I have zapier creating new rows in a table. In that row is a button that I want pushed as soon as the row is created. The button is “disabled if” the button’s associated [results] column is blank.
My idea was to a helper table with one column and row that would count the number of blank [results] rows (the count is zero at first) and return true if count()>0, false. When a row is created in the first table, the count is increased in the second from zero to one and the checkbox returns true (was false). I created an automation to push the buttons in the original table, with the automation watching the true/false column in the helper table.
Everything works, and I have the automation set up:
But in practice the automation doesn’t automatically push the button. Should this be near-instantaneous?
JULY 1 - *UPDATED To reflect the example I created.
Hi @Johg_Ananda! Thanks for writing in, this is definitely a scenario we should be able to support. I’ve embedded the simplest example I could come up with below. What do you think? Do you think you could tailor something like this to your doc? For more in-depth and personalized debugging, don’t hesitate to write in on Intercom and share your doc with support@coda.io. We would love to help you get your Automation off the ground!
Hey @Adam_Ginzberg thanks for the help. I’ve built an example that I’m inserting in the original post, take a look.
@Johg_Ananda, thanks for sharing!
Yes I see the issue. We don’t currently support triggering Automations based on formulaic or calculated data changes. In your case, you are watching the AnyButtonsPushable? column which is formulaically calculated for updates. This is definitely something we want to get around to building, but haven’t gotten to yet. While you’re bringing this up, I agree we could definitely do a better job of explaining why this isn’t working in Coda.
In your case, a slight modification to the Automation so that it triggers on changes to Table (the table that Zapier is adding rows into) should do the job. In this scenario, that should have exactly the same effect.
@Adam_Ginzberg can you explain a bit more about the ‘slight modification’ … I don’t understand and would really like to get this working! Thanks 
Sure @Johg_Ananda! I copied the doc you used in your example and made 1 tiny change to the automation and removed the helper table. How does it look now?
That was helpful @adamginzberg64 . I was able to duplicate the functionality in your doc, and set up the same automation schema in my doc. The mechanism is firing upon a new row (zap), however it isn’t pushing the button. I have tried directing the automation to push ‘all the available buttons in the table’ and also to push ‘a button to push all available buttons’ and both attempts give me an undetailed error:
@Johg_Ananda you might be able to get more info by hovering the red Coda Error box although the error you see there may be cryptic. At this point, it might be useful to do some more hands-on debugging via a support ticket. You can write in to support@coda.io and / or share your doc with that alias and I or one of my colleagues can help you further.
Yep, I’m getting an error message I recognize but understand why its issued. I’ll contact support directly. Thanks for helping me walk through this! Excited to get this working.
