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Best answer

Update status of Airtable Record after Hootsuite post goes live

M

I’m trying to set up a Zap that will update a record in Airtable when a social media post is posted by Hootsuite. I think the problem is in the Find Record piece - the only field in each Airtable record that will be totally unique will be the date/time field, but I can’t figure out how to get the “Scheduled Send Time” field from Hootsuite to match up to the “Post or Send Date” field in Airtable. I tried using a Format step to change the format of the information coming in from Hootsuite, but I can’t figure out how to put it in a format that Airtable can use to find the record in question. Is there a way to do this? I keep getting an error that “nothing could be found for the search” I know that Airtable wants the date in ISO format, but I can’t figure out what variation of that will make the Hootsuite date match the Airtable record date.

 

Best answer by manifestcreativeBest answer by manifestcreative

@Troy Tessalone Thanks! That gave me the info I needed. For anyone else with this problem, here is how I fixed it:

Airtable wants the date in YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sssZ format, but if you add the Z in the Formatting step, it adds a + or - and several zeros to the output (instead of just “Z”), which results in the search failing. So, I used a Formatting step to put the date that is output from the Hootsuite trigger step into this format - YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sss. Then, in the Find Record step, I set it to search my Airtable date/time column and put the output from the formatting step in for the search value and just tagged the “Z” on the end of that output as a letter, not as a UTC symbol/function. That made the Find Record step find the correct record by the date (and pulled in the Record ID field from Airtable) so now I can set the Update Record step to choose the record that it will update by the Record ID pulled in during the Find step and update the information in one particular cell of that record’s row.

 

I’m using this to set up a process by which the Airtable record that was used to create a scheduled social media post in Hootsuite is updated from “Scheduled” to “Live” when Hootsuite publishes the post.

 

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6 replies

Troy Tessalone
Forum|alt.badge.img+14

Hi @manifestcreative 

Would be better if you could pass and reference the Airtable Record ID to Hootsuite.

TIP: Add a Formula field, with this formula: RECORD_ID.

NOTE: Most apps will store their dates/times in ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sssZ

 

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
M

@Troy Tessalone Thanks Troy. Still can’t get the date to work. I added a Record ID field to my Airtable, but not sure how to pass this to Hootsuite. I’m using an Airtable automation to make the initial Airtable-->Hootsuite passover, because Zapier doesn’t give me the option to run a Zap based on a record’s status, just on a Last Modified Time. Is there a way to pass the record ID to Hootsuite via the Airtable automation, so I can then get it back in the Hootsuite-->Airtable automation in Zapier? Or a way to set up the Zap to look for a specific change in a  specific field rather than Last Modified Date for the first automation?

Troy Tessalone
Forum|alt.badge.img+14

@manifestcreative 

You can try using Hootsuite Tags.

NOTE: There may be limits to the # of Hootsuite Tags that can be used, and you may need a certain Hootsuite plan to use Tags.

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
M

@Troy Tessalone I appreciate all your help. The Hootsuite Tag attempt is a no-go - our Hootsuite account isn’t high enough to allow those. I’ve tried every way I can think of to make the date search match up and keep getting the error “Nothing could be found for the search.” Is there a workaround to this or a formula or something? It looks like it should work without a problem, with or without the format step involved, so what am I missing?

 

Troy Tessalone
Forum|alt.badge.img+14

@manifestcreative 

Try using a temporary Airtable Find Record step to see how the Date/Time field value is formatted.

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
M

@Troy Tessalone Thanks! That gave me the info I needed. For anyone else with this problem, here is how I fixed it:

Airtable wants the date in YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sssZ format, but if you add the Z in the Formatting step, it adds a + or - and several zeros to the output (instead of just “Z”), which results in the search failing. So, I used a Formatting step to put the date that is output from the Hootsuite trigger step into this format - YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sss. Then, in the Find Record step, I set it to search my Airtable date/time column and put the output from the formatting step in for the search value and just tagged the “Z” on the end of that output as a letter, not as a UTC symbol/function. That made the Find Record step find the correct record by the date (and pulled in the Record ID field from Airtable) so now I can set the Update Record step to choose the record that it will update by the Record ID pulled in during the Find step and update the information in one particular cell of that record’s row.

 

I’m using this to set up a process by which the Airtable record that was used to create a scheduled social media post in Hootsuite is updated from “Scheduled” to “Live” when Hootsuite publishes the post.

 

Troy Tessalone
1 person likes this
  • Troy Tessalone
    Troy Tessalone
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