Unanswered questions

HI everyone following the Austin Airtable User Group! I wanted to share a reminder that we are hosting our FIRST EVER builder meetup at Desnudo Coffee Cart on 2nd and Congress right in the heart of downtown Austin on September 17 at 8:30am. Come on out to say hi and I hope to see you all there! https://luma.com/airtable-community-austin-crew-09-26

Hi,I need to trigger Zapier to send SMS one hour before an appointment we have in our CRM.I built an IF formula field that checks that the event is not cancelled, it’s of certain type and that it is one hour from event start (AND formula with several check points), returns “Send SMS” when all is green.I had hoped to use this field to trigger Zapier, but Zapier needs a “time modified” field to trigger. And one can’t define a time modified field for a formula field….None of the relevant fields are “written”, they are formula fields, and I really need a combination of criteria OK before triggering.And I don’t have Airtable automations left to use for this :).What workarounds have you come up with?Rgds,Björn

Hey Folks,I am looking for some freelance support on my small company called FallLine. The assignment comprises of developing several key operations like: matching data, AI agent intake processing, E-mail automation etc. In case you could be of help, I am happy to connect. Best regards,Diederik 

Hi everyone,I’m using Airtable on-site to document materials, and I have two questions:Photo compression: Is there a way to automatically compress photos when taking them directly through the Airtable mobile app? The original photos are quite large, which makes uploading/syncing on-site slower. I’d like to reduce the file size while keeping enough quality for documentation purposes. Offline data collection: Is there a way to use Airtable fully offline for an on-site survey? Ideally, I’d like to be able to create records, take photos and fill in fields without an internet connection, then have everything sync automatically once I’m back online.Any recommended setup or workaround would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Greetings from Palo Alto! We’re looking for an experienced trainer in the Bay Area to provide both in-person and on-line workshops. Please let me know if you would like to recommend someone. Many thanks! ~Marion

Hi everyone, I'm Sarah — just joined the Airtable community after using it for a few months to manage a small content/project workflow. Loving the flexibility so far, but I'm running into an issue: as my bases grow and get linked together, it's getting harder to keep track of which base "owns" which data. Do you all use a specific naming convention or a master "hub" base to manage this? Would love to hear how more experienced users structure things once you're past 4-5 interconnected bases.

How can  use “processing” check box as a temporary lock in airtable automations to prevent duplicate rink allocations?  I have a bowling booking system where bookings trigger an automation to randomly allocate rinks 2 - 8.  When several bookings are processed close together, the same rink can be allocated to more than one booking.  I already have an Available check box in my rink pool table.  I cannot use scripting and dont want to redesign the system.  What exact automation steps would processing act as a lock so each rink can only be claimed once?

Hi,I have Google Drive links to images in an attachment field. Is there a way to enable batch downloading of all the files in the field from an interface page, preferrably in a zip file? And further, a way to first select a number of the files, then download them all in one go?I tried prompting Omni to create that in a custom page, but despite it saying it had done it, there was no button for it :).Googling or Omin gave me this, but no further details. There used to be an extension but it was last updated 2022 and required an MiniExtensions subscription so no go: If you need to download all images in bulk, consider using Airtable’s built-in export or attachment download features, or explore third-party tools that support bulk downloading of attachments from Airtable. Cheers,Björn

Is there a way to see an Instagram grid/preview when using Airtable for social media content calendars? 

We use Airtable embeds to recognize our volunteers, this results in us having ~14 embed tables on one webpage (we are currently doing a lot of testing, so they might not all be there but usually they are under each department): https://neuromatch.io/our-people/ Recently, we’ve built a new website and the embeds have been causing issues with the page they are on (previously, we did not have this issue due to the way the content was loaded in a different wordpress template).  The embeds are very large compared to other website elements, and we found that even when we removed photos from the cards the size of the embed itself stayed the same.  Is there a way to reduce the loading size of the embeds? 

スマートフォンで、毎月の愛車の維持費、整備箇所、保険代、ガソリン代、税金、などを記録をするアプリの制作をしたい。 維持費、整備箇所、保険代、ガソリン代、税金、車検代、駐車場代、ローン返済額、などの項目を任意で追加したり削除できる。 ユーザーのメモも書き込めるようにしてください。 日付も入力できる。費用は、入力すると、１ヶ月分を自動で合計したり、月割りで自動計算したりする機能にしてください。 紙にプリントできる機能もほしいです。

Working on a project and was wondering if there was a way when the owner of a workspace opens up the Airtable app it opens up the interface whilst the table and automations are hidden. Thanks.

Hi, I need help! For my project, I want to email volunteers—selecting specific groups associated with each project (i had de volunteers and the project in airtable allready) and receive their replies in the same place. What is the best way to manage this in Airtable while keeping costs and complexity low?

