I’m working on setting up a Zapier workflow and need to use the spreadsheet row lookup feature. My goal is to find a specific row where two different columns meet certain conditions at the same time. For example, I want to locate a row where column 1 contains “X” AND column 2 contains “Y” in that same row. Once I find this matching row, I need to grab its ID to use in the next steps of my automation. Is it possible to search for rows using multiple column conditions like this? I’ve been looking through the available options but can’t figure out how to set up this kind of multi-column search.
totally get ya! i had a similar problem. what i ended up doin was using the lookup first for one col, then throwin in a filter to check the other col. sure, it adds some extra steps, but it works pretty well!
I ran into this exact limitation when building an inventory tracking workflow last year. The native Zapier lookup actions are quite restrictive for multi-criteria searches. What worked for me was switching to using Zapier’s Code by Zapier action with a simple JavaScript snippet that fetches all rows from the spreadsheet and then filters them based on your multiple conditions. You can write a basic loop that checks each row for both criteria simultaneously and returns the matching row’s data including the ID you need. This approach gives you much more flexibility than the standard lookup actions and handles complex matching scenarios that the built-in tools struggle with. The code isn’t too complex even if you’re not a programmer, and there are plenty of examples in Zapier’s documentation to get you started.
Multiple column searches in Zapier can be tricky depending on your spreadsheet platform. If you’re using Google Sheets, the ‘Lookup Spreadsheet Row’ action only allows searching one column at a time natively. However, there’s a workaround I’ve used successfully - create a helper column in your spreadsheet that concatenates the values from both columns you want to search (like ‘X-Y’), then search against that single helper column. Alternatively, you can use the ‘Find Many Spreadsheet Rows’ action to get all rows matching your first criteria, then use a Filter step to narrow down based on the second column condition. I’ve found this approach works reliably for complex lookups, though it does add extra steps to your workflow.