Connecting Brightidea to Airtable

This article will showcase both creating a record in Airtable from Brightidea, and creating a new idea in a Brightidea pipeline from Airtable through Zapier and webhooks.

• Outgoing Webhooks: Passing Ideas into Airtable
• Setting Up the Webhook
• Example Workflow
• Incoming Webhooks: Passing Airtable Objects into Brightidea via Zapier
• Setting Up the Webhook
• Example Workflow

Passing Brightidea Submissions into Airtable (Outgoing Webhooks)

Setting up the Webhook

 

In Airtable

Open the base/table that you want to start sending ideas into within Airtable, and then click “Automations” near the top right corner of the page.

Once in Automations, select “When webhook is received”as the trigger.

After selecting the trigger, click it once more to open the Right sidebar and configuration popup. 

Here you will find a unique URL that we can use inside of Brightidea to begin sending submissions over. Copy the URL so we can use it for the next step.

 

In Brightidea

 

Open Brightidea and create a rule:

• Method: Post
• URL: Copy and paste from step above
• Content type: JSON
• Header: HDR1:hdr1
• Body: start with the sample code below to send all of the dynamic fields to Airtable

 

Once the rule is configured, trigger the rule by performing the action to send a submission over to Airtable as a test record.

 

Return to Airtable

 

Next, select “Create record” (or Update record) as the Action:

On the right sidebar, choose the Table you’d like to send Brightidea submissions into, and any fields you’d like to map over from the Brightidea submission (i.e. Name, Notes, Lead, etc.)

 

Once configured, select “Run Test”, and you should receive the message: “Test ran successfully”. 

 

Note: If you hit an error on this step, please see Airtable’s webhook documentation for troubleshooting.

Confirm via the test prompts that everything is coming through and matching up correctly.

 

Once the automation is correctly set up, anytime your newly created rule triggers (i.e. when an idea hits a certain step), the Idea will be passed into the selected Airtable base as a new record.

 

Example Workflow

 

Let's say we have an Idea Box set up for enhancement requests, and we want to push the requests into Airtable at a certain step. 

 

Create the rule using the steps listed above, and make the event the triggers the rule "Added to Step":

 

Once the rule is created, move one of your ideas into the Step you've connected to the trigger.

In the background, the configured rule will fire, and the HTTP Request (Webhook) will push the idea into Airtable as a new record.

 

In Airtable:

 

Incoming Webhooks (Passing Airtable records into Brightidea via Zapier)

Setting up the Webhook

In Terminal or Postman

• Locate the pipeline ID for the initiative you want to connect to Airtable. Easiest method is to get it from the end of the URL in Steps or List view:
  
  

 

• You'll now need to add a webhook through an API call to that specific pipeline that will catch incoming requests. Here's how it will look in Postman:
1. Grab an access token by making a request into /_oauth2/token (see: Authentication - Password Credentials Flow for details)
   
2. Once you have a token, you will need to POST into /_webhook/add using the token in the header and the pipeline ID in the form data.
   
   
3. If successful, you will receive a hash_id that you will be able to use in your requests from Zapier/Airtable:
   
   

In Zapier

 

Now that we have a hash ID connected to the specific pipeline, we can set up a Zap that will use the static hash rather than an access token (the latter would need to be refreshed every hour). 

• Begin configuring a Zap with “New Record” in Airtable
  

• Choose the base you want Zapier to watch and pull new records from Airtable to send into Brightidea.
• Test your trigger to make sure it's pulling records from the Airtable base successfully.
• Next, configure the webhook with 'Webhooks by Zapier'  and choose "POST" as the event:
  

• Configure the webhook to match the fields needed to create an Idea within Brightidea. 
•  Required Fields:
• hash_id: Use the hash you received in the steps listed above.
• action: create_idea
• title: This will be the title of your newly created idea (map it to a dynamic column header in the Airtable base)
• description: This will be the description of your newly created idea (map it to a dynamic column header in the Airtable base)
• Optional Fields:
• submitter: Email address of the submitter
• category: This will be the category of your newly created idea
• Additional Questions: If you have additional fields in your Brightidea pipeline, you can set those up in your request by using the question ID. In the example below, we're passing the Airtable record URL into Brightidea as an additional field. (See the Additional Questions field under Create Idea in our API documentation for instructions) 
  

• Confirm via the test prompts that everything is coming through and matching up correctly.

Once the zap is correctly set up, anytime a record is added to a specific base in Airtable, the object will be passed into your selected Brightidea initiative as a new idea.

 

Example Workflow

 

Let's say we have a base built on the backend in Airtable to capture new ideas coming inbound from customers. We want to manage those ideas alongside all the ideas within Brightidea and keep everything under one roof.

 

Once the Zap is built and turned on, add a new record into the Airtable table.

After the Airtable record is added, the Zap will read the action, and fire off a POST request based on the Webhook. The idea will then be created within Brightidea: