Dear champdennis,

Your idea is not gonna work since the Trigger is a new record in Airtable and your second action is searching for that contact → result is always true. You need to create a view to separate the old records from the new contact recently created. Here is how you do it.

1. Create a new ca column in Airtable call it “Status”, type and = “Checkbox”. Then you check all the old records.
2. Create a new view called “Check View”, and filter “Status Is Checked”.
3. Set up the Zap with trigger = New Record is Created
4. Delay in queue (This is an optional step to prevent the error when you create multi records at the same time)
5. Search Airtable in the View “Check View”
6. Paths:
   1. If the search step returns = true → update “Status” = checked
   2. if the search step returns false go to WATI and create a new contact, then send a broadcast → then update “Status” = checked

So with this setup, you can exclude the new record that just triggered the automation so the result of the search step will be correct. If you know how to use the formula in Airtable, you don’t need to create a new view in Airtable. In the step Search, you can search by formula {Contact} = ValueofContact & {Staus} = true.

Thank you for your response Do Anh Tran

Is it possible for Zapier’s AirTable search formula to do something like “AND(Contact=12345678, NOT(LeadID="LeadID"))”

Because the Leads will have a unique ID but not a unique phone number. This is a formula that works on AirTable and returns false.

@champdennis 

Yes, its possible. The Zapier’s Airtable Search Formula work exactly as the Formula in Airtable. So as long as the formula is valid in Airtable, it will also valid in Zapier

Unfortunately, either I’m doing something horribly wrong or the system seems to ignore my search formula altogether.

 

When you are using the Search Formula, you need to remove your Search Value and merge all the conditions to the Search Formula. It should be like the formula that you paste above.

AND(Contact=12345678, NOT({Name}="Name"))

That worked.

In case anyone else needs to know

AND({Contact}=<triggervalue>Contact:12345678<triggervalue>, NOT({Name}=”<triggervalue>Name=JohnSmith<triggervalue>”))

Do note the quotation marks in the name field. (it produces an error 400 otherwise)
And to remember to set the: “Should this step be considered a “success” when nothing is found?” field to be “Yes” or “True”

IF Zapier is unable to find something, it will return false.
IF it is able to find something it will return true.