The Top 3 Must-Have Scripts for Maximizing Efficiency in Airtable

[@GarethPronovost]

*SCRIPT FORMULAS USED IN THIS VIDEO* 👇👇
Set Current Timestamp:
output.set("date", new Date().toISOString())
5 Second Delay:
function sleep(milliseconds) {
const start = new Date().getTime();
for (var i = 0; i < 1e7; i++) {
if((new Date().getTime() - start) > milliseconds){
break;
}
}
}
sleep(5000)//delay 5 seconds
Webhook Trigger:
let url = "YOURWEBHOOK?recordID=";
let {recordID} = input.config();
await fetch(url + recordID)
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[@jordancoleman1608]

That second script is.... bad. It basically causes the script to use 100% of the CPU cycles (and battery) available to it while it waits for time to pass. It also has an arbitrary number of "tries" after which it will give up and return anyway.

[@zionbrock]

Excellent. Love scripts.

[@GarethPronovost]

Us too!

[@augustincloutier508]

Great one😊 I knew the last one but not the first 2

[@GarethPronovost]

Learning something small every day is the road to mastery!

[@anchoreddigital]

Is there a distinct advantage between using the timestamp script vs just using a last modified time and pasting that value to the static Date field?

[@GarethPronovost]

I'm honestly not sure what amount of resource allocation is tied up with the Last Modified Time field. I haven't personally noticed any latency caused by it.

[@anchoreddigital]

@@GarethPronovost Airtable is tracking that data in the background whether there's a LMT field or not so I'm guessing latency isn't much of an issue. The script is still handy though especially since you can modify the time stamp and not have to rely on a DATETIME_ADD function which may have a bigger impact on performance.

[@SnigdhaParida]

I did not know time functions are so resource heavy! Is there a workaround to still have them based on conditions? In some cases I might have to deal with free Airtable versions.

[@alsaukh3]

Super useful 👌👋

[@GarethPronovost]

Thank you 🙂

[@darryloliver9868]

I realize you're not able to troubleshoot this, but the timestamp script throws an error when I try to run it:
TypeError: output.set is not a function
at main on line 1
It happens in the desktop and web versions of Airtable. I also tried it in Incognito mode on Chrome.

[@omarmhammedi9138]

All of theses script and even more, can be done with Coda easily. it's database system and formula language allows to create very personalized workflows

[@GarethPronovost]

I haven't used Coda for several years. We tried it when it first came out, but it couldn't support the data schema we built. It wound up costing us a client and about $15k 😳

[@omarmhammedi9138]

@@GarethPronovost would love to hear more about that. I know that there is a limit of rows, past 50 000 per table it start slowing down. But if it’s not a database row number problem, curious to know what failed you.

[@GarethPronovost]

@@omarmhammedi9138 it was performance. Table 1 linked to 2, linked to 3, linked to 4. Thousands of records later, the solution couldn't load in a reasonable amount of time and was unusable. 😥

[@omarmhammedi9138]

I see, I started using coda since 2023, I don’t know how it was before. But in my current use « project management » « task and time tracking » « finance » « CRM » I have never felt problem of performance. Maybe you should give it another try in 2024.

[@SerlynVilla-k5u]

where I can grab the script for timestamp? 😚😚

[@GarethPronovost]

In the video description 👌

[@JinGong-h9m]

I can imagine the Now() function would be resource heavy, but why should we care about it? The tech team in Airtable should take care of the issue. As a user, I just want the exact data.

[@GarethPronovost]

True, but the intense use of resources with the NOW() function slows down databases with large record counts. Agreed it's a tech issue, but also a building tip for folks with large datasets. Also, the function is close to the accurate time, but rarely exact. This script pushes out the exact time the script runs.

[@blankpage1704]

Chat GPT provided me with the Script below and it seems to work fine for me:
function delay(seconds) {
const startTime = Date.now();
while (Date.now() - startTime < seconds * 1000) {
// do nothing
}
}
// Call the delay function with the number of seconds to wait
delay(10); // This will delay the script for 10 seconds

[@GarethPronovost]

Perfect!