Question regarding Airtable, callin.io, and Webflow

Hello,

I'll just suggest this, though I'm unsure if it would prevent implementation in your specific situation.

1. Airtable Setup: Add two fields to Airtable: a Button/URL field and a Checkbox field.

   • The Button/URL field will link to a callin.io Webhook, passing the recordID().
   • The Checkbox field will serve as an indicator to show if the content has been posted to Webflow.

2. callin.io Scenario: Create a new callin.io Scenario triggered by a Webhook.

   • The Airtable module can retrieve record information from Airtable.
   • Publish the content to Webflow.
   • Update the Airtable record's checkbox to confirm the Webflow update is complete.

This method would require a moderator to click the button or visit the URL to publish to Webflow. Since it's a dynamic URL, this action must be initiated from within Airtable. Do you think this approach would be suitable for your needs?

So this doesn't necessitate a specific API call script from Airtable automation? If the button simply initiates a URL and includes a recordID, that might suffice.

I'm concerned that I might need to upgrade my Airtable account to connect to the callin.io scenario. Since it's a client site, I will proceed with the upgrade if necessary. I'm aiming to discover an elegant solution for this.

thanks! It's worth a shot. I appreciate your time.

Here are some additional details with some visuals.

Airtable:

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The Publish button is unavailable because its URL Formula is referencing the Webhook Formula, which is currently empty.

The Webhook Formula will only display the URL when Status = Approved and Webflow Updated is still False.

Once Status = Approved, the Publish button will become active, and you will see that the formula contains the unique record ID.

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Clicking Publish will initiate the callin.io Scenario.

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The Scenario will then retrieve all data from the table using that Record ID.

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With all the data from Airtable now in callin.io, you can send it to Webflow for content publishing.

If the publishing process is successful, the final module will update the Airtable record, setting Webflow Updated to True. This change will prevent the Publish button from being used again.

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This setup does not require any Airtable Extensions or Scripting, making it compatible with any Airtable plan.

This is great! Thank you very much!! I'm eager to try this out. Thanks again.

This approach has worked out well for me, with a few minor adjustments. The only slight inconvenience is that hitting the webhook opens a new browser window. However, this is a small price to pay for the convenience of posting a single CMS item instead of transferring the entire CMS collection to the website.

The script itself is a bit complex, requiring branches for both NEW articles and UPDATING articles. Furthermore, within each of those, you need to create branches for ACTIVE, ARCHIVE, or DRAFT statuses. I've even incorporated pushing status updates back to Airtable during the script's execution, along with completion or error messages to the Airtable user upon finishing.

Additionally, there appears to be a bug in the V2 API that restricts the frequency of the publish module. While they state it can be used five times per minute, my experience shows "RATE LIMIT HIT" errors occurring much more frequently. Webflow suggests that the PUBLISH ITEM module is sufficient for live CMS item publishing. However, when I use this module, the item only reaches a "staged for publish" status. I need to proceed to the "PUBLISH SITE" module to make it go live. This behavior is unexpected, and I'm currently working with Webflow technical support to investigate.

Despite these points, this is an EXCELLENT solution to the problem. Thank you greatly for guiding me in the right direction. (NOTE: I opted not to use the "Webhook formula" table cell, instead placing the formula directly into the button, which seemed a bit more efficient.)

Here's a summary of my script:

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While it's unfortunate that the Nobull plugin by Finsweet was discontinued, this method is ultimately a FAR more convenient and robust alternative.

Yes, absolutely, I only did it the way I did to better illustrate the behavior of that field. The point was to disable the button when you don’t want to accidentally use it.

You can also deal with this a couple ways:

1. Add a Webhook response module with HTML that will cause the new tab or window to immediately close. Here’s a link to the post with the details: Custom webhook -> how to disable opening new web page with ACCEPTED msg - #11 by Donald_Mitchell

2. If you’re on an Airtable plan that allows scripting, use automations to fire a script that calls the callin.io webhook and nothing will open at all. It’s a few simple lines to fetch a URL. Please see this post (Suppress redirect screen with Airtable "Watch Responses"? - #12 by Ingo) for more details.