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Airtable
Type of site
Cloud collaboration service
Founded2012
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California
Founder(s)Howie Liu,Andrew Ofstad,Emmett Nicholas
IndustryInternet
URLairtable.com
RegistrationRequired
Current statusActive

Airtable is a cloud collaboration service headquartered in San Francisco. It was founded in 2012 by Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, and Emmett Nicholas. It aims to improve productivity and organizing data.

Airtable is a spreadsheet-database hybrid i.e., the features of a database are applied to a spreadsheet. The fields in an Airtable table are similar to a cell of a spreadsheet but have the power to do lot more than just hold text. The fields can have file attachments like images, check-boxes, phone numbers, drop-down lists, etc.

After registering to use the site, users can create a database, set up field types, add records, link tables, collaborate with a team, sort the records based on a field and publish views to external websites. When an Airtable database is created, it is automatically hosted to the cloud[1]. The values in the fields are updated real time.

Timeline

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  • 2012: Airtable founded.[2]
  • Feb 2015: Raised $3M from Caffeinated Capital, Freestyle Capital, Data Collective, CrunchFund. [3]
  • April 2015: Airtable launches its API and embedded databases.[4]
  • May 2015: Raised $7.6M funding from Charles River Ventures and Ashton Kutcher.[5]
  • July 2015: Introduced Airtable Forms to collect and organize data.[6]
  • August 2015: Airtable made “Add to Slack” option available to integrate Airtable with Slack.[7]
  • December 2015: Airtable redesigned its iOS app[8].
  • December 2015: Airtable introduced barcode as new field type.[9]

Basic components

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Airtable has five basic components[10]:

  1. Bases: All the information needed to create a project is contained in a Base. Bases can be built from existing templates provided by Airtable. In addition, they can also be built from scratch, from a spreadsheet or from an existing Base.
  2. Tables: A table is similar to an excel spreadsheet. A Base is a collection of tables.
  3. Views: Views are how we can see a table. Views can be saved for future purposes.
  4. Fields: Each entry in a Table is a field. They are not just restricted to hold text. Airtable currently offers 16 basic field types [11]. These are: single-line texts, long text articles, file attachments, check-boxes, single select from drop-down list, multiple-selects from drop-down lists, date and time, phone numbers, email ids, URLs, numbers, currency, percentage, auto-number, formulae and barcodes [12].
  5. Records: Each row of a Table is a Record.
  6. Team: Team is a collection of Bases in Airtable.

For example, in the adjacent restaurant template which contains all the information we need to store about the restaurants. We can have a ‘Restaurants’ table to store the names of restaurants along with information about their addresses, ratings, menus, etc. We can have a view to show our favourite restaurants. Each record in the Restaurants table is kept for a particular restaurant. ‘Rating’ can be kept as a field, to help generate ‘My favourite restaurants’ view.

Key Features

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Linking between tables

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To avoid the need to form a single large table when there is related data in multiple tables, Airtables provides an option to link records of different tables. Airtable allows us to link existing tables of related records, create a new linked table and also to create multiple links between existing tables. [13]

Collaboration

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Airtable allows multiple users to work simultaneously on the same Base allowing more productivity at workplace. A new collaborator is added by clicking share button found at top of Base and providing the email ID of the collaborator. The owner can set the permission level of collaborator while sharing the Base[14]. There are three permission levels in Airtable Base. They are:

Creator: Creator level lets the user have full access of the Base. The creator can manage collaborators and even can delete the Base.

Edit Only: Edit Only level lets the collaborator modify the records but cannot change the field type of the columns.

Read Only: By Read Only level permission, the user can only view the Base and its content but cannot add or change any record.

If multiple Bases are required then a Team is formed in Airtable[14]. An Airtable Team can hold multiple Bases and collaborators of the Team can work on all the available Bases in the Team. There are four permission levels in Team, unlike for a Base which only has three. The extra permission level in Team is Owner, who has full access to Team Base.

Publishing views

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Bases can be easily shared with public. One need not have an Airtable account to view the published Bases. These view only Bases shared in public are called Airtable views. These views can be embedded into ones own website and allows the website users see the real time information in Base, without needing them to have an Airtable account. One possible use-case is Airtable Form, which can be used to take a survey of a product. The feedback received from a customer can also be shown to public by sharing the Airtable View.

Airtable Forms

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Airtable introduced Forms in July 2015.[15] Forms could be used to collect data from others like co-workers, customers or the public. A Form can be easily created from an existing Base, and the data collected by the Form is automatically organized in the Airtable Base. Airtable allows user to organize the required fields in the Form. A separate link is created for every Airtable Form. This link can be shared with others to get the required data. An Airtable Form can also be embedded in a website, to get the feedback from the website users.

