Optimizing My Scenario for Syncing Airtable & Data Store

[priyankm]

Hey everyone,

I’m using Make to sync listings between Airtable and Make’s Data Store, but I feel like my scenario is running more operations than necessary. Looking for advice on how to optimize it!

Current Setup

I have two main branches in my Make scenario:

1.	Top Branch (Deactivation Check)
•	The Data Store updates daily, so I check Airtable to see if any listings no longer exist in the Data Store.
•	If a listing is missing from the Data Store, I mark it as deactivated in Airtable.


2.	Bottom Branch (New & Reactivation Check)
•	I compare Data Store listings against Airtable.
•	If a listing doesn’t exist in Airtable, I add it as a new record.
•	If a listing was previously deactivated but now exists again, I reactivate it.

I would like to reduce operations while keeping the same functionality.

Thanks for your help.

[samliew]

Welcome to the Make community!

To do this, you can try using the Airtable “Bulk Update Records (advanced)” module —

Updates multiple existing records.

To do this, you can try using the Airtable “Bulk Create Records (advanced)” module —

Сreates multiple records.

For more information, see https://www.make.com/en/integrations/airtable, and https://www.make.com/en/help/app/airtable in the help centre.

To aggregate the records as an array into the above two modules, you can use the “Target Structure Type” field in the Array Aggregator.

Combining Bundles Using Aggregators

Every result (item/record) from trigger/iterator/list/search/match modules will output a bundle. This can result in multiple bundles, which then trigger multiple operations in future modules (one operation per bundle). To “combine” multiple bundles into a single variable, you’ll need to use an aggregator of some sort.

Aggregators are modules that accumulate multiple bundles into one single bundle. An example of a commonly-used aggregator module is the Array aggregator module. The next popular aggregator is the Text Aggregator which is very flexible and can apply to many use-cases like building of JSON, CSV, HTML.

Mapping a Specific Structure Into a Complex Field

The Array Aggregator module is very powerful because it allows you to build a complex array of collections for a later module’s field to map multiple items (collections) to it.

This is done using the “Target structure type” field in an Array Aggregator module.

Here is an example:

As you can see, the “Map” toggle on complex fields are used when you have an array. You can easily build an array variable to map to a future module’s field, by using an Array Aggregator module and select the “Target Structure Type” as the future module’s field you have mapped the array into.

Hope this helps! Let me know if there are any further questions or issues.

— @samliew

P.S.: Investing some effort into the Make Academy will save you lots of time and frustration using Make.