No-code Talk #5

Aron: Connor welcome to the fifth. No, co-talk, I'm so excited that you're here, that everybody's here. How are you today? I'm doing  

Connor: very well. There's spinning a lot happening, but we made it thanks for everyone allowing us to live this multiple times. So,  

Aron: so I have been living in Canada. For 30 years now, and I have never been a homeowner.

And you who moved here, what? Six months ago? What, what, how long have, and you are already a homeowner a year. It took you one year and you're a Canadian home. You are already higher in the social hierarchy of Canada than I am as a homeowner one year. So I, on behalf of myself and everyone, we would just like to congratulate you.

If we don't mind you being. For you to become a homeowner. So hats off to you.  

Connor: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, it's very  

Aron: exciting. Um, hopefully, maybe one day I will also be a homeowner in this great land, but hats off to you, really exciting. Um, so that's what relate today. Uh, Connor had to go sign and, and you know, what I imagine is give someone back.

That is  

Connor: pretty much it. Yeah. A lot of paperwork, half an hour planning things and will, and then yes, you hand over it. You have a thing that you have, and then you go about your  

Aron: day, the Canadian dream. Well, listen, I'm, I'm excited. Uh, Hey Chris, welcome to a no-code Talk. Uh, so yeah, we've got a lot on the agenda.

Streamdeck

Aron: So first I, we wanted, uh, talk a little, something maybe a little bit different, uh, which is kind of like our fizz, how we've been automating with physical stuff. Right. So Connor and I went down the rabbit hole there. Then we're gonna talk about Zapier transfers, uh, which is. You know, it's been a, it's been a month.

I think you've already done a video on it. So want it to bring it to the, to the, to everyone then Connor, you came to me with an air table, uh, challenge, if you will, uh, that we're happy to chat about, then I'm going to bring a challenge to you and talk about how I'm thinking of redoing my newsletter and get thoughts from you and from everyone in the audience.

And then everyone was nice enough to share a bunch of no-code projects on Twitter yesterday. So we're going to talk a little bit about those. So that's our agenda for today as always. If you're in the chat and you want to talk about something, let us know, you know, we're, we're, we're just here to, to, you know, have fun an hour every month.

So, so yeah. So Connor, talk to me a little bit about the toy that you purchased, uh, recently and what you use it for.  

Connor: So this came from Aaron's recommendation  

Aron: a little bit more to in front of your face. There we go. I  

Connor: think there we go. Eight stream deck. So the main reason why I got this initially was because I wanted to improve the process for editing my YouTube videos.

Um, I made a hundred videos and it's just been the most painful process doing like tutorials and screen recordings. And then you gave me the rundown about OBS and I was like, Why didn't I just listen to you when you told me about that, like seven months ago. And so that has been a little bit of a game changer, but then even better, you said, okay, you should also check out stream deck, which is this little toy here where you can basically control different views.

Um, from this little pad. So if, for example, you want to kind of move it a little  

Aron: bit to your face. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Like  

Connor: in front of the camera, if you wanted to paint like the camera angles, you can just press buttons and it will change it automatically for you. And it's just going to really streamline processes for I'm actually making my videos, but.

This is not about YouTube. So the, I have also started playing around with it and I found some phenomenal use cases for no code. I'm so excited about this. Um, so as everyone probably knows, I've got like 1,000,001 side projects, like I've got the Unicon factory Canada and New Zealand, and I also do a little course.

And so obviously navigating all the way around that can sometimes be a bit difficult. So. Done is I've programmed that I can control all of my projects from in here. So let's say I want to work on the unicorn factory. I can just click on it. And then I have basically these tabs for opening my Webflow project, which is there.

Um, this here links to all of my zaps for the Unicon factory. So it's the filter view. So it's not all the different steps. It's just specific to the UNICOM factory. And then I have all of these shortcuts that I can use to basically access things a lot faster. Well, I've been using it for like three days.

So let's put it this way. I'm not, I'm not an expert on the matter, but let me Italia, it's so much fun and it saves so much time. So, um, yeah, I, I might make a video about this, um, at some point, because it's absolutely effect, I'm such a fan of it. Yeah,  

Aron: yeah, no. So, uh, so maybe some context, cause you went from like, I know nothing about OBS.

Let me tell you the 13 things I've learned in the last two days about OBS and like, kind of going way beyond where I am an OBS. So for folks who are not familiar, and if you record videos, uh, I do highly recommend to check out OBS. So OBS is the open broadcast software platform is what I'm using to stream to you.

And, uh, so my, my whole stream and air stream is in OBS. And if you record multiple things at once, so let's say your browser, your camera and your audio OBS, lets you manage all of that. But let's say you want to like move. So for instance, let me show you guys. So I don't know if I can share this, you see this little button, so what I'm going to click this button.

It's going to bring me in Connor to look smaller. Right? There we go. And then I click it again and it brings us to. But, you know, at its core, it's actually just the keyboard that you can program. Right? So you can say, when I click this button, click, you know, go to this URL in Chrome or open this application and then do these other four things.

And so it's extremely useful if you're like a shortcut person and want to kind of program those shortcuts in the tools that you use. So I've been really impressed with how Connor has been using it. Cause he's taken it from like, I use it for recording. Basically automating anything. Um, and before people ask, yes, you can trigger web hooks on this thing.

So you could imagine like running an API to whatever and like, uh, you know, automating your lunch or whatever. I know Steven, uh, has been doing some cool things with, uh, um, uh, not a stream deck, but just keyboard shortcuts and things like that. Yeah, that's it. I thought it would be kind of cool to talk about, uh, not to automation, but actual physical automation.

