Troubleshooting Airtable Integration Timeout Issues in Clay

David L. · 2025-06-09T17:23:45.420Z

Hey team, anyone here worked with the Airtable Integration in Clay? I'm trying to pull all records from a table based on a date field that are not older than 2 months. This is my setup in the Airtable integration. It always times out - what am I missing?

Troubleshooting Airtable Integration Timeout Issues in Clay | Clay

9 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

David L.
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https://app.clay.com/workspaces/542183/workbooks/wb_0sxlgjg4CJiWHtdg2EH/tables/t_0sxlgjphqkz8BqF7TVh/views/gv_0sxlgjpdzoAnX3Coe6A
Mark L.
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Hey there David. Thanks for getting in touch. How large is the Airtable you're querying, in terms of number of rows and columns? Typically the timeouts are a result of having a very large amount of data to work through, and Airtable is not able to respond quickly enough. For better speed, changing the "Lookup Type" to use Airtable formulas (https://support.airtable.com/docs/formula-field-reference) is typically the best option on larger bases. I see you're using that approach in the second column in that table – are you able to get the data you're aiming for?
David L.
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Changed it, but now getting this
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Mark L.
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From what I can see in our logs, that lookup column would return over 16k records. Given that an action cell is limited to 8kb datasize, it's simply too much to display in that one cell. Can you tell me more about the ultimate goal here? Do you need to do a separate 2-month query/lookup for each row? If you're using Airtable as your initial import/source, I'd recommend starting under the Actions button > Import > ""Enrich your data from Airtable".
David L.
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We'd need to query all jobs that aren't older than 2 months
David L.
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But don't want to start with the jobs
Mark L.
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Okay, thanks, understood. If running that query in a column, Clay won't be able to surface that many records in one cell, given the cellsize limit. So you'll need to refine the query to return a lower number of records / lower volume of data. Perhaps breaking it across multiple columns, each for a shorter timeframe – the last 7 days, the 7 days previous to day, the 7-day period three weeks ago, etc..
David L.
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Yeah that could work! Thank you
Mark L.
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You're welcome! Sounds like you have a good path forward for now, so I'll tentatively mark this closed for the moment. But keep in touch if you hit other related roadblocks we need to brainstorm.

David L.
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https://app.clay.com/workspaces/542183/workbooks/wb_0sxlgjg4CJiWHtdg2EH/tables/t_0sxlgjphqkz8BqF7TVh/views/gv_0sxlgjpdzoAnX3Coe6A
Mark L.
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Hey there David. Thanks for getting in touch. How large is the Airtable you're querying, in terms of number of rows and columns? Typically the timeouts are a result of having a very large amount of data to work through, and Airtable is not able to respond quickly enough. For better speed, changing the "Lookup Type" to use Airtable formulas (https://support.airtable.com/docs/formula-field-reference) is typically the best option on larger bases. I see you're using that approach in the second column in that table – are you able to get the data you're aiming for?
David L.
·
·
Changed it, but now getting this
Loading attachments
Mark L.
·
·
From what I can see in our logs, that lookup column would return over 16k records. Given that an action cell is limited to 8kb datasize, it's simply too much to display in that one cell. Can you tell me more about the ultimate goal here? Do you need to do a separate 2-month query/lookup for each row? If you're using Airtable as your initial import/source, I'd recommend starting under the Actions button > Import > ""Enrich your data from Airtable".
David L.
·
·
We'd need to query all jobs that aren't older than 2 months
David L.
·
·
But don't want to start with the jobs
Mark L.
·
·
Okay, thanks, understood. If running that query in a column, Clay won't be able to surface that many records in one cell, given the cellsize limit. So you'll need to refine the query to return a lower number of records / lower volume of data. Perhaps breaking it across multiple columns, each for a shorter timeframe – the last 7 days, the 7 days previous to day, the 7-day period three weeks ago, etc..
David L.
·
·
Yeah that could work! Thank you
Mark L.
·
·
You're welcome! Sounds like you have a good path forward for now, so I'll tentatively mark this closed for the moment. But keep in touch if you hit other related roadblocks we need to brainstorm.