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Hi all,

 

I encountered an issue recently in that a Zap wasnt working.  When I clicked on the Zap, It was no longer showing my Airtable app logo (the trigger platform), but instead was showing a large grey asterix and next to it said Airtable (Legacy).

Common sense suggested it had someone “lost” the identification of the airtable account being used. I went through the edit and discovered that it was now showing an Airtable account “created 8 hours ago, used in 0 apps” which is not one I had created (8 hrs previous was the middle of the night and I was soundly tucked up in bed!). Nevertheless, I used this “new” account and it appeared to work.

I have since noticed all my other Zaps being triggered by Airtable activity are the same. i have quite a few so its going to be a pain to have to reset all of these.

What has caused this and is there a way to prevent it happening again. The projects I am working on need a certain level of reliability so if this is a common glitch, I could do with any hints or advice as to the cause please.

 

As is common, software updates are consistently being made on apps, it’s how the apps improve.

Updated Zap integrations generally bring about more functionality and stability, so it’s best to take advantage of the updated apps, albeit that can be somewhat of a pain to redo work.

Regarding the reliability, that can’t be guaranteed because there are too many factors involved.

Take for example 1 Zap with 2 steps using 2 different apps.

That alone means there are actually 3 apps involved: App A as the trigger, App B as the action, and Zapier as the bridge.

All 3 of these apps generally are built using other technology, such as using AWS (Amazon Web Services).

Plus there’s possible human intervention in Zapier or in one of the other apps.

As you can see there are quite a few possible points of failure when it comes to automation.

But keep in mind, that for the bit of downtime, realize all the time that was saved when the automation is ON.

Hi Troy,

 

Thank you for taking the time to answer my query.

Since posting the question I have tried to look at what the cause is and with this further research and your explanation, I think I now understand.

  • (legacy) is added to any app when a newer version is now available. It’s not due to a glitch, but rather an intentional improvement.
  • The Airtable (legacy) which is now showing is essentially still an active zap, but it’s just using an older version of the airtable app?
  • By redoing each Zap using the Legacy app and replacing with the new Airtable app, I am benefitting from the improvements this upgrade will have provided (albeit it requires me to go into each zap and re-do it).

This is ok. I originally thought some form of glitch had occurred that had made my Airtable credentials unrecognisable….this was the “reliability” I was worried about.

I have no issue with the downtime if its for a controlled/improved reason.

I have spent a few months learning to use these automation tools for my business and I can confidently say they are helping tremendously. I have them set up for so many things now and it has streamlined our entire sales process. 4 telesales can now do the same work 10 could do previously so I am a big fan of the automation….and am happy to work with the downtimes.

 

Thank you Troy

 

Kind regards

Adam

@4dam  - do you know if there any significant changes with the new airtable integration as i have the same issue as you did.

 

My concern is whether it now works differently - e,.g  triggers every time a record is in a view - rather than the first time..

 

Any comments appreciated

Hi Russell,

 

I am currently going through each Zap I have (nearly all of them trigger from airtable and there are dozens!!!) and re-setting with the new Airtable app. So far, it does not seem to have presented any new issues but I still need to test many of them.

I was using a “test” record yesterday and previously this always seemed to be ok using multiple times (in and out of a view to test triggers etc) but it was struggling with some tests to trigger the zap, I ended up creating some duplicate Test records. So to answer your question, there may potentially be an issue there.

If your concern is record A going in a view and triggering a zap, the later record B goes in and triggers the zap again for A and now B, there is an easy fix for that.

 I do this by creating a view for a record to go into (ie if STATUS is “Appointment”). It then ZAP triggers a confirmation email to client and then the next stage of the ZAP will change a field in the original record. So this field could be EMAIL SENT? and it is empty as default but the trigger will insert YES (or you could have a tick box etc). My view will have a filter set to include STATUS is “Appointment” and EMAIL SENT? is empty, thus removing it a few seconds later after the trigger has done its job. (I also have an UPDATED field named DATE EMAIL SENT and it is selected to only change the date when the EMAIL SENT? field is updated, so this also gives me a time stamp when an email was sent, or for any other action etc).

This method can be adopted to remove a record from the view each time the zap trigger is done and the UPDATE fields can be tailored to log when these events happen.

I then simply have another view with the filters amended to see where the Appointments are etc.

I am not sure if I have answered your question or if I am telling you something you may already know! 

If you want any help with the above, please ask and I’d be happy to help if I can.

 

Kind regards

Adam

 

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