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Updating Google Doc from Slack Webhooks (Append?)

  • 17 June 2020
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Userlevel 1

Hi,

I’m struggling with a problem I can’t seem to find a tutorial or related topic for, so I’m posting!

I’m trying to create a slack “bot” where users can give it information, and the bot will then update a document. These updates would happen multiple times to the same document. 

I’ve so far been able to set up a zap to create the document from a template (which I set up to turn all of the fillable fields into fields in Zapier). My problem is that the custom fields only seem to appear when I create the document for the first time. 

Is there a way to update a document multiple times? Alternately, if it’s not possible to create then append data to the same document (in the field positions I want), is there an easy way to “store” the data then produce the report with the fields filled in as mapped? 

I’ve been able to set up the slack commands and webhooks ok, but I’m stuck at how to continually update the document. 

Thanks!

(I think my problem is similar to this person’s, but I didn’t see what I needed in the thread: https://community.zapier.com/ask-the-community-3/append-text-to-google-doc-2694)

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Best answer by nicksimard 19 June 2020, 02:16

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Hi @wendyr!

That’s a neat little workflow challenge you’ve got there. I’m just spitballing here and haven’t tried this out, but what if you looked into Google Drive’s Replace File action, to replace the same file over and over? So you could create a document from a template each time, then use that file to replace the main one.

Again, not 100% sure if that will work, and whether it will change the link to your document (if that was something you cared about). Since you mentioned that you set up Slack commands and webhooks, I figured I could give you a chance to explore that workaround :)

I’d love to hear about whether that works or not!