looking for trigger & automation guide

thomas

is there any guide about < trigger & automation >?
just like Airtable, i would like to make automated tasks when a record row is generated -> create new row in another table
ex. when a new record is generated in a table, then create another record in a different table based on the values.

what kinda guide do i have to look at? 
i watched function, custom function, background task video.. but all of them are not about trigger based automation. so frustrated.. please help me

Mauro Mequelussi-1595850

It still doesn't. But I believe this will be very powerful when it does. In Bubble this is possible and helps a lot.

Sean Montgomery

Hi ,

This is 100% supported. The database table view is for raw data entry - it is not designed for triggers. If you want to trigger something, then you should be using our functionstack within an API endpoint. That way you have complete control over exactly what you need to do.

thomas

 thx for ur comment. i actually watched all of the guide video of yours but, still i cannot do any scratch at all. 

UI is not easy to do.

could you please let me know how to try with just a simple workflow or example flow? 

i usually could follow up other Saas with tech creators but there are not enough Xano usecase

thomas

i think i would make Xano usercase tutorial videos with your help, when finishing setting up my backend

Nate Holm

Hey guys...quick follow up on this as it pertains to Outseta integration.  So my understanding is the Xano user table gets populated on login, i'd like to have a trigger when that account gets created in outseta( but in reality i think it will occur on first login).  Based on Sean's comment, should i add a function within the outseta *token exchange* API endpoint to do the various triggers and additional logic and inserts when that user does login for the first time in Xano?  

Just looking for direction to start off on right foot.  

Thanks

Ambroise

This is 100% supported.

It's not supported the way people are looking for it.

And allowing triggers only through API endpoints is a limitation, not a feature.
People are coming from Airtable where doing automations is a breeze, and becomes super difficult to achieve with Xano.

Same reasoning is valid for Formulas, a breeze in Airtable, and impossible in Xano. Sure, you can create dedicated API endpoints to return the equivalent to formula fields, but it's not the same at all, because you can't have data powered by formulas, unlike Airtable's.

arturosanz

Field triggers and formula fields should be available in Xano as soon as possible. There are too many use cases in which those features are the best solution by far.

Ambroise

Airtable Formula feature is the #1 reason I didn't use a traditional database (postgres, etc.) for the past 5 years. It made something super complicated into something super simple. I'm missing it dearly.

arturosanz

@Ambroise have you tried the QueryAllRecords evals? You can do formula fields and aggregates nicely with them.

Ambroise

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that "eval" feature.

Is it faster than looping through a collection of items to "enhance" them with additional properties?

arturosanz

@Ambroise it should be faster because it is integrated within the same function call, benefiting from the PostgreSQL extending SQL features.

Ambroise

Interesting, I've gone a different way since the beginning, by having Function that "enhance" a record.

I looked into Eval, but found it quite limited, as I wanted to mutate the current object and add plenty of properties, related on each other (similar to Airtable Formulas) and found the UX for Eval to be a non-starter.

Maybe I'll revisit that someday.