- 🌎 Overview
- 🛠 The Build - 7 Steps
- Core Functionality
- 1. Create an Airtable Base
- 2. Create a Recurrences Table
- 3. Create a To Generate View
- 4. Add an Automation to Generate Recurrences
- 5. Test your Automation
- 6. Link Submissions to Recurrences
- 7. Create your Submission Form
- 💪 Additional Functionality
- 📚 More Resources
🌎 Overview
- The first tasks to automate are those you do over and over again
- Often times there isn't an automated way to collect data from another person
- Utilize a recurring request form to capture data in a standardized format, and automate reminders
- Create a single template, and duplicate it for handling other recurring requests
- Integrate the results into your other tools to eliminate requests, follow-ups, and data management
The build is a single form accessed via public link:
🛠 The Build - 7 Steps
Core Functionality
- Allows submissions for specific dates set up as recurrences
- Does not allow duplicate submissions to a date, or outside the set of dates expected
- Auto-reminders if the form hasn't been submitted by a certain time
- A form for the user to remove submissions
In this example we will create an "End-of-Day" form to collect total payments by payment method each day. The specifics of what we are collecting is not as important as how we're collecting it. This same method can be followed for collecting any set of data and/or documents.
1. Create an Airtable Base
From scratch, create an Airtable base with a field for the items or files you need in each request.
2. Create a Recurrences
Table
Set up the following fields:
Date
Next
- Calculates the date the next recurrence should be createdCreated
- Whether the next recurrence has been created

3. Create a To Generate
View
Create a new grid view with two filters:
- The
Next
field must be on or before today and - The
Created
box has not been checked
4. Add an Automation to Generate Recurrences
- The automation is triggered each time a record enters the
To Generate
view - It triggers two actions
- Create a Record - A new record is created, and the
Date
field is set to the value of theNext
field in the trigger record - Update a Record - The
Created
box is checked in the trigger record

5. Test your Automation
To ensure your automation is working correctly, while looking at the default grid view (not the To Generate
view), create a new record in the past. The next recurrence should populate automatically to current.
6. Link Submissions to Recurrences
- Create a field under
Submissions
to link each record to a specific recurrence - Create a formula field under
Recurrences
to indicate whether the recurrence has been linked - Create a view named
Unlinked
in theRecurrences
table, filtering to exclude linked records - Limit the link between the
Submissions
andRecurrences
table to only allow selections that are in theUnlinked
view.

7. Create your Submission Form
- In the
Submissions
table create a new form view - Add narrative explanations to assist the user
- Mark fields required
- New submissions will now appear in your
Submissions
table - Since each submission is associated with a recurrence, and the form only shows unlinked recurrences, only the outstanding submission dates will be displayed by the form

💪 Additional Functionality
- Add two fields to the recurrences table:
Today
- A formula field simply containing TODAY()Reminded
- A date field- Create a grid view called
Remind
with three filters: Linked
= 0 andDate
is on or before todayReminded
is not today

- Create an automation to send an email each day for any overdue recurrences
- Trigger when a record enters the
Remind
view. - Send an email identifying which recurrence is late. You could also add an email address to each recurrence, to direct different recurrences to different people.
- Update the record's
Reminded
field with today's date. This pushes it out of theRemind
view until the next day.

- Change the first field in the
Submissions
table to be a formula field referencing theRecurrence
field
- Create a new
Removals
table, with a single field to link to theSubmissions
table
- In the Removals table, create a form to allow the user to select a submission to remove
- Create an automation with the following steps:
- Trigger is when a record is created in the
Removals
table - You then update the
Submissions
record identified in the trigger record - Set the
Recurrence
field of the submission to be empty - This removes the association of the submission with a recurrence. The main form will once again show this date as an option for the user.
- Currently, the removal form will show unassociated submissions that were previously deleted:
- To fix this
- Create a grid view in the
Submissions
table that is filtered to exclude records whoseRecurrence
field is empty - Modify the
Submission
field in theRemovals
table to limit record selection to your new view
Any number of distinct recurrences can be running in parallel in your Recurrences
table. A few examples:
- Multiple people - A separate recurrence for each member of the team
- Multiple locations or classes - A separate recurrence for each location or class
- Different recurrence frequencies - In the same table, you can set up recurrence at different frequencies, with a new automation for each frequency
- Add a
QBO
checkbox field to Airtable
- Create a zap with the following steps:
- Triggered when there is a new record in the
Submissions
table - Create a sales receipt for each amount, in my case I have
Cash
,Card
andFinance
- Update the original record in
Submissions
to check theQBO
box
- Add a
Xero
checkbox field to Airtable
- Create a zap with the following steps:
- Triggered when there is a new record in the
Submissions
table - Create a bank transaction (receive money) for each amount, in my case I have
Cash
,Card
andFinance
- Update the original record in
Submissions
to check theXero
box
- Add a new
Total
formula field in Airtable - Enter a formula to add the three fields together
- Use the total in subsequent automations, such as notifications, or post to the accounting file
- Add fields for each file you'd like to collect to the
Submissions
table, and to the form - Add a Google Drive checkbox field
- Create a zap with the following steps:
- Triggered when there is a new record in the
Submissions
table - Upload the file attachment from each field to Google Drive. Here I have
File 1
andFile 2
. - Update the original record in
Submissions
to check theGoogle Drive
box
- Create an Automation in Airtable with the following steps:
- Triggered by a new record in the
Submissions
table - Use the "Send a Slack Message" action in Airtable to post a custom message to a channel
- Create an Automation in Airtable with the following steps:
- Triggered by a new record in the
Submissions
table - Use the "Send an Email" action in Airtable to send a custom email
- Create a zap with the following steps:
- Triggered when there is a new record in the
Submissions
table - Action is "Paths by Zapier"
Using paths in Zapier allows you to conditionally set logic based on the form response. For example, if there were $0 in deposits, send the owner a notification.