So I'm curious Connor, what's your, what's your next thing you want to tackle with your.  

Connor: I'm going to get so carried away with this. I know really, like I feel about the string, that the way that I felt about like Zapier, when I discovered it for the first time I'm going to absolutely. I'm going to automate absolutely everything.

So because we're moving into the new house in about a week and a bit, I've already been looking into like setting up lighting and stuff that I can, can, uh, can stream decks. Some of that stuff. I didn't actually know about the whole web hook thing. I did look it up. And the only light integration tool that they have is if this thin net, which is like, okay, why that?

But, um, now that I know that you can use web Hawks, um, you know, I mean, I'm going to come up with some fancy things and yeah. Yeah. I dunno. I feel there's so many use cases for this that, um, I'm just going to explore. I've been watching a lot of tutorials, so I'm coming up with a lot of ideas.  

Aron: Yeah. So I think one thing about the web hook thing, and I'll quickly speak about this, is that, let me just kind of go to.

You know, uh, and this is the stream deck interface here. Right. Uh, and I just took website as the, the, the kind of a shortcut, right. So I put website, but when you think of what a web hook is, it's just a specific URL with some parameters. Right. So if your parameter would be like triggered, like it could be just a Zapier URL plus is blank, right.

Because there's no input because you're not, it won't take an input. It could, if you want it. Right, but then you kind of, you can do a get request in the background. Uh, and so you're able to trigger a web hook from your stream deck, and that could be integrating directly with Zapier. So when receive a web hook, go ahead and do these things.

But I think you could also just trigger it like an API via the URL, as long as it's like fully contained in the S. So, um, so yeah, so this is, might be like on the advanced side. I think everyone would love and benefit from a stream deck if you are kind of like us and super geeky, uh, but you can trigger, uh, automations and, and API specifically in the.

Connor: Now we're truly automating all of the things.  

Aron: Surely before this, it was automating some of the things, but now we're, uh, automating all the things. So just so Jake is here. Uh, so we can talk smack about other tools. So coronary, if you've been holding back, just know that, you know, all we can, we, we can now talk, talk crap about other tools.

So, uh, Jake, happy to have you here. Uh, go ahead. Connor. Where are you going to say?  

Connor: Oh, actually, all I was going to say is that yesterday evening I was looking up, um, like things like smart ovens,

um, thing. So yeah, there's going to be much more to come, but it's going to be quite funny. I reckon I'm going to automate them dumb  

Aron: as I agree. I agree. So, uh, yeah, so folks, let us know if you have a stream deck. So there were some, some Chris. Uh, you know, streams from it, you know, common use case, and it's kind of quiet.

I wonder how you adjust volume. So if you've got a tutorial for doing that, let me know. I'd love to see it. Uh, but yeah. Uh, Fraser, get yourself a stream deck. That's all. I, I, I wish I had like a, like a referral link. I'm actually just hucking this cause I think it's a really cool tool. So, um, cool. Well, speaking of new stuff, let me go ahead and move.

There we go.  

Zapier Transfers

Aron: Let's talk about. Zapier transfers. So, um, I think you've used it. I've only kind of peruse that. So, uh, maybe Connor give us, uh, an intro into, uh, transfer by Zapier. What have you found? What are some resources that folks can, uh,  

Connor: Okay. So I had a little play around with it, so it is still in beta.

So it's the first iteration of it. There's still a few things missing that I'm assuming that they're working on right now, but in a nutshell, um, up until this point, Zapier has been really good for. Individual workflows. So one off tasks, for example, um, I receive an email then do this, then do that. But whenever you wanted to do batch automation, so take, say an entire database in Google sheets and transfer it over to air table.

Then, um, you kind of could do it in Zapier, but it would require a lot of hacking and. Oftentimes it wasn't super reliable. So you'd use a tool like Parabola or even Integromat. And now Zapier has released the own internal solution to this problem called transfers. And so the idea is that you can basically bulk automated.

Uh, like certain workflows and I had to play around with it. It's pretty cool. I mean, like, it does kind of what you expect it would do. Um, I set up a pretty simple workflow where I transfer data from ear table to Google sheets and, um, yeah, I mean, it, it, it works there differently, like a few things that you, that they all need to improve on a few additional features that don't need to add.

But overall, if you are. Uh, familiar with Zapier and you've been looking for something that allows you to basically automate a lot of workflows at once. Then this might  

Aron: be it. So I have a few questions and I think I speak for most folks. Uh, so I'm here on the landing page, like, is this in like a time sink?

So it's saying like set the time. I want to sync it every five minutes or is it like. Uh, sink it once, right. Is it a button I need to press and then it sinks it and then I have to go back to Zapier to sync it again.  

Connor: Yeah. So the workload that I set up was, um, I click the button, but I'm pretty sure that they allow you to do it.

Um, I'm not sure, actually, that's a good question. I didn't hit that, but I'm pretty sure once you seal it up, you can just jump in, then hit the play button whenever you want. So I don't think it's currently set up to be on a schedule or any of that stuff. Um, from what I can see, you can't even really trigger it through an actual zap at this stage.

Can't sit up like a normal. Trigger transfers as a result of something happening in normal Zapier. Um, so I think right now it's pretty simple and straightforward in the sense that you have to, um, run it manually. So I think the main use case that they're solving for in this first version is just data transfer.

