do I need to implement Storage by Zapier? How would I go about doing it? I would greatly appreciate a detailed response and I value your time.

Very good advice Troy, excellent, I appreciate the general guidance. Now comes the question: how would I integrate a Lookup table in my specific workflow?