 Hi!I need to set up an automation for a solution I'm developing that allows volunteers to log their hours via a Google Form, which will then populate the tables. There will be around 100 volunteers. Is it possible to do this using Airtable's free plan?Thank youAlexandra

Why wouldn’t you, as a company who likes money, after years of being asked, just develop a working mobile app? As it stand now the Mobile app is terrible. It loads slowly, the way the UI is set up, you constantly are popped out of your base when you try to move to different tables, etc. I’m not even asking for configuration to be better on app. I can sit down at a desktop to do this. But what is the point of creating tasks/todos in an airtable system if it take 5 min just to load up one linked task in a record? I know there are tons of these posts but they are all closed with no answer. I just want to know WHY. Is there some logistical reason why the UI cannot be developed into a working product? Is Airtable ran by evil goblins who enjoy our pain? Is it a social experiment to see how long we last before switching to a competitor? I’ve used Airtable for about a decade, I’ve moved my entire workplace and a few partners over to airtable because of how much I like the desktop version. But

I have an automation set up to send weekly summaries across all workstreams in a project. I have the Workstream and Weekly Summary as fields. I’m currently inserting them as a List but then it doesn’t really allow me to format the content in the List - only the text I add before/after the List. Is there a way for me to insert the data I want and format it for slack?

In Interface, When you open a record, you see the record details, in there you can see two small arrows on the left that help you go back and forth in records, but if that same record details page, you opened another linked record, the new record details page will not have the arrows.Any one knows why? is there a way to make them appear?The first record details page, it has the arrowsThe second record details page, it doesn’t have the arrows 

When calling the Airtable MCP server (https://mcp.airtable.com/mcp) over Streamable HTTP with OAuth 2.0, the tool calls list_workspaces and list_bases succeed (isError = false), but the CallToolResult carries the payload only in structuredContent. The standard content array is returned empty.What I observe:- list_workspaces: content is empty, while structuredContent contains the actual workspaces.- list_bases: content is empty, while structuredContent contains the actual bases.- The OAuth access token is valid; the calls are not errors.Why this is a problem: per the MCP spec, when a tool returns structuredContent it should also return a functionally-equivalent text block in the content array (a serialized/text form of the same result), for backward compatibility. Any MCP client or model that reads the standard content array sees nothing and concludes the tool returned an empty result, even though the workspaces/bases were actually returned in structuredContent.Request: please also popu

I am working on a Crankflo integration where Airtable holds structured operational records, while Crankflo owns execution, proof and approvals.The sync I am considering:- Airtable keeps customer, workflow or task records.- Crankflo turns selected records into executable Todos.- Results and proof sync back to Airtable as status, links and timestamps.- Approval or retry decisions stay visible without duplicating private payloads.For Airtable builders, would you make Airtable the source of truth and mirror execution state back, or keep execution state outside Airtable and only sync summary fields? Which fields do you usually persist for audit?

Does your company have mission critical software systems outside of Airtable? Are you currently copying and pasting data between the two systems of record? If so, it may be time to build a custom API integration!In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to connect Claude to understand your base, read the API documentation, and install all the tables, fields, scripts and automations to make this possible.We’ll be using disco.ac in the demo so music industry users will not want to miss!Register here: https://airtableevents.com/mediaent-crew-claude-mcp-custom-api  

Hi, I’m trying to set up data backups/redundancies in case of emergencies. I already regularly download CSVs of my base, but want to find a good way to back up my base structure. Is there a way to duplicate a base to an external workspace? Would like to have formulas/fields backed up somewhere in case we lose access to our account.

I’m having an issue getting a hold of sales/support. I’m on a team account right now but was planning to possibly upgrade to incorporate Airtable fully into my business but I can’t seem to get a hold of anyone real. I’ve emailed the sales department twice and I get confirmation emails from what I thought was a real person but I’m assuming it’s AI because they never respond once I email back my availability for a call. I’ve also tried the support chat function but it seems like that button does nothing for me.  

I have a formula field that uses DATEADD to subtract 2 weeks from a date in another field. It produces the right date, but that date is formatted in a way that’s hard to read. Is it possible to configure the formatting so it shows up as MM/DD/YYYY ? Screenshot to show how the formatting shows up in an email automation. It’s the internal due date that I’d like to format. differently.  Somwhat related, I’d like the ‘application due date’ to format as MM/DD/YYYY as well, if possible.  

We use Airtable as the central operational system for a construction company. Approximately 20–25 users work in the base throughout the day, and it manages more than 60 active projects.Our site managers need a user-friendly mobile app, including the ability to update project information and upload photos from their phones. We originally connected Glide directly to our main Airtable base, but the volume of API activity significantly slowed down the base.To reduce the load, we created a second Airtable base:Main operational base → Airtable synced base → GlideWe enabled two-way sync between the main base and the synced base. However, edits made through Glide do not update the synced Airtable fields.For example, a user checks a checkbox in Glide. It appears checked temporarily, but Airtable never receives the update. The original unchecked value then syncs back to Glide and reverses the change.We understand that Airtable’s two-way sync may not support edits made through the API, which woul

I made a custom dashboard with Omni. It has a mix of content blocks, grid lists/tables and other field types. I don’t see an option for people to edit the data directly for fields that aren’t roll-ups e.g. change a single select field option, enter in a different date in the date field. It looks like the only way to edit the data is either directly in the data layer or by creating a separate form or separate non-omni interface.Is this really the case?