Aron: So it's like, I want to kind of sync this information, send it one. Right. Like, uh, like a one-time thing. And I just want this information that's here and I want to map it to some fields that are over there once, and then I'm done.  

Connor: Correct. And you can only connect one step to the other at the moment. So you can't do multiple things.

So, um, I think the main use case of it would be, is say, you want to switch CRMs or say you want to switch from Google sheets to air table, or you want to, um, Like, I don't know, download. Something as a CSV file, something like that. That is what this use case is designed for. Again, I can't imagine that this is where things will stop.

Like it's still in beta. So I assume a lot of additional features will come, but at the moment it's simply one source, one destination, and you can then map up all of your different fields, the way that you would, if you were sitting up a normal zap.  

Aron: Hmm. Okay. Okay. So it's going to be interesting. I think, you know, what's interesting is for me, I understand why Zapier wants to solve for this.

Right. But I also think sync is going to require something a little different than what Zapier is used to, in the sense of like, they're actually not that many, uh, like I want my sink to live in the tool that I needed to. Right. Like I think air table obviously is like a good example of what I want sink to be.

And I don't want it to be like, You know, have me press a button. And I don't think we want to trigger sinks at like, in a moment of the workflow, I think is just something that's like on, in the background. I think what's more interesting and where I hope like sync providers are going to go is that mapping is hard.

Right? I don't know if you've experienced this, like the way I w map air table to Webflow is not actually straightforward. It's not just like, take this value, send it there. It's actually like, you need to create a data structure that is across your very many tools. Right? So maybe you have an ID that you want to send across all of your tools all the time.

And so I'm excited for like the first sync partner that'll do like, okay. Take all of your information and create like, almost like a, like a data structure that you then send to other places. So I haven't seen that. Yet. Right. I think everyone's kind of approaching it. Like, yeah, let's just sync this to that.

But as a business, I was like someone who manages a lot of databases in different places. Like it becomes difficult for me to sync to one another, just being like, okay, let's sync every two minutes. So that that's mine. That's my thought on this. That's where I think I hope people will go, but I do see why Zapier is like kind of way behind on this.

Connor: Yeah. I mean, there are definitely a lot of use cases where I use Parabola a lot. Like I think Parabola was like a phenomenal tool and it solved exactly that use case, which is keeping databases in sync at all times. Now, if I'm completely honest, I don't know how Zapier is going to make this work in term, if the, unless they changed the pricing model for transfers.

Because if I migrated all of my, um, Parabola set up over to Zapier transfers, assuming they have like some of the additional features that will come, I mean, I would ramp up the credit so fast, like, so that is like a big one to consider. So I feel like. For one off users. For example, I want to migrate from one CRM to the other.

Fantastic. Again, the benefits of something like Zapier is it's super easy to learn. You don't need to really know too much about automation or to get the hang of it. But as soon as you start wanting to set up more complex sinks, like. I dunno, like some things will have to change with snappier and how they price their services in order for this to be something that might be used for those types of use cases.

Aron: So is it still one field sinked is one task.  

Connor: Yeah. So it's not one field, but like one, one record, right? Yeah. One record. One task.  

Aron: Wow. Okay. So if I'm migrating like a 50,000. You know, F row database, whether that's Excel or whatever, every one of those rows, every one of those sinks counts one against my tasks.

So it's like maybe a couple hundred dollars right there. Correct. Wow. Okay. Well I think  

Connor: honestly, Uh, like I used to hate on Integromat a lot, but it wasn't ignorance. I didn't do my research, but then I started watching Jake's tutorials and I was like, wait, wait a second. Maybe, maybe there's something here.

Maybe I should like revisit this. And this is something that, um, Integromat does quite well as well. You know? So I still kind of feel like for individual one-off records, like. Zapier is the light, the best tool to get into, especially if you're a beginner, but as soon as it comes into database sinking territory, I'm still leaning towards Integromat and Parabola on that one, at least as things stand now.

And it's not because of certain features missing it's because of how, um, Zapier basically prices their service and like that's all it comes down  

Aron: to. Right? Yeah. I don't know. I'm I'm very much like. I don't think a couple of hundred dollars to transfer tools is that much to ask, but I do get the, like, it adds up, especially if you're running a bunch of tasks and if you've got a tool that you can run, that's better.

So, uh, we know what team  

Connor: I do. I do sync like thousands of records every single day. Right. So. Like with the Unicon factory and the other ones, it adds up fast. And like, I agree. I'm like, look, if it gets the job done, like what's the problem. Like you're saving so much money in time, but again, I think it comes down to opportunity costs of it all.

And I kind of feel like that is currently where I'm kind of like, this is nothing against Zapier. I think Sappi is like phenomenal Cole and I still use it a lot, but like there are other tools out there that do it just as well. And yeah, I dunno. That's just my  

Aron: position on them. I agree with you. I agree with you.

I'm a, you know, I'm with you. I think there's going to be a sync tool that we're going to use that might be Parabola, but they've gotten very much down. E-commerce uh, I've seen a few, there's some like native to some tools, so you can sync Airtable and Webflow, you know, within air table, air table, lets you sync into web air table would not out of.

Uh, so, so I think sync is like one of those big areas that a lot of people are going to solve in different ways. Uh, what I'm hearing from you and from the community is that no, one's kind of cracked the nut, uh, in Zapier is like, uh, probably going to go a long way for a lot of people, but it's definitely not hitting, you know, what you expect from a sinking tool.

