Data syncing ensures that information stays consistent between two applications. Once a sync is live, it continuously monitors for changes and modifies (creates, updates, and deletes) records in real-time or near real-time to ensure their equality.
When setting up your sync, you can choose from three options:

• Both existing and future data – Aligns current records and keeps syncing new changes automatically.
• Existing data only – Syncs the current records but does not monitor future changes.
• Future data only – Starts syncing new data as changes happen without modifying existing records.

If you opt to sync historical data, our system compares and modifies existing records before the sync goes live. You can also delete unmatched data to keep both systems clean and consistent.
If you need more control, you can manually run a historical sync without enabling live syncing, updating data only when necessary.

Automation is designed to execute specific tasks, such as sending notifications, creating tasks, or updating records based on triggers in response to particular events. However, when keeping data consistent between two applications, automation often requires setting up multiple workflows to handle creating, updating, and deleting records separately. This can quickly become complex and difficult to manage.

Data syncing is purpose-built to maintain accurate and up-to-date records across platforms. Instead of manually creating different workflows, you set up a sync once, and it continuously monitors and updates records as changes happen. This eliminates the risk of outdated or inconsistent data while saving time and effort.
If you aim to ensure data consistency across applications without managing multiple automation workflows, data syncing is the smarter choice—keeping everything aligned effortlessly in the background.

For apps that support webhook notifications, changes are processed in real-time. For other apps, like Notion, we use polling to detect updates. The polling frequency varies based on your data sync plan, typically ranging from 5 to 15 minutes.

Setting up your sync is a one-time process done through the Byteline Console, which includes an AI-powered wizard to guide you step-by-step. The typical setup steps include:

• Configure app connections
• Set up table mapping
• Map fields for real-time sync (if selected)
• Map fields for historical sync (if selected)
• Turn the sync live.

Once live, each sync runs continuously in the background, even after you log out of the console. Any issues requiring attention are automatically sent via email notifications.

You can configure multiple syncs, each tailored to your specific needs.

Yes. During the field mapping step of sync configuration, you select only the fields that need to be synced—any unmapped fields will be ignored. Additionally, you can control the sync direction for each field based on your specific use case.

Each sync is set up between two apps. To sync across multiple sources, you need to configure multiple syncs to cover all sources. However, only one sync can write to a specific table within an app. If a table isn’t applicable, this applies to the data type (e.g., HubSpot Customers) instead. Writing occurs when an app is the target in a sync, but you can read from the same table in multiple one-way syncs.

For example, if you have a two-way sync between the Airtable Customers table and HubSpot Customers, you cannot create another sync that writes to either of these. However, you can use these tables as sources in a separate one-way sync—such as syncing Airtable Customers to a Google Sheets spreadsheet as the target.