Turn a pile of documents into an Airtable table
Reads each document you link, pulls out the details you asked for, and adds one Airtable record per document.
What it does
Each integration step this workflow runs, in order, what it is for, and the conditions and loops that decide when it runs.
For each
documentEntryIf
documentLinkis not empty, (documentLinkstarts with “http” or “doc_”) anddocumentLinkdoes not contain “"”- 1AirtableList recordsLooks each link up in the 'Document' column first, so a document already in the table is left alone.
If
alreadyFiled.recordsis empty- 2AirtableCreate recordCreates one record per new document with its link, title, document type, the details pulled out and the date added.
- 2
- 1
How it works
What happens on each run, in plain English.
Give it a list of links to PDFs or images, say which details you want out of each one, and run it whenever you have a pile to file. Each document is read as written, the details you named are pulled out, and one record is added to your Airtable table per document.
Each record holds the link, a title, the document type, the details you asked for as one line each, and the date it was added. Before anything is written the link is looked up in the table, so a document already there is left exactly as it is and a re-run files only new links. Nothing is overwritten or deleted. A document that cannot be read is reported and skipped rather than stopping the run, each run takes a capped number of documents, and if nothing could be filed the run stops with a message.
Your table needs five columns before the first run: 'Document', 'Title', 'Document Type', 'Details' and 'Added'. Links have to serve the file itself rather than a preview page; uploaded files work too.
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