• Scraping website data into Airtable

    With Simplescraper you can scrape data from any website directly into your Airtable bases quicky and easily. This guide shows you how.

    Follow the steps below or watch the short video above

    • In Simplescraper navigate to the Integrate tab of a recipe that you've created and you'll find the Airtable integration. Toggle the Activate switch on to enable the integration. There are four sections to be completed: API key, Base ID, Table name and Included properties
    • To add your API key, navigate to your Airtable account page and copy the key that can be found under the API section. Paste this key into the API field in Simplescraper and press enter to save
    • To add your base ID, open the base that you wish to save data into and note the string that comes after 'https://airtable.com/' in your URL bar. It should begin with 'app' and then some random characters, for example 'appQjzhfyaBCde'. Copy this base ID and paste it into the Base ID field in Simplescraper and press enter to save (alternatively navigate to the Airtable API page and click on the base that you wish to scrape data into and you'll find the same Base ID highlighted in green in the introduction section)
    • To add your table name, navigate to the Airtable base that you wish to scrape data into and copy the name of the table where you want the data to appear. Paste this name into the Table name field in Simplescraper and press enter to save
    • Choose which properties to scrape into Airtable by toggling the property names in the Included properties section. For each property that you choose to include, a single-line text field with the exact same name must exist in the table you're scraping data into. So add these fields in Airtable before continuing
    • If the property that you wish to include is a link then create an additional field for the link with '_link' appended to the name. For example if you have a property called 'jobtitle' that returns a link then create both a 'jobtitle' field and a 'jobtitle_link' field in Airtable
    • Click 'test integration' to verify that Simplescraper can successfully connect to Airtable. If everything is correct you will see a 'test passed - successfully connected' message
    • Now you're ready to run your scrape recipe. Click run recipe and when the task completes your data will instantly and automatically be saved to your Airtable base

    Troubleshooting

    If the test integration button didn't return a 'test passed' message it's likely an issue with your Airtable configuration. Follow the steps below for solutions to common error messages:

    • 'Something went wrong': make sure to press the ENTER key after entering the API, Base ID and Table name into the input fields
    • 'API key may be incorrect': ensure that you copied the API key correctly. It should begin with 'key'
    • 'Base ID or table name may be incorrect or may not exist': verify that the base ID matches the base that you wish to scrape data into, and ensure that a table with the exact same name that you entered in the 'Table name' section exists in that base
    • 'One or more fields was not found in Airtable': verify that each property that you chose to include has a matching single line text field in Airtable. If this does not resolve the issue, un-toggle all properties and then toggle them on one by one, clicking 'test integration' each time to help identify the field that is causing the issue

    Note: your Airtable API key is encrypted before being securely stored. If you have any questions please reach out to us via chat.