So I'm curious, uh, in the. Uh, Jake, uh, anyone Chris, Matt, if you've used Zapier sink. Uh, so I, I, you know, I'll disclaimer, I haven't used it. I haven't used that here in a little while, uh, because you know, air, table scripting mainly. Uh, so yeah, I'm curious to see what people think and let us know if you've, if you like it, if you've enjoyed it and, uh, yeah.

Any thoughts before we move on here?  

Connor: Um, Nope. Love step. Yeah.

Aron: Um, it'll, it'll always be our first love, you know, we'll always every, no coder is like, oh yeah, I started with Zapier and we're like, yeah, me too. Uh, um, and, and totally agree, Matthew, that like bi-directional sync is the holy grail and no one's, um, no, one's solved it, right. Like, I think that's what we're all looking for.

And I think there's a lot of technical challenges in it. I think there's a data mapping challenge in it. You can edit in both places and what happens if people are editing simultaneously in two places. So, um, yeah, I think it's going to be, it's going to be a challenge. It's going to be a challenge. Uh, there's also just the data mapping challenge.

How do you map data across different tools, which I think will be, you know, more of a big business type challenge that I'm always thinking about. So, okay. That is. Boom. Use the stream deck overriding values.  

Overriding Values

Aron: So Connor talked to me a little bit about, so I'm going to, I'm going to share your base that you came to me with.

There we go. Let me share all of this with you, Connor. Okay. Talk to me about your base and what challenges you faced. And I'll talk a little bit about how I tried to solve it for you.

Connor: So just make sure that you don't share any email addresses and stuff, but, um, the use cases. Okay. So I've got a workflow that I've got set up here where, when I freelance on the UNICOM factory submits an update for their case studies or their portfolios, I get them to submit it in the table portfolio updates.

And then what I do is I then seen all of the information that they submit. To the original record, which sits in the portfolio table. So inside of this field here is actually a linked record that gets pulled in by the URL. And so the problem that I was trying to solve is the overriding of information inside of ear table automations.

Now, when I set this up in Zapier, if someone. Doesn't S Mitt a field, for example, they don't want to update their project title, or they don't want to update their thumbnail or their services that they used. Then what Zapier will do is they will just leave the original field. We'll leave the field in the original record as it is.

Okay. Whereas what ear table does is it says, Hey, this is empty. So therefore we should override the original record. With nothing. Yeah. So you can see there that we've got, um, a few submissions where we have the hero image and one of the freelancers submitted an image in it, and everyone else lifted the blank, which means that they want it to just update like the project title or whatever.

Yeah. And so the issue is how do I map this using ear table automation?  

Aron: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, so the riding fields making it, so let me say in English, what you just said, which is essentially, uh, the challenge. So the first overarching, not that you're not speaking English, I mean like English, as in, like for someone who doesn't work all day long in air table, um, the first challenge you're facing is actually one of how do I update information, right?

So what you do, I think smartly in a Finch, it's kind of like a workaround you say, okay, submit. A record for each update. Right. And I'm going to link back to your portfolio and then kind of manually copy paste, uh, the overarching fields, uh, the, the overarching, like the changed fields, because air, you don't want to give access to that freelancer to your whole base.

Right. Uh, but you do want to update information in portfolio, right. For that specific, uh, uh, Person, but you only want to update certain fields. So the first challenge is how do you update information? And you've done it with a separate table that updates that information, uh, which is, you know, frankly like a kind of work around, right.

Ideally you'd give everyone access to, uh, um, yeah. So Matthew great point, like essentially doing a patch call and that is exactly what. Um, but yeah, like there's no good way to do that because you can't give someone access to their only their information in air table. That's challenge number one. And you solve that with Patriot challenge.

Number two, is that, um, how air table automation works is that it inputs the field values for every field that you map. So let's say someone wants to update their image. You're going to say, we'll take the value in image and put it into the portfolio. And if that's empty will overwrite the existing value with empty.

And that's going to kind of screw up that person's portfolio. What we would love is like an if statement for each field to say, if that field exists, Go ahead and update for that specific field. That value. Right. Great. Okay. So, uh, we're going to solve this with button script and Webhooks. No, I'm joking.

I'm joking. We're just going to, uh, we're going to handle it with the. Uh, um, and, and the reason I'm going to go ahead,  

Connor: go ahead. I, I just want to say quickly that this works in Zapier though, without F L statements, Zapier, just patches. So like the main inquiry was, is this possible in ear table automations?

I know you can do it with scripts, but in case someone's like, oh my goodness. If Al statements is going to take so long, This works in Zapier.  

Aron: Yes. Yeah. And I think in Zapier, it's like the opposite you can, well, you can do in Zapier, I think is you can input the, you can say a pen essentially, right? So you can say like only add or overwrite if it's not empty.

Right. How would you do that? How would you tell Zapier? Is it like a toggle free space?  

Connor: So you say space, space, place. Yeah. Amazing.  

Aron: Okay. We'll override it with an empty field. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Okay.  

Connor: Actually sees that there's like a little label or like a low note below each field that explains. Yeah.  

Aron: Okay.

So you can do this with air table automations, but it's going to require a very short script and I've gotten feedback that a script writing is neither my forte or something we should be doing too much on the stream. So I just want to outline the script for you. And, uh, you can go ahead and build it Connor.

And because you're now a coder, uh, you can come back in a month and show off the actual script. Yeah, that's good. Okay. Cool. So the first trigger is going to be when, so I went to portfolio updates. I said, when the status is approved, go ahead and run this automation. Right. And, and you're right. They usually, what we would want is just update record.

