Question 1

Which Airtable fields accept writes from MySQL?

Accepted Answer

Records and writable fields in an existing table. Views are model sources rather than destinations. Text, numbers, booleans, dates, select values, attachments, collaborators and record links are all supported, with attachments written as arrays of URLs and multi value fields as arrays.

Question 2

Which fields cannot be written?

Accepted Answer

Anything Airtable computes for itself: created and modified metadata, autonumber, barcode, rollup, count, formula and lookup values. Button fields are not exposed at all. Formula fields are the useful exception, since you can match on one even though you cannot write to it.

Question 3

How do I avoid re-reading the whole MySQL table each run?

Accepted Answer

Set a monotonically increasing tracking column such as updated_at on the model. Without one, Polytomic reads the model and compares field values against prior state on every run. With one that comparison is skipped and the query filters on advancement of the column instead, which matters when the base is small but the MySQL table behind it is not. Matching into Airtable is a separate question: equality against the record ID or an identity field you select.

Question 4

Why did one MySQL row update several Airtable records?

Accepted Answer

The identity field was not unique. Equality matching will update every record it matches, without complaint. Record ID avoids this entirely, which is a good argument for carrying an Airtable record ID column in your MySQL table if the two systems sync regularly.

Question 5

What does the MySQL side of this connection need?

Accepted Answer

SELECT on the database you are reading, and nothing more. Polytomic discovers schemas, tables and views through INFORMATION_SCHEMA, and a custom SQL model needs SELECT on every object its query touches. On the Airtable side, creating tables or new field types is limited to Enterprise connections, so on other plans build those in Airtable first.

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