Automate your work
Airtable
6 min read
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Airtable
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Automate your work
Looking for ways to optimize your workflow? Start by asking: “What can I automate?”
Automating manual, repetitive work will save you and your team time—so you can focus on the bigger picture.
In Airtable, you can use three different techniques to automate your work:
You can use the automations in Airtable to create powerful, logic-based workflows, all built on top of the data in your base.
Try computed fields to automatically track when a record was created or updated.
Take advantage of formulas in Airtable to build custom calculated outputs based on other fields in your table.
Let’s dig in.
1. Save time with automations
Airtable’s automations are based around a simple but powerful trigger-and-action model.
Once a “trigger” occurs, an “action” follows. Any time you find yourself doing the same task every time something specific happens—like sending an email when you complete a review, posting a Slack message when a project status changes, or creating new records on the same day of the week—that's a perfect candidate for automation.
2. Learn when (and how) to use computed fields
Computed fields are a set of field types that automatically update based on conditions you set—allowing you to easily reference the latest information from linked records, create custom calculations, and more.
Computed fields can be used to keep track of the whos, whats, and whens of an updated record, creating a digital “paper trail” for future reference.
3. Write your first formula
Formula fields are a powerful analytical tool that anyone can use to better understand their data.
Formulas can save you time and effort for all manner of regular tasks, whether you’re tracking metrics, a quarterly budget, or key project dates.
4. Explore what’s possible with formulas
Now that you're familiar with some of the simple operators (think mathematical symbols like + or *), it’s time to level up your formula game.
The formula field supports 98 different commands. In this step we'll explore more advanced calculations, like functions and logical operators.
For example: text operators let you combine the text from multiple fields into a single text string; logical operators allow you to to compare field values, and auto-generate a status; and a date and time function can figure out the time between multiple date values.
About the author
Airtableis the digital operations platform that empowers people closest to the work to accelerate their most critical business processes. Across every industry, leading enterprises trust Airtable to power workflows in product operations, marketing operations, and more – all with the power of AI built-in. More than 500,000 organizations, including 60% of the Global 2000, rely on Airtable for digital operations and citizen development to help transform how work gets done.
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