Blog

New Airtable Apps to Streamline your Workflow

December 16, 2020

To help streamline your workflows, Airtable shares six latest apps to enter the Marketplace. Spanning a number of powerful uses—from form power-ups to in-base shortcuts—these new apps are designed to amplify and enrich your existing workflows.


Here’s what’s new:


Batch export attachments from multiple records with Bulk Download Attachments

You can now compile and export all attachments from multiple records with one click using Bulk Download Attachments. Define the attachment field you want to download, and filter by view before downloading the attachments in one pass. Bulk Download Attachments also gives you the option to rename attachment files based on another field in the same record. With this functionality, you can rename attachments en masse while you download, making it easy to associate downloaded attachments to the records in your base.


Automate QR code creation using the QR Code Generator app

Generate high volumes of QR codes with a few clicks using the QR Code Generator app. Based on existing records in your base, QR Code Generator creates unique QR codes for the record(s) of your choice, adding them to your base in the form of attachments. Each QR code it generates is automatically associated with the record it’s sourced from.


Pre-populate forms using the Formula for a Prefilled Form app

Prefilled forms can save time and improve accuracy, but manually building the URLs for prefilled forms can be tedious and subject to typos. This app creates a formula that you can place in a table to generate a unique prefilled URL for each record using the values in that record. Using prefill parameters in the URL of your form, you can fill in a subset of your fields. Based on prefill parameters, The Formula for a Prefilled Form app makes it even easier to generate form prefill links.  


Add signatures, CAPTCHA challenges, and more to your forms with miniExtensions Form

Building on the existing functionalities of Airtable forms, this app lets you add new features to your forms. You can use it for editing records, collecting signatures, scanning barcodes, and much more. It can also be used to add CAPTCHA challenges, and to collect respondents’ IP addresses.


Run, save, and schedule API requests via Data Fetcher

You can now run, save, and schedule API requests without leaving Airtable through the Data Fetcher app. Data Fetcher works with virtually any API to pull information into your Airtable base, or to post base information to an external source. Although there are existing tools that help move API data into and out of Airtable, Data Fetcher allows users to do this right within their bases, so they can see the effects of a running API call immediately. Once a user has set up an API request to run in their base, they can save it and run it again later, or schedule it to run at certain times.


Create a GraphQL endpoint for your base using BaseQL

GraphQL is a query language for APIs, as well as a runtime for fulfilling the queries you can create within it. GraphQL, like all APIs, retrieves information based on user-defined endpoints. Using BaseQL, you can turn your Airtable base into a GraphQL endpoint. Through this app, you can now build custom interfaces on top of an existing Airtable base.


To find out more about how no-code development can help your business, get in touch with me.


Techy Polar

How World Central Kitchen delivered 30 million+ meals to COVID-19 workers using Airtable

October 7, 2020

By using Airtable to build, scale, and streamline operational workflows, World Central Kitchen has been able to make the most of their resources and expand their impact around the world. Read more on their story here.

To find out more about how no-code development can help your business, get in touch with me.


Techy Polar

JSON Editor

September 30, 2020

Because Airtable wasn't satisfied with 2 new and very powerful feature roll out this month, they wanted to end September with an even bigger bang by introducing a JSON editor in Airtable. The JSON editor app makes it easier to work with JSON by formatting the contents of a long text field with colored syntax, indenting, and warnings for malformed JSON. Now you can write codes through JavaScript to make your systems even more powerful! The possibilities are endless and so exciting to look forward to what Airtable has in store for us in the near future!


To find out more about how no-code development can help your business, get in touch with me.


Techy Polar

Airtable Automations and Synced Tables

September 17, 2020

It's a very exciting month for Airtable users because the Airtable team has added 2 very powerful features to their arsenal - Automations and Synced Tables.


Automations

Airtable now lets you configure custom workflows that perform actions based on a trigger. Automate repeating tasks to eliminate human error, send notifications with context, set up automations to Airtable integrations like Google Calendar, Google Sheets, Jira, Slack and more.


Synced Tables

Copy data from one table to another. Sync it so that the destination table contains current data.  When synced, the destination table will contain all the data from the records and fields visible in the source table. You can use this to keep information synced across different bases!


To find out more about how no-code development can help your business, get in touch with me.


Techy Polar


Integrate Jira with Airtable

June 26, 2020

Import your tasks and epics from Jira Cloud into Airtable using the new Jira Cloud block! With this new block, you can initiate one-way imports from projects in Jira into Airtable. You can even refresh data so that the information stays up to date. Simply connect to your Jira Cloud account and select the desired project and issue types to get started.


To find out more about how no-code development can help your business, get in touch with me.


Techy Polar

Airtable Supports Dining At A Distance

May 1, 2020

Airtable is a proud supporter of Dining At A Distance, which was developed in response to the COVID-19 crisis that took hold in March 2020. Dining At A Distance aggregates info about local farms and restaurants open for takeout/delivery during the COVID-19 crisis. They're using Airtable forms and embeds to gather and share information for cities around the world.

Read more about Dining At A Distance here.


To find out more about how no-code development can help your business, get in touch with me.