Airtable integration

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Airtable's API can be used to connect to other web services by which information can be exchanged between external web applications and Airtable. Using Zapier platform, Airtable can be made to connect over 450 applications and websites. First the user should have an account with Zapier. Then API key of Airtable and API key of other web service is provided to Zapier account. For example, if you want to manage job postings using Airtable and Slack, both these apps should be registered in Zapier, and then Airtable is configured as a trigger app unlike Slack, which is configured as an action app. Suppose if we require that adding a job posting as a record in Airtable to create a posting in Slack, then a trigger in Zapier account is configured to detect an addition of record in Airtable and post the relevant job in Slack.[16]

Example Airtable integrations

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  • Tweets from Twitter can be automatically stored in Airtable records based on context of message.
  • Store attached files in an email to the records in an Airtable Base.
  • Manage job postings and applications using Airtable and Slack.
  • Get job notifications from Linkedin status update to a record in an Airtable Base.[16]

Snapshot

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Airtable provides a greater sophistication to backup the data than just allow the users to undo/redo. Airtable periodically snapshots the Base. When a previous version of a Base is needed, the appropriate snapshot is selected by the user from the snapshots list. In addition, the user can manually snapshot a Base at anytime.

Mobile Access

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Airtable introduced its version 2.0 iOS application on December 2015.[8] This allows the users to work on the entire database creation just using their iPhone. Mobile access and API features from Airtable will enable enthusiast application developers to develop more mobile applications based on Airtable. A beta version of Airtable application for Android platform is available for public.[17]

API

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Airtable provides API to provide ability to users to build application solutions fitting their exact problems. A key which is present at overview section is necessary to use Airtable's API. The key should be kept secretive. The API follows REST semantics, uses JSON to encode objects, and uses standard HTTP codes to signal operation outcomes. [17]

Initially, the user has to create a Base in Airtable. Then, Airtable's API can be used to create, update, read or delete records. At present, Airtable's API does not allow users to create or modify the Base schema. These features will be made available in Airtable's Metadata API which is stated to be released soon.[18]

Security

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Airtable uses 256 bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to protect the data. It also uses 256-bit SSL/TLS encryption in data transportation.[19]

Other competitors

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The main competitors of Airtable are Google Docs and Microsoft Excel. Compared to its competitors, Airtable has advanced UI and a mobile version with good user experience. Mircrosoft Excel could be preferred if there are lots of computations and cell manipulations. Using simple spreadsheets would not be scalable, and could be difficult to collaborate and share. [20]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Airtable: A Quick Overview". timdietrich.me. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  2. ^ "Airtable | CrunchBase". www.crunchbase.com. Retrieved 2016-02-08.
  3. ^ Lawler, Ryan; Contributor. "With $3M In Funding, Airtable Makes Complex Databases Usable On Your Mobile Phone". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-02-06. {{cite web}}: |last2= has generic name (help)
  4. ^ Russell, Kyle. "Airtable Launches Its API And Embedded Databases". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  5. ^ "Airtable lands $7.6M round to help build simple, extensible database apps". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  6. ^ "Create Forms In A Snap!". Covering Bases. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  7. ^ "Airtable and Slack: Keeping Your Team In Sync". Covering Bases. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  8. ^ a b "Airtable Introduces Newly Redesigned iOS App to Make Database Creation Available to Anyone With an iPhone". Marketwire. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  9. ^ "A Brief History of Barcodes". Covering Bases. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  10. ^ "An Introduction to Databases - Airtable Guide". Airtable Guide. Retrieved 2016-02-07.
  11. ^ "Setting Up Field Types - Airtable Guide". Airtable Guide. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  12. ^ "Guide to the basic field types". Airtable - Support. Retrieved 2016-02-07.
  13. ^ "Linking to another record". Airtable - Support. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  14. ^ a b "Collaborating with a Team - Airtable Guide". Airtable Guide. Retrieved 2016-02-07.
  15. ^ "Create Forms In A Snap!". Covering Bases. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  16. ^ a b "Airtable Integrations". Airtable. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  17. ^ a b "Airtable - API". airtable.com. Retrieved 2016-02-15.
  18. ^ "Is there an Airtable Android app?". Airtable - Support. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
  19. ^ "Airtable security practices". Airtable - Support. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  20. ^ "Airtable – A true spreadsheet / database hybrid? | Björn Wilmsmann". bjoernkw.com. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
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