In any team managing leads, tasks, or requests, the question comes up sooner or later: Who's handling what? And unless you’ve built a solid assignment system, that question becomes a daily headache.

That’s where round-robin assignment shines — and with a simple script, it becomes effortless.

The Power of Round-Robin Logic

Round-robin assignment is a fair and simple method that evenly distributes records across team members. One by one, it rotates through your list — no favoritism, no duplicates, no one getting buried.

This logic is perfect for automating routine assignments that don’t require manual decisions, like:

• 🚀 Sales Teams: Distribute new leads equally across reps as they come in
• 📦 Customer Support: Assign incoming tickets fairly between agents
• 📋 Project Managers: Delegate tasks across a delivery team without bias
• 📧 Form Submissions: Route form-generated records (like inquiries or job applications) across a staff pool
• 🔁 Recurring Assignments: Rotate responsibility for weekly tasks, reviews, or audits

Why Teams Love This Pattern

Round-robin assignment ensures:

• Fair load distribution — no one gets overloaded or forgotten
• Fast auto-routing — no more manual delegating or missed items
• Scalability — it works whether you have 3 people or 30
• Better accountability — everyone knows what’s theirs

And when combined with a smart script, it can plug directly into your Airtable base or Google Sheet — assigning new records the moment they arrive.

How Easy Is It With TableScripts?

With our Auto-Assign Records Round-Robin script, you can set this up in minutes. The script walks you through every step — from selecting your table or view, to defining who gets assigned, and even whether to remember the last assigned person across runs.

No more manual tagging. No more uneven workloads. Just click, run, and done.

Fair assignment has never been this simple.

If you want to unlock the real power of Airtable, the Scripts extension is a game-changer. Whether you're automating workflows, cleaning up data, or integrating with other tools, enabling scripts is the first step.

Why Use the Scripts Extension?

The Scripts extension allows you to run custom JavaScript inside Airtable—no external tools required. It's perfect for:

• Automating repetitive tasks
• Performing advanced calculations
• Connecting to APIs or webhooks
• Batch updating records with logic

Step-by-Step: How to Enable the Scripts Extension

Follow these steps to get started:

1. Open Your Airtable Base: Navigate to the base where you want to run a script.
2. Click on "Extensions" in the top-right corner: It might be labeled as "Apps" in older versions.
3. Click “+ Add an extension”: This opens the Extensions gallery.
4. Search for “Scripting”: You’ll find the official Airtable Scripting extension.
5. Click “Add”: The script editor will now appear in your sidebar.

You're Ready to Code!

Once the scripting extension is added, you can start writing and running custom scripts. Airtable provides helpful starter templates you can explore or you can paste your own code.

Tips for New Users

• Use the input.config() method to make scripts dynamic
• Comment your code for better readability
• Test scripts in a copy of your base before running them in production
• Explore the official Airtable scripting API docs to learn more

Conclusion

Enabling the Airtable Scripts extension is simple, but it opens the door to powerful customization. Whether you're a beginner or an advanced user, scripts can save time, reduce errors, and unlock new capabilities within your base.

Need help writing your first script? We’ve got a full library of ready-to-use Airtable scripts to get you started.

If you’ve ever built something in Airtable using code, you’ve likely encountered two types of scripts: Automation Scripts and Scripting Extensions (formerly called Scripting Blocks). While both use JavaScript, they’re designed for very different use cases—and knowing the difference can save you time and headaches.

Automation Script

Automation Scripts run inside Airtable Automations. That means they’re triggered automatically based on some event—like a record being created, updated, or on a daily schedule. They’re best for hands-free, repetitive tasks that happen in the background.

Key Features:

• Triggered by automations (e.g., time, form submission, record update)
• No user interaction or prompts
• Runs in the background
• Can pass values to other steps (e.g., emails, webhooks)

Use Cases:

• Daily digests
• Auto-sending emails or Slack messages
• Record clean-up or tagging
• Creating linked records automatically

Limitations: Since they run in the background, you can’t use input prompts like input.textAsync(). All logic must be predefined or based on dynamic record values.

Scripting Extension

Scripting Extensions are interactive scripts that live in your base as a block. You run them manually, and they can prompt you for input, display results, and even include UI elements.

