using_pyairtable

Airtable Upsert Example w/ pyairtable

This example uses pyairtable, a community supported Python API client for the Airtable REST API, to process input records and compare a unique field with existing records in an Airtable base. If the unique value is present in an existing record, the existing record will be updated. If the unique value is not found, a new record will be created.

The example code in this repository assumes your base has a table with the following fields: First Name (Single line text), Last Name (Single line text), Unique ID (Single line text), Job Title (Single line text), and Hire Number (Number). You can create a copy of a sample base with 200 records prepopulated here.

---

The software made available from this repository is not supported by Formagrid Inc (Airtable) or part of the Airtable Service. It is made available on an "as is" basis and provided without express or implied warranties of any kind.

---

Local setup

1. Clone/unzip code
2. Copy .env.example to .env and populate values
3. Install Python dependencies using pip3 install -r requirements.txt
4. (Optional) Modify inputRecords in example.py with new static values or dynamically fetched values from your source of choice (API, file, etc.)
5. Run python3 example.py to run the script

Key files and their contents

• example.py is the main code file which is executed when python3 example.py is run. At a high level, it performs the following:
  • Loads dependencies and configuration variables
  • Defines a sample inputRecords array which should be modified to reference an external data source
  • In chunks of 10, updates existing and creates new records
• .env.example is an example file template to follow for your own .env file. The environment variables supported are:
  • AIRTABLE_API_KEY - your Airtable personal access token; it will always start with pat
  • AIRTABLE_BASE_ID - the ID of your base; you can find this on the base's API docs from https://airtable.com/api. This will always start with app
  • AIRTABLE_TABLE_ID - the ID of the table you want to create/update records in; you can find this in the URL of your browser when viewing the table. It will start with tbl
  • AIRTABLE_UNIQUE_FIELD_NAME - the field name of the field that is used for determining if an existing records exists that needs to be updated (if no record exists, a new one will be created)

Notes

• The pyairtable library handles API rate limiting
• The field used for uniqueness does not have to be the primary field.
• The field used for uniqueness cannot be a computed field (formula, lookup, rollup)
• The field name for the unique field is expected to remain consistent. If it changes, update the environment variable
• Each existing and new record is expected to have a value for the field used for uniqueness.
• Mockaroo was used to generate example data used in this example.