Right? We would go to update record. We would go, we would find the record. Actually we would find records. Right. And I think I want to put this one over. So  

Connor: will you see, you don't actually need to do that because I'm referencing that record in that profile update.  

Aron: Oh, okay. Okay. So you can, oh, you have the record ID so I can literally go update record, right.

Go to mine. So make  

Connor: the record ID from the profile updates  

Aron: Table. Yeah. Yeah. So you look up the record ID. Okay. That totally makes sense. Right. So you're saying air table, record ID. Yeah. Yeah. I got you. I got you. It,  

Connor: I think it's called case study link or something.  

Aron: Case  

Connor: study. I made this one, like back in the day.

Horrible  

Aron: naming convention. Yeah. So you can, you can pull it in. But the challenge you're going to have is that this let's say you want to update the image project image. If you go to step one project, it's called project image. And, uh, you, you have one here, the hero image where you're saying here you want the URL is that if this field is empty, it's going to overwrite with.

Right. And that's what we want to avoid. So the outline of the script you need to write right, is essentially this right here. So what you're going to do, actually, you don't need this anymore. So first thing is when you're writing a script in air table automations, you can input values from step one. So here I have the record ID of the update, and then I could also input freelancer.

Which is what we just mentioned. Right. So I think you called it a case study ID ref. Is that it? Yeah. Right here. ID. Yup. That's the one. So what you're going to do is you're going to put portfolio update into that. So this is just a variable that says record ID is this, and then the freelancer ID is this right here from the previous steps.

Right. Then you're going to pull in the record. But you want to update to get all of its values. And essentially you're just going to create a new variable. We're going to call this, let update fields equal as it should be a string where we say the fields we want to update. So like this I'm a little stressed out to do this in front of Matthew.

Cause I feel like he's going to be like, no, there's not the most efficient way of doing. Um, right. And you can actually probably use a map, a map on a update record that goes to each fields checks. If there is a value right in that field. And if so, it maps it to the name of the field. And then you're going to put that in the update portfolio record.

So essentially what this is going to look like is like, let's say I have this right. That's like that. Oh, it's reducing both of them. That's frustrating. There we go. And if we look at the update records, update, record, update, record a sync. I need to pass in

off the record, the record ID, which I have from here. Right. And then essentially every single field that I want to update. Right. And so all you have to do is do you if field value, so this would be update record like that dot get sell value, a string as string equal, equal equals zero. If that's true, what in the value, if that's falls, don't put in anything and you do that for every single field.

Um, you're going to be able to create that kind of mapping to each field that you want to update. And this will replicate the updating of the fields. Now, I feel like I've explained that very poorly, so I'm happy to answer any questions,  

Connor: not make sense to me. You're basically seeing, um, is this field populated, if not use what's in the original table right now, otherwise use what's in the pro portfolio update.

Aron: Yeah. So essentially what, what I would recommend is that when you're creating this mapping right here, that you're going to input into update portfolio record. This only looks at the fields you have mapped, right? So if there is no value, so like if your field that you want to update and update, record a sync is not in this matter.

It's not going to say like, oh, let me just move this up a little bit. Can folksy boom ups. Now it's too big. That's too big. Let's go update records. Sync that.

Yeah. So let me just move that up a little bit right here. So you should see. Hello again. Um, so this works the way you want it to work. So if your field is not in that, uh, like right here in this mapping, oh, it's just going to say, oh, you don't want to touch that field. So you need to create a variable before that has every field you want to update.

And essentially you're going to want to update every field that has a value in it. So what you're going to do, so that for that record, you can go through each field value, check if there's a value. If, so, add that to your mapping and then pass that mapping into update, record async. And that's only going to update the field for that specific record that are filled out.

And that is instead like, like here, you would have to put an if, right. So you would say like, if, but you can't do that in Airtable automations. So you're essentially doing that in the script. Does that make sense? And uh, I promise I'll, I'll read it for folks now. Right. So I'll, I'll, I'll write it and then we'll show it off next month.

I'll make  

Connor: us depressed. Precordial for it. Okay. I'll do a loop. I followed along. I'll make her tutorial on it so that you can kind of follow along the step-by-step process, but it makes sense. Look at this here and look at what it's come to. You're teaching people how to code.  

Aron: I know, I know, but, but I'm, I'm, I've convinced Jake to give it a try.

I feel like that's success. Uh, I, I'm not allowed to say Jake's tool. Favorite tool on the stream. It's part of our rules. But I feel like Jake, your favorite tool doesn't allow code. So I'm just going to put that out there. If you do learn how to, how to write some code, you're not going to be able to do that, but, uh, you know what we should do next month when I want to name another tool, I'll bleep it out.

I'll have like a bleep. I can do that on the stream deck. So what I'm saying, like, uh, other tools and I'm naming them, I'll just bleep them out. So, uh, that'll be all starved for that. Cool. Okay. So you'll get, you'll come back with the, the script next. Yep. Awesome. Okay. So next, uh, our next topic here is, is I'm actually really excited about this one.

Um, so, uh, this morning I wrote, uh, the 69th version of like, not version, but I guess like I've sent out 69 newsletters. Right. And, um, I have a poor track record on, uh, consistency. Right. So what that means is I'm like I'm going to write every week. And then frankly, if I look at my numbers one week out of two, I can't do it.