Key Features:

• Triggered manually by a user
• Full support for user input (text, dropdowns, table pickers, etc.)
• Great for data exploration or one-off tasks
• Runs inside the interface

Use Cases:

• Exporting data to CSV or JSON
• Bulk-updating records
• Data validation or cleanup tools
• Generating reports or summaries on demand

Limitations: Since these aren’t part of automations, they can’t trigger downstream actions like emails or Slack messages without additional setup.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Which One Should You Use?

If you're building a recurring, hands-off workflow (like sending a daily email digest), use an Automation Script. If you're building a data tool or internal helper script, use a Scripting Extension.

Still not sure? Start with the outcome: if it runs on its own, it’s an automation. If it needs a human to click it, it’s a script extension.

Need help deciding or want to build one together? I’ve got your back—just ask!

If you've run into the dreaded "Airtable script exceeded execution time limit of 30 seconds" error, you're not alone. This is a common issue for anyone building powerful automations or running complex logic inside Airtable.

What This Error Means

Airtable allows you to write custom scripts in its scripting environment, but there’s a catch: scripts triggered by automations must complete execution within 30 seconds. If your script runs longer, Airtable will stop it and throw this error.

This is done to ensure stability across the platform, as long-running scripts could slow things down for other users.

Common Reasons for Hitting the Limit

• Too many records: Your script loops through hundreds or thousands of records.
• Multiple API calls: You're calling external APIs that are slow or unoptimized.
• Nested loops or heavy computation: The logic inside your script is too complex.
• Long waits or delays: Using await excessively inside loops can create bottlenecks.

How to Fix or Avoid the Error

Here are practical ways to resolve the problem:

• Reduce the number of records: Only fetch and process the records you actually need. Use filterByFormula or conditions.
• Split the workload: Break large scripts into multiple automations or scheduled runs (e.g., handle 100 records at a time).
• Optimize loops: Avoid await inside loops. Instead, build arrays of promises and use Promise.all to run them in parallel.
• Move logic elsewhere: If the logic is heavy, consider offloading to an external system using a webhook (like Google Cloud Functions or Make/Zapier).
• Use scripting app instead: If you're not tied to automations, the Scripting App has a longer time limit (up to 5 minutes).

Bonus Tip: Debugging Execution Time

Add time logs in your script to see which part is slow:

console.log("Start: " + new Date());
// your logic
console.log("After fetch: " + new Date());

This can help pinpoint which step is taking too long.

Final Thoughts

The 30-second limit may feel restrictive at first, but with smart scripting practices, it's more than enough for most workflows. Focus on lean, efficient code and split complex tasks into smaller chunks.

Still stuck? We help teams optimize and scale their Airtable scripts—without hitting execution limits.

Need help debugging or refactoring your Airtable script? Reach out—we can guide or build it for you.

Airtable gives you two powerful tools to streamline your workflow: Automations and Scripts. Both can save hours of manual work—but they serve different purposes. Knowing when to use each can make your base faster, cleaner, and a lot easier to manage.

The Quick Breakdown

• Automations = No-code, rule-based actions triggered by events.
• Scripts = Custom JavaScript logic that can do almost anything.

Let’s break down when to use one, the other, or both together.

Use Airtable Automations When...

You Have Simple Logic

Example: When a record enters a view, send an email. Or, when a field is updated, update another field.

You Need to Connect with External Tools

Example: Send Slack messages, post to Discord, or create Google Calendar events using native integrations.

You Want a Fast, Visual Setup

Set it up in minutes—no code required. Ideal for business users who need to move fast.

You Don’t Need Complex Conditions

If/then logic is available, but more advanced scenarios are limited.

Use Airtable Scripts When...

You Need Custom Logic

Example: Assign leads based on team workload, or calculate values with multiple layers of logic.

You Want to Loop Through Multiple Records

Automations only update one record at a time. Scripts can loop through hundreds.

You Need to Transform or Clean Data

Scripts can fix formatting, validate emails, remove duplicates, and more—things automations can’t handle well.

You Want Full Control

With JavaScript, your only limit is your creativity. APIs, calculations, conditions—you name it.

Use Both Together When...

The magic happens when you combine them. Example:

• An automation watches for new form submissions
• It triggers a script to clean data, assign owners, and send a webhook

This gives you the ease of automation and the flexibility of code.

Examples: Script vs. Automation

Conclusion

Use Automations for speed and simplicity. Use Scripts for power and flexibility. Use both when you want the best of both worlds.

Need help writing your first Airtable script or deciding when to automate? We can help you choose the right tool for the job—and build it.