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@PaulKortman 

I saw a post you wrote about using Google sheets is an intermediate step between two zaps (

) and your example of an invoice with line items is similar to what I'm challenged with. Can I ask you a couple questions and lean on your expertise?

I have a sheet in Smartsheet that holds the data needed for a scope of work document. Some of that data only needs brought in once (i.e. client name, date, invoice code) and the other data is an array (like you said in your post as an example, multiple rows that need to go into a table).

I was looking at FormStack, but they can't do an array/multiple lines through Zapier. You mention Airtable and Google Sheets - so are you saying that you have your data in one place (similar to me having my data in Smartsheet) and you send it through one zap to Google Sheets, then Google Sheets can put it in the Airtable (either a row or an array/multiple rows)?

I'm a super new beginner to Zapier but I'm stumped trying to find a solution that will work... I'm hoping your post seems to hold the key, but I'm not quite sure I understand it correctly.

Questions,

  • how does the data get to Smartsheet? (I'm looking for a trigger to start the workflow/get the data into Zapier)
  • Zapier can trigger off of a schedule (date/time), but can it ingest/or load the contents of a Smartsheet?

How I do this most often is something that triggers the data, a purchase on a website, or an invoice creation or a button in an app etc. Then that data is in Zapier as line items (one for each "row")

I have the zap write that data to a google sheet row by row. (line items)

I have a second zap that triggers off of a new row in that spreadsheet and then processes the data aka put it into Airtable.


So that second zap would look up the person in the person table in airtable (or the order in the order table) by email address (or by order number) and then use that RecordID to link the record I'm creating in a different table (transactions, order line items, etc) for each row. Thus Airtable has the contact (or order details) in one table and the line items in another

Let me know if that brings up more questions…

FYI, Zapier is private beta testing an app that would do this without having to use Google Sheets… but that’s a couple of months before a more public beta test. So I would still use the Google Sheets as an intermediary. 


This is super helpful! Thank you so much Paul!  I’ll go and give it a try!

 

Super appreciate it!