Right. I'm not good at it. I either don't feel like I have a good title, uh, um, or I don't have like that ability. And what I realized was that, like, let's say you sign up to my newsletter today, right? You're not going to get any of those 69 previous. Emails and they're valid. Like, I think they're good. Like if I sent them that means, I thought they were good at a certain time.

And so I've been wondering about how do I send those new subscribers, existing pieces. Right. And the challenge I have here is that, um, my newsletter lives in review. And so all of my subscribers end up there and some weeks I do send out a newsletter and some I don't. So I have actually a secondary mailing list in mailer, a light, which is everyone who signed up to the essential guide to care Table.

If you said you want to sign up to the newsletter, I send you to review and there you just get new instances. So I'm wondering how can I make like a way for people to be like, oh, I just signed up. Maybe I put them into a drip, right. Where I don't know how to make it such that I get value from those 70 other pieces, um, without making like this really complex system.

Evergreen Newsletter

Aron: So I offer it up as a question and, and people call this evergreen newsletters, right? So this idea of you'll take content and you repurpose it to new subscribers. Connor. I'd love to get your thoughts on how I could do this. Both from like a philosophy standpoint, how do I make sure that like it's valuable to people, but also from a systems perspective, how do I orchestrate this?

So I'm not like managing five, six.  

Connor: Uh, okay, good question. Uh, I have no idea. Um, sorry. I think, I think, okay. If I just off the top of my head, I think the way that most people approach it is like, if you sign up to a newsletter, you can still get access to all of the other newsletters through a website, gated content, whatever.

So I'm pretty sure if I like signed up to your newsletter now, I would also be able to check out all of the previous ones that you've written on review.  

Aron: That's true, but like, let's be honest, how many people do that? Right. You sign up to a newsletter, like yeah. Like people can, I can give the link to like, right.

Like, you know, uh, so here, let me just kind of drop the link. Right? You can go here and this lives on my website, right? So I do get the SEO value about 75% of my mailing list comes from people reading existing. Right. That said like, what I expect people to do is they read one, they subscribe, but then like they never actually get value from that piece.

I wrote about, you know, five months ago, because like there's 70 pieces. They're not going to read through each one. And there's a good question of how do I make sure that I'm not just spamming them with things they don't care about, but that they're also getting the new issues.  

Connor: So I might be wrong, but one newsletter that I follow that is really good is trends.

I don't know if you've heard of that one and I, okay. So I might be completely wrong if I am. I am sorry, but I do have a feeling that he recycled some of his newsletter that they like are on a cycle so that you might over the course of a year, get the same email twice. Wow. Yeah. So it's, um, So, yeah, it's, by the way, it's a great newsletter.

I highly recommend checking it out, but basically you just get a weekly newsletter on a certain topic. So he's talked about no code marketplaces, all that kind of stuff, and it just cycles fruit. Now I might be wrong about that. He might just be creating new content all the time, but I have a feeling that I've gotten the same email, like two or three times, which I personally don't think is a problem because it's a kind of like a re a nice reminder about a certain time.

So, um, the way that you could potentially reuse it is kind of see what muesli does have historically done really well for you. Um, and then add them to your cycle of emails that you rescind over time.  

Aron: Right. So, okay. The idea would be that you are a new subscriber. I automatically put you into a drip of say, you know, my top 10 and I let you know, like, Hey, by the way, you're for your first time.

You're going to receive an email every Wednesday and every other week when I'm not publishing, you're going to get, you know, the top 10, whatever over time or something like that. Now, a question for everyone and Kyle, that's a great suggestion  

Connor: that, yeah, I agree with Kyle. That's a  

Aron: good tip, but how do I unsubscribe people?

Cause cause review doesn't offer a drip, right? It has no drip mechanism and that's where I write and send the news. How do I, like if you unsubscribed from the drip, do you unsubscribe from review? Right? Like how do I manage these multiple lists? Like right now, if you, if you sign up to the essential guide to air table, I put you into mailer Lite, and that has drip mechanism.

Maybe if you saw subscribe from review, I put you into that, like drip functionality. But then if you unsubscribe from this, do you, do I unsubscribe you from my weekly newsletter as well? How do I manage that? How do you think about it?  

Connor: Okay, so, okay. So in that particular use case, um, I think there are probably a few ways that you could do it.

I've seen certain newsletters when you unsubscribe for them. They actually give you the option to like only unsubscribe from certain types of emails. So I think something that. I can't remember which one it is, but they're like, are you sure you want to unsubscribe from all of our emails or just some of that emails?

And so in your case, if someone wants to unsubscribe from that drip that they signed up to, but not all of the other emails, what you could do is add an unsubscribe button at the bottom of your email, and then redirect them to, um, like a landing page in Webflow where they can select from like check boxes.

Uh, If they want to unsubscribe from All or just unsubscribed from certain lists, and then you could set up a workflow in Zapier that basically removes them from all of the newsletters that they have  

Aron: text. That's actually a really good idea. I really liked that idea. I guess I could dynamically create that URL based on what I know people are already, um, subscribed to you.

So just make that like I'm subscribed page a little more dynamic. You know, I think that's a really good idea where when you sign up, I let you know that you're both in a drip of my best and of like the weekly Wednesday when that's available. Right. When I do publish it, you're going to get that one as well.

But that said, like, if you get that email, that reader, like, I don't control that unsubscribe link. Right. So I think it's like a, uh, um, a little bit of a, I know, I know convert kit does this very well. Right. They both have the unsubscribe and the publishing aspect to it. So it might be just like a question of migrating to convert kit, but I do have 70 pieces that would have to migrate.

