Automation · Orders and fulfillment

Take an order on WhatsApp and log it in Airtable

An AI agent takes orders on WhatsApp, checks the product in your Airtable base and leaves the order logged and linked to the customer.

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How do I log the orders I get on WhatsApp in Airtable without copying them by hand?

A Met connected to Airtable finds the base where you keep products and orders, reads the orders table's fields and looks up the product the customer wants to tell them whether it is in stock and how much it costs according to your table. With the person's details it creates the order record, linked to the product and the customer through the link fields you already have, and updates it if the person changes the quantity or the address. Your team opens Airtable and finds the full order, in the same format as the ones they log by hand. Payment and shipping still follow your usual process.

What starts it

When the customer writes

It starts when a customer writes on WhatsApp to order a product, ask whether it is in stock or change an order they already placed. There is no trigger to configure: the Met assigned to the line runs the procedure inside that conversation.

Nothing to set up. The Met assigned to that channel picks up the conversation and runs the procedure inside it.

Who runs it

Sales Met with orders in Airtable

Sales team

This is not a named, seeded Met. It is the Met that already sells on the business's WhatsApp, with Airtable connected. Its work ends when the order is an Airtable record with its product, quantity and delivery details.

Run by the sales closing Met

Channels: WhatsApp

What you need connected

Airtable Automate and collaborate

6 steps · 7 tools

The procedure, step by step

Each step shows the tool that runs. They belong to the real connector: if one of them stopped existing, this page would not build.

1
Find the orders base and table

The Met searches by name for the base your team named in the skill and lists its tables to locate the products table and the orders table. That way it does not write to the wrong table even if the base has several similar ones.
- search_bases Airtable
- list_tables_for_base Airtable
2
Read the fields the order needs

Before writing, the Met reads the orders table's structure: which fields exist, of what type and which ones link to other tables. With that it asks the customer only for the details your table needs, such as quantity, city or address.
- get_table_schema Airtable
3
Look up the product and say if it is in stock

The Met searches the products table by keyword and reads the price and available quantity on the record. It answers with those values; if the product does not appear, it offers the ones in the table instead of promising one that does not exist.
- search_records Airtable
4
Link the order to the product and the customer

For the link fields, the Met searches the candidate records for the product and the customer. If the person bought before, it uses their customer record instead of creating another one with the same phone number, so the history stays in one row.
- search_candidate_linked_records Airtable
5
Create the order record

With complete details, the Met creates the record in the orders table with the linked product, quantity, customer and address, and with the initial status your team uses. Airtable's server creates up to 10 records per request, more than enough for one order.
- create_records_for_table Airtable
6
Update the order if the customer changes something

If the person changes the quantity or the address before shipping, the Met finds their order and updates only that field. The other fields, including the ones your team already filled in, stay as they were.
- search_records Airtable
- update_records_for_table Airtable

Before you start

What you need ready

The Met solves none of these for you. If one is missing, the automation stops there.

An Airtable base with products and orders

Your team keeps a products table with price and quantity and an orders table with its fields in Airtable. Any plan works, and the account you connect needs access to the base, not only to an interface.
Airtable connected with writes on

In Met, open Connections → Airtable → Connect and authorize. To log orders, the admin leaves record creation and record updates switched on.
A WhatsApp line with the Met assigned

The business connects its WhatsApp Business API line and assigns the Met that sells. The order is taken inside that conversation; Airtable remains the order log.

The limits

What this automation does NOT solve

Better said here than discovered halfway through the rollout.

It does not charge for the order. None of the Airtable tools moves money: payment goes through another integration or through the process your business already uses.
It does not deduct inventory on its own. If you want stock to drop with each order, an Airtable formula or automation your team turns on takes care of that.
It does not ask for confirmation in the chat before creating or updating the record: if the action is on, it runs. The admin decides which writes stay on.
It does not ship or create the shipping label. The record is ready for your team or a shipping integration to pick up from Airtable.
It does not write to development bases, which Airtable's server rejects with a 403 error, or to fields the connected account cannot modify.

FAQ

Questions about this automation

This procedure avoids it by looking up the customer record for the link field first. If your table has no field that identifies the person, such as the phone number, the risk of duplicates goes up.

Yes. It reads the table's structure before writing and only fills fields that exist. In this procedure it does not create new fields or change the type of the ones you have.

It depends on how your table is built. If an order links several products, the Met links them on the same record; if you use one row per product, it creates several, up to 10 per request.

You do, with your Airtable account. The MCP server has no separate charge, but the records created count against your base's record limit.

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