Adding new data to existing Webflow CMS

Design help CMS
1

Hey Webflowers

I know that I can import data from an Excel into the Webflow CMS.

But, once I have a CMS set up in Webflow, can I import a new “column” from Excel to populate a new item in the CMS?

Here is my public share link: LINK
(how to access public share link)

2

No, and it’s not possible either with automation services such as Zapier.

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3

That’s what I feared.

I’ve been looking at Headless CMS but I don’t have time to learn Web hooks and APIs

4

What exactly are you trying to do? The OP wasn’t very clear. But if I’m reading this right, I don’t see why it’s not possible?

If you want to just add new items from a spreadsheet to an existing CMS collection, that’s very easy with systems like Integromat or Zapier - even easier if you first import the Excel doc to Google Spreadsheet, which is supported in those services.

If you want to add a new “column” to existing items in an existing collection (the columns are just called fields in Webflow), just add the new field manually to the collection in Webflow, then you can populate that new “column”/field with Integromat or Zapier as well. You just need to pull down all existing items and update them with the new field info - I recommend Integromat for this.

If it’s just for new items in an existing collection, just add the field in Webflow, then go about doing what you’re already doing and include the new field in your imports or new items or whatever.

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5

Interesting

I was under the impression that you couldn’t do this. Could you quickly outline how to do that? Once the automation ran, is it possible to publish automatically as well?

In advance thanks!

6

Not sure how it’s done in Zapier, but in Integromat I simply pull the existing items from a collection and then update only the new field. The other fields aren’t touched.

For example, I recently added a “legacy publish time” custom field on my older articles which were already published and in a collection. I then populated only the new field. In my case, I used the Created On field to populate it, but this could just as easily be pulled from a Google Sheets or similar.

tesrhsrethsr

You can run a publish command after that, but you can also just edit the items live:

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Now, to do this automatically from a sheet with many rows, you’d need to match something that’s already in the item fields AND the sheet so that the new “column” stuff is inserted in the correct item - for example a name. Easily doable with the various filters and functions in Integromat.

Another (more drastic, but perhaps easier?) version is to pull all info from an item, delete it, then add a new item with this info + the new “column”/field. (not deleting it before adding the new one might screw up the slug)

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7

Thanks a ton!

@zbrah ↑

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8

I have linked my Webflow CMS with Coda.io (it’s like Airtable) via Zapier, and now I am able to either create CMS drafts, create live items, or update published items from within Coda, and can even update single and multi reference fields too! (Although the images part is yet to be tested)

The Zapier workflow is:

  1. Trigger: a new row added in Coda
  2. Webflow: create a live item
  3. Coda: update row with CMS item IDs from step 2.
  4. Webhook: PATCH the CMS item from step 2 with my single and multi reference fields (requires some coding, but doable, as I’m not a coder)
  5. Webflow: update CMS item from step 2 with single and multi reference fields

And voila, your CMS content can be manipulated outside of Webflow, and when you’re finished, push it to Webflow!

Let me know if anyone is interested in hearing more.

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