How does the Airtable > Update work?

Questions
1

I have a table which includes two columns. key & value. One of the records has key = date-updated. I use the Airtable node to get this record. Out comes the following:

[{
"id": "recordId",
"fields": {
  "key": "date-updated",
  "value": "2022-01-22 09:55"
},
"createdTime": "2022-01-25T08:52:39.000Z"
}]

Now, I use a Date/Time node to get the current date and time in the same format as the fields.value. From the node, I write it directly to the same position, so the Date/Time node returns:

[{
"id": "recordId",
"fields": {
  "key": "date-updated",
  "value": "2022-01-25 12:26"
},
"createdTime": "2022-01-25T08:52:39.000Z"
}]

Directly after, I use the Airtable node again and use the Update operation. As the record ID, I use the ID from the previous request.

Now comes my question: Where do I tell the node, what data should be put into the field? I can specify the field to update, where I put Fields: value, because this is the only field that needs my manual update. But where do I tell the node, what to put in that field/cell?

When executed, the node returns the old data again (see first json response above) instead of the newly set.

I tested a lot with the update operation and I cannot for the love of me find out, how it is working.

2

Hi @wohfab, the Airtable node would update fields in Airtable using incoming fields matched by their name/key.

So if you wanted to update a date-updated field of with a value of 2022-01-25 12:26, you would need to create an n8n item having a structure of:

{
  "id": "foo",
  "date-updated": "2022-01-25 12:26"
}

This would typically be a job for the Set node:

image
image777×584 21.5 KB

Here is a quick example workflow demonstrating this (don’t run it against your production data, it just updates all rows with the current time in the date-updated field):

Example Workflow
3

Oh, perfect, @MutedJam! Worked :slight_smile:

1 Like
4

Hey @MutedJam - I have exactly the same use case and struggling to find a solution despite having followed your advice.
I want to update my Airtable base once the e-mail is found:
Here is the configuration:

But I’m facing some incoherence with the ID: Here is an example :

Capture d’écran 2022-07-25 à 17.55.50
Capture d’écran 2022-07-25 à 17.55.501810×782 208 KB

Any idea ?
10000 thanks !

5

Hi @fischera, I am sorry to hear you’re having trouble but I am not sure I fully understand your question.

Your post suggests n8n might have updated the wrong dataset which looks different from the problem originally reported in this thread. Perhaps you can open a new topic and provide all details required to reproduce your problem, ideally in a simplified manner (a small Airtable with a handful of rows and a workflow that should update one of these rows but actually updates another)?

6

thanks @MutedJam - will do