Right. Which you know, is definitely a challenge. And, um, so I think there's some suggestions here. So one suggestion from Jeremy is, you know, like a best of the challenge with the best of, I think is a good point. If you've been subscribed for 50 pieces, right? Like it's kind of unfair to you to have this like recurring section of best of articles.

It doesn't solve the problem that people are not discovering the old ones. I do think that's a good idea. Maybe I could, what I could do is if I'm not publishing that week, I just send a different email that has links to past good ones. Right. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking this for a small newsletter.

Connor: I mean, I think if you can't publish for whatever reason for out the way you can definitely rescind an older one. I know heaps of people do that. Like they just recycled content might make small changes and stuff like that. And like I said, like if I get like another email, like an interesting email, um, gets seen again, like, I don't mind that like, especially because all of your emails are quite educational, so it's not like you're trying to sell anyone in.

I think. But, yeah, I don't know. It's a, it's definitely an interesting use case. Uh, is there, like, I don't know. It may look like I'm pretty sure you can see whether or not someone has opened an email.  

Aron: The thing is I don't actually send email from mailer light. I send it all from review MailerLite is just like a repository of emails.

Um, so I wish I had the bleep. Cause if I had the bleep, I would say like I've cluster. My whole mailing thing, uh, um, pretty, pretty significantly, uh, because all my emails live in mailer light and like that's everyone who's ever taken the essential guide to air table. And then I have a flow from mailer light into review when you opt into my newsletter.

Right. Um, I don't know what to do. I'm like so afraid of touching it to be. Because, uh, I don't know if I could send email to these people who have signed up to the essential guide to air table. I don't know how to drip emails to them. Do I make them like sign up for my newsletter again? I don't know, but it sounds like the best thing to do would be either to recycle existing content on an off week to be like, Hey, no newsletter this week, but you know, here's, you know, my most popular posts from six months ago or before.

Um, or where I do like a parallel drip where you either get the weekly email on Wednesdays and or you get that like drip of content and then maybe you catch up eventually to new content.

Connor: Yeah. I think that, I think that a few suggestions that people have made, like Kyle's tradition, I think is the best, like an extra Optum for, do you want to receive the top 10 newsletters that came before this one? I think that's honestly, probably the best way to CA catch people up on ideas on like your newsletters that they may have missed.

Aron: So Joel has a really good one where you loop through, like you tag people as they've received a specific newsletter, and then if they have received it, uh, what you like, you kind of cycle them through, uh, um, Like, so you're a new subscriber. I essentially give you a 20 week drip of my best articles. And as you're getting them, like, I, I tagged that.

You've received them. I don't know. Do you, Joel, what, what tool would I use to do that? Because there, what I have to then just kind of create my own tags and then cycle through. Uh, but I, I will definitely use the. Um, off weeks, just send something else that has, you know, Hey, no, no newsletter this week, but here are links of the week and five good articles from last week.

So I think that's a really good idea.  

Connor: So I'm pretty sure. So I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure in mailer light, you can actually, um, find out for the API, if someone opened an email or not. And so you could set up a workflow that if email is opened, tag them with like the red muesli, the one tag, right, right.

And then you can build filters based off that. Wow. That sounds like such a project.  

Aron: Yeah. Okay. Well, listen, I appreciate everyone's ideas if you have. So I'm talking to Steven, O'Grady later about this. Uh, if you're interested in, in helping us build that workflow, uh, you know, reach out to me on Twitter, I'd love some help.

And, uh, what I promise everyone is once I, uh, once we build it, once we get some. Uh, um, structure or suggestion. Uh, I promise everyone all open source that will come on the stream. We'll build it. We'll show it off to everyone and we'll included in the newsletter. So we're recycling content about recycling content that is like the most meta we could ever get.

So, uh, I appreciate everyone. Yeah. Suggestions, uh, Joel, Jeremy, Kyle, uh, Steven really appreciate all of the tips, Matthew. Um, that'll be the bar. If Matthew think is a good project, I think I'll be very impressed with myself and what we've built. So promise to everyone. I will come show it off on the stream once we have it done.

Um, and yeah, I'm, I'm really excited. I think like, I can't believe we've written seven. Issues of "Automate All the Things" and people are still reading it. So I'm really excited. Uh, yeah. I, I agree. Like it's just hard sometimes to write every week. I just need to figure out a mechanism where I can keep up the cadence because I've unfortunately tied this trip.

To the newsletter. So this is how I, you know, tell people about when the stream is, so that might be something that I've done as a mistake. Cool. Okay.  

No-code Projects

Aron: We have five minutes, five minutes, Oop, uh, to talk about no-code projects. So, uh, people have been tweeted about this yesterday. I was looking for no-code projects.

Uh, so let me share my screen with you, Connor, and you know, I couldn't pick. Across all of these amazing projects. So what I thought we do is just like, let's highlight some, uh, that people built recently. So let me just go to my notifications here. I had one open up, so yeah, let's just kind of go through them.

I was really impressed by these because some of these are marketplaces. Uh, so we've got this, uh, give charities, New Zealand, which was really cool. I thought this one was really, really cool evens  

Connor: in the chat.  

Aron: Oh, Steven. Amazing. Yeah. Let me drop the link to the. So,  

Connor: let me, let me tell you something about that one.

