Trigger automation (webhook) to run asynchronously

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
1

Hi there,

Hoping for some help surrounding automation async/sync runs.

Based on my objective, problem, context and setup of my app, is it possible to have a single automation run/execute on multiple rows at the same time?

Objective
Run a single automation multiple times at once on individual/independent rows.

Problem
I can see in the automation monitor that rows are being triggered/processed by the automation one by one, ~10 seconds apart. If I have 200 rows to process, then that’s 10 seconds per row, 33 minutes of processing runs one by one, rather than processing 200 at the same time in 10 seconds.

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Context and setup

  1. In table A, I have an action that changes a row’s [parent_status] to ‘processing’
  2. I have Automation A that watches for updates on [parent_status], and will update all child rows’s [child_status] in Table B to NOW() using a ‘Run action on rows’. All the child rows are updated in bulk, at the exact same time
  3. Finally, Automation B watches for updates on the [child_status] within Table B, and will run a Webhook task. The runs are screenshotted above, and are run one by one, even though the child rows are updated by Automation A all at the same time (Trigger other bots is switched on)

The webhook calls a GCP cloud function and takes 3-4 seconds to execute, however I don’t think that’s related, as it will process async.

Thank you for any guidance in advance.

2

Automation B is triggered on individual changes of the child table, so this is an expected behavior.

Is it possible to run the webhook step as part of Automation A passing all the required data in one package to the GCP? Just a thought… (I guess you would need to modify the GCP to be able to handle the bulk data…)

2 Likes
3

Thanks, so seems it isn’t possible.

Correct, that is the backup plan, sending one large JSON blob of all relevant rows rather than individual ones. I think there is a 5mb capacity so should be plenty for what I need. Thanks for your suggestion.