Fetching Airtable data for Twilio Autopilot responses: How to do it?

Other Questions Airtable
1

I’m working on a Twilio Autopilot project and I’m stuck. Here’s what I want to do:

  1. Get a date from the user (like Jan 31, 2019) using Collect in the first task.
  2. Use that date to locate the corresponding row in my Airtable database.
  3. Send back details about which movies are playing at different theaters on that date.

I’ve written some code to retrieve data from Airtable, but I’m unclear on how to handle the returned data for user messages. Here’s my current code:

function retrieveData(context, event, callback) {
  const AirtableLib = require('airtable');
  const baseConnector = new AirtableLib({ apiKey: 'secret_key' }).base('base_id');

  baseConnector('MovieSchedule').find('record123', (err, recordData) => {
    if (err) {
      console.log('Error occurred:', err);
      return;
    }
    console.log('Data retrieved:', recordData);
  });
}

Airtable sends back a response similar to this:

{
  "id": "record123",
  "fields": {
    "ShowDate": "2019-02-02",
    "BigScreen": "Space Battle",
    "SmallScreen": "Superhero Team"
  },
  "createdTime": "2019-02-02T21:21:48.000Z"
}

How can I process this information to communicate clearly to the user what is playing on the selected date? Any suggestions would be appreciated!

2

As someone who’s worked extensively with Twilio Autopilot and Airtable integration, I can offer some insights. Your approach is on the right track, but you might want to consider using Airtable’s query functionality instead of ‘find’. This allows you to search for records based on the date input from the user.

Here’s a snippet that might help:

baseConnector('MovieSchedule').select({
  filterByFormula: `{ShowDate} = '${userInputDate}'`
}).firstPage((err, records) => {
  if (err) { console.error(err); return; }
  if (records.length > 0) {
    const { BigScreen, SmallScreen } = records[0].fields;
    // Format and send response to user
  } else {
    // Handle case when no records found
  }
});

This method is more flexible and will work even if your record IDs change. Remember to sanitize user input and handle potential errors for a robust solution. Good luck with your project!

3

I’ve faced a similar challenge in my Twilio Autopilot project. Here’s what worked for me:

After retrieving the Airtable data, you’ll want to parse the response and format it for the user. You can do this by accessing the ‘fields’ object in the returned data.

In your callback function, try something like this:

if (recordData) {
  const { ShowDate, BigScreen, SmallScreen } = recordData.fields;
  const message = `On ${ShowDate}, '${BigScreen}' is playing on the big screen and '${SmallScreen}' on the small screen.`;
  // Send this message back to the user via Twilio Autopilot
}

This creates a formatted string that you can then send back to the user through Autopilot’s response mechanisms. Remember to handle cases where the record might not be found or fields might be empty. Also, consider error handling and input validation to ensure smooth operation of your bot.

4

hey charlielion22, i tru used select() with a date filter. it’s way simpler than find() and helps grab movi data easier. check errors too!