So Steven and Alice, they, I think they tried building this with developers at first, and then they ended up diving into the no-code world and building this site here, they've got some pretty cool integrations. So you can now donate directly through this integration called donor by. Um, it's phenomenal, but more, more importantly, they've been working on this for like a little bit over a year.

And like, Steven has just like gone from knowing nothing about no-code tools to just like knowing so much about no code. Like, I'm pretty sure he is like doing some consulting for people on how to build these platforms yourself. And he's pretty much done all of that within the space of a year. And I'll use it.

This is a phenomenal use case as well.  

Aron: So Steven, if you're in that religion, dairy. Yeah. So is donor box like a third? Did, did, did Steven bill Turner box, or is this like a third party that allows you to kind of dynamically? Oh, wow. Okay. And you could insert, so is this, so Talk, talk to us about, you know, the stack on this is this like a Webflow CMS, and then this is just like a little bit of

Connor: Okay, so Zapier Parabola. So the standard stack, the donut box is in there. Um, which does that now another thing, so you can donate to individual charities. Another thing that you can do that is like amazing is so they've now registered as a charity. So if you go to the charity Thai. Um, you can actually donate to an entire fund.

So say for example, you want to support children charities as a whole. You can donate to the chive fund, try the health and wellbeing one. Oh no, there you go. There you go. So now you can donate to the fund as a whole, and they will distribute the, those donations across all of the charities within that city.

Yeah. And so it's pretty good. Like it's pretty advanced from a technical like standpoint, but also just real good use case of no code tools.  

Aron: Yeah. Let me just check out donor bucks. So donor box. Oops. Interesting. So donor is almost like the Stripe for it. Can, it can, you can spread so you essentially, they can take the money and then spread it across a bunch of people.

Uh, but this is like Stripe for charities, essentially. Correct.  

Connor: And I think the, I think the original idea was to do it for, um, like one charity at a time. Like, so I think the idea behind donor boxes, you have a charity and you have a payment method on your website, but what they did was they were just like, Um, th the, a whole bunch of charities that can't afford websites.

So they'll like Lucius build this, um, slide with the Webflow CMS so that everyone at least has a landing page. And then we will integrate via donation functionality onto the, a CMS. So I'm pretty sure they give you a script that you can then embed onto your site. And, um, and it's been dynamically. Um, you can like dynamically tag it in the Webflow.

Aron: That's amazing. That's amazing. So I'm glad we took the time. So this is a really cool building. Steven. I'd love to see it. Give us if you want to write for speaking of the newsletter, if you want to write for the newsletter, I'd love to see how you bet. I should definitely put you in touch with the folks at carefree, who would love to learn about something like this as well.

So I'm glad we showed this off. We have one minute to show off all the others. So this one from Tanya was really cool where it talks about how to use Typeform Squarespace and a bunch of others to manage an event to do recommend everyone checking this one as well. I remember reading this like earlier today.

Very, very cool built. So we're going to drop that. Boom. What else was really cool? There was one from Kaylee, uh, which was a habit tracker built on auto code. Uh, so this is like a text-based auto tracker. A habit tracker. So you can say like, Hey, did you wake up before 5:00 AM this morning or 6:00 AM? Did you journal, did you, uh, eat poorly?

Um, all built in auto code, which I thought was really cool. So we're going to have Kaylee on to talk a little bit about, uh, auto code, any outset I haven't used outset up. I've heard great things. So if you've used it, let me know. Uh, and I'd love to do a stream about outset. Uh, where they did like this kind of one course slash discord community.

Um, yeah, those were the kind of no-code projects really quickly. Do you, have you used it?  

Connor: So, uh, unfortunately I'm, I committed to me mistakes. So mistake competitor, and I am loyal to Dunkin and Tyler until we play membership comes along now. But one thing that I do want to say is that Jeff, the founder.

Such a champ. Like he will help you out. He won't build it for you in case anyone gets any wrong ideas, but he'll help out. He's he's such a champ and he's also quite active on kudos. I think the frontline subscribed to them. Hey, I have a look at some of those projects. Like, honestly, it's so amazing seeing what people are building.

Maybe we can dedicate like an entire segment and the next episode. We can go over those projects and a bit more time, and we can also get a few more submissions because like the, the thing that I love about this the most is like, people are not just building job boards. You know, that was kind of like how everyone in the no-code space started off.

It's like, let's build like a million niche job boards. And now people are like supporting charities. They are, um, building habit trackers and all those kinds of things. And it's that kind of just goes to show what is possible.  

Aron: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's, that's, that's absolutely right. And, uh, so yeah, folks keep building, we'll be back next month.

Uh, I'll be back next week. Uh, I can't say what we're going to cover, so I'll be back next week. Not with you. You're not coming back. Connor. You're coming back next month. Uh, we can only handle a week. Have you a month. You're too. You're too strong. You're too important to have you ever on every week, but, uh, so congrats again, Connor on buying.

And thank you all for you. Oh, you can't hear me. Oh man. One second. You hear me now? Yes, I'm just saying, I'm just saying congratulations for the house again. And uh, thank  

Connor: you. Thank you. No, it's it's, it's very exciting.  

Aron: Um, thanks everyone for joining us with. This was so much fun. We'll be back next month.

Thanks. You'll be in your new house. Probably. I might come see you in Ottawa until then, and for everyone, I really appreciate you coming on and I'll be back next week. I'll share more details on that shortly. Uh, but yeah. Thanks again. Thanks to everyone for joining. Thanks to you, Connor. Have a great week out.

Peace out there. Is that what we say? Peace out.

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