Techy Polar

April 2020 Airtable Updates

April 22, 2020

The Airtable team constantly improves the platform so we have frequent updates to look forward to. Here are some of Airtable's updates for April 2020:


Field & Table editing permissions

You can limit who can make certain changes to a field or table. Anyone with creator or owner permissions can limit who can edit the contents of a specific field, and who can create or delete records in a table.


Conditional Lookup, Rollup and Count fields

Add custom filter conditions to lookup, rollup, and count fields to limit which records are included in the results.


Conditional form field

You can now configure form fields so that they display or hide based on the submitter's responses in previous fields. You can chain together multiple conditional form fields in a sequence—i.e., use one conditional form field as the condition for another form field. You can make conditional form fields required. When a conditional form field is set as required, it is hidden by default until its condition is met. Once its condition is met, the form will still require it to be filled for submission.


To find out more about how no-code development can help your business, get in touch with me.


Techy Polar

How Airtable became a $5.8 Billion Company

April 15, 2020

Airtable was founded in 2012 by Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, and Emmett Nicholas and is headquartered in San Francisco, USA. In 2015, they raised $3M from Caffeinated Capital, Freestyle Capital, Data Collective and CrunchFund. On the same year, they raised another $7.6M funding from angel investors Charles River Ventures and Ashton Kutcher.

Airtable was founded in 2012 by Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad,

They were then followed by Series Funding from other investors:


And most recently, Airtable announced a $270M investment at a valuation of $5.8B. Click here to read more on this from Forbes.


To find out more about how no-code development can help your business, get in touch with me.


Techy Polar

The Game Changer that is Airtable

April 3, 2020

Airtable is a low-code platform that looks like a spreadsheet but is a powerful relational database system under the hood. It is simple, user-friendly, collaborative and allows quick and smart database creation. It is a centralized database system where users can migrate data from one database to another while maintaining data integrity.


Main features of Airtable:


Relational database

The primary benefit of a relational database system is the ability to create meaningful information by joining the tables in your database. It makes data manipulations easier and allows you to understand the relationships between the data.


Customized fields

Customize the column types in your table to any of the following:


Filtering & Sorting

Just like a spreadsheet, you can filter and sort data according to the information you need. It's a very simple feature but very powerful in that you are able to view only the specified set of data out of thousands of records you have in your database.


Customized views

You can create and save many different views in the same table. Choose to show only certain fields and hide the others to make for easier viewing. You can also hide fields with sensitive info if you need to share with other team members or external users. Views can also be used for conditional formatting.


Collaborative workspace

Work on shared bases across different teams. Organize, discuss and assign tasks according to your business workflows. Data synchronization is in real-time so everybody in the team is always updated.


Link records between tables and bases

Organize data points with defined relationships for easy access and lookups. Easy query and filter to extract information for reports. Because the data is structured, you only input the data once, then you can call and reuse it in different tables and bases, thus eliminating data input duplication.


Forms management

Create customized forms in seconds. Collect data from external users through forms and get the submitted data straight to your base. Airtable's native form has conditional logic so you can set rules or conditions that cause your form fields to change based on user input.


Blocks

Blocks are modular apps that enhance Airtable use cases. These can be charts, diagrams, maps, or timelines that help you see the overview of your data visually. You can also create letter templates that have dynamic information fields that get the data from your base.


Integrations

Airtable allows for a central software architecture that's able to seamlessly connect and pass data to other systems and this is possible through API integrations. This cuts down on the inefficiencies of dealing with multiple software solutions within a company and eliminates bottlenecks. It reduces communication delays and increases accuracy, making the business run much faster, more efficiently, and with far less human error involved.


Airtable is the power of a database with the familiarity of a spreadsheet. And by integrating it with other no-code tools, you can take your Airtable game to the next level. To find out more about how this can help your business, get in touch with me.


Techy Polar

No-Code Revolution

March 26, 2020

In today's vast world of technology, businesses and organizations rely on information systems to make sense of their valuable data to help them understand where they currently are, what mistakes could have been avoided and how to move forward.  While it is an integral part to running and managing a business, high costs, thousands of lines of codes and months and years of development are just some of the many obstacles that start ups and medium enterprises are presented with. These days, who has the time? People are demanding faster solutions. If you can't keep up, you'll be left behind.


There is a need for faster development, faster iterations and for the majority of the small to medium businesses, access to custom solutions that do not break the bank. Enter the No-Code Revolution. Many software companies have built platforms based on the no-code principle because there is a bottleneck in the software development industry, and because the demand for accessible solutions is rising aggressively.


So what does this mean for the systems development arena?


Accelerate product creation and launch time.

Now, you don't have to wait for months or years to see your system plans come to fruition. With no-code development, your systems will be finished in just a few weeks. Faster turnaround time, faster iteration, faster results.


Economical Solution

You don't need a team of database administrator, web designer and systems developer - you just need ONE no-code/ low-code developer. Because of this, the cost of development is drastically lowered.


Fast deployment and hosting.

No-Code platforms have very reliable in-house hosting. After the systems creation, it can be published any time.


To find out more about how no-code development can help your business, get in touch with me.


Techy Polar