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Several of the RSS feeds that I’m tracking do not add an additional <item> when updates occur.  Instead they just update the original <item> and expand the <description> field.  GitHub is one such feed.

 

Here is an example of an GitHub incident that generated 3 updates.  As you can see from the <description> the first event occurred at 09:31, the second at 10:07, and the final event at 10:10.  However, the item itself didn’t change it’s ID or Title.

    <item>
      <title>git operations over ssh seeing increased latency on github.com</title>
      <description>
<p&gt;&lt;small&gt;Oct &lt;var data-var=&apos;date&apos;&gt;24&lt;/var&gt;, &lt;var data-var=&apos;time&apos;&gt;10:10&lt;/var&gt; UTC&lt;/small&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Resolved&lt;/strong&gt; - This incident has been resolved. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we addressed this issue. A detailed root cause analysis will be shared as soon as it is available.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;small&gt;Oct &lt;var data-var=&apos;date&apos;&gt;24&lt;/var&gt;, &lt;var data-var=&apos;time&apos;&gt;10:07&lt;/var&gt; UTC&lt;/small&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt; - We have found the source of the slowness and mitigated it. We are watching recovery before we status green but no user impact is currently observed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;small&gt;Oct &lt;var data-var=&apos;date&apos;&gt;24&lt;/var&gt;, &lt;var data-var=&apos;time&apos;&gt;09:31&lt;/var&gt; UTC&lt;/small&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Investigating&lt;/strong&gt; - We are currently investigating this issue.&lt;/p&gt;      </description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:10:20 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/n7hf73qtpz2l</link>
      <guid>https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/n7hf73qtpz2l</guid>
    </item>

Slack has it’s own internal RSS processor that is able to split these events out into 3 separate messages.  In trying to replicate this in Zapier I’m only getting a single message (the first one).  My question is, how do I replicate the behviour that Slack has and generate separate outputs in Zapier?

If you want to avoid complex processing, you can parse the message as-is using a Zapier module or a Python script with regex, then utilize Zapier loop module to extract the final array.
Alternatively, you can hire a freelance automation expert on Zapier who can efficiently solve the problem in minutes. In my case, I hired a professional from Fiverr named Pro_Tanve, who quickly resolved the workflow challenge.

Hey ​@DevOps Admin,

I think the easiest way for you parse this data will be to use AI by Zapier- Analyze and return data.
 


Alternatively, you can also use Formatter or Code by Zapier to achieve this. Hope it helps!

These are good suggestions but I think the problem with both is that the RSS feed is sent out multiple times and Zapier doesn’t seem to respond to all of them.  Once the first time the item is seen Zapier doesn’t trigger my code again, even if the <description> and <pubdate> changes.

If  Zapier triggered each time a <pubdate> changed then I could probably just grab the last item in the <description> field each time. 🤔

The issue stems from multiple concurrent triggers, where you receive the last entry each time. To resolve this, it is crucial to control the delay between requests, as Zapier experiences difficulties fetching multiple records simultaneously.

Ah, I did see that the Zapier RSS trigger does have multiple options.  It can trigger if the GUID changes or it can trigger if the content changes.  Mine was set to the default (GUID change) and so didn’t trigger when the content changed.  I’ve updated my Zap; let’s see how it works now.  😀

So its working ?

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