Automating Video Generation with Airtable, HeyGen & Make.com

About The Company:

Our client is an individual affiliated with a leading university who wanted to streamline the creation of personalized educational and promotional videos. With a growing need to produce video content tailored to different audiences—students, faculty, and event participants—manual video editing was no longer sustainable.

Customer Challenges:

The manual video creation process was time-consuming and prone to inconsistencies. Each video required several audio files, formatting decisions, and text personalization, which meant hours of editing per project. The client faced several challenges:

• High volume of video requests from multiple departments with varied formatting needs.
• Limited technical resources and no full-time video editor.
• Manual errors and delays in video production.
• No central system to track requests and generate content based on structured inputs like template choice, audio files, and optional titles.

The client needed a system that could accept inputs in a structured format, choose the right video template, upload audio files accordingly, and return finished videos with little to no manual effort.

Solutions:

To meet these needs, We created a Make.com scenario that listens for changes in Airtable. When a record's status changes to "Generate Template", the automation is triggered.

Step-by-Step Workflow Breakdown

Trigger: Airtable Record Change 

Trigger Condition: When a record's Status field is updated to "Generate Template"

Captured Inputs:

• Template Name
• Audio File URLs (up to 5)
• Optional Title

 Router for Template Selection 

Purpose: Route to the appropriate path based on the selected template name.
Setup:

• Each route corresponds to a HeyGen template with a specific number of scenes.
• Filters are applied to match the template name in Airtable.
• Upload Audio to HeyGen (Repeat Module) h5

Logic:

• A Repeat module iterates over the array of audio files (1–5) without using an Iterator.
• For each loop, the audio file is uploaded to HeyGen's API.
• The returned asset_id for each file is stored using the Set Variables module.

Post-Upload Router: Title Handling

Check: Whether the title field is empty or not.

Route A:

Title exists: Pass title into HeyGen template as a text variable.

Route B:

Title is missing: Generate the video without a title variable.

Generate Video via HeyGen API

Inputs Passed:

• template_id from earlier lookup
• Audio asset IDs from the repeat loop
• Title (if available)

Callback ID: Used to match the generated video to the original Airtable record.
 
Audio Upload Automation

A Repeat module (not an Iterator) was used to handle the uploading of 1–5 audio files. Each file was uploaded to HeyGen’s API, and the returned asset IDs were stored for later use. This dynamic handling allowed the client to choose how many audio clips to use without modifying the scenario each time.

Automated Video Generation

The final step involved generating the video using HeyGen’s API. Inputs included the selected template ID, uploaded audio asset IDs, and the optional title. A callback ID linked the finished video back to the correct Airtable record.

Results

This automated solution delivered several measurable improvements:

• Automation resulted in a 95%  time reduction, enabling  the reps  to shift focus on more strategic tasks.
• Faster turnaround time, with video generation completed in minutes instead of hours
• Scalable system, ready to accommodate new templates, more scenes, or even different types of content like multilingual videos.

Tools and Technology Used:

Airtable, HeyGen, Make.com

Final Words:

By integrating Airtable, HeyGen, and Make.com, CloudCache Consulting helped the client build an efficient, scalable video generation workflow. This solution eliminated manual steps, reduced errors, and enabled faster production of personalized videos tailored to a university audience.  Read our happy clients' thoughts on Fiverr.