Improvements to the New Home Screen

Thanks for the update @Dave_Engelberg - Is there a beta for users to sign up with that will help drive feedback to the dev team?

I can't commit to a beta at this point unfortunately, but we'll keep this set of folks in mind as we progress in development.

Thank you @Dave_Engelberg for listening to our concerns, offering the ability to use what is currently working well, and working on the issues we expressed.

@Dave_Engelberg- it would be overly useful to easily see which bases that I've shared with others from my own (single collaboration Pro) workspace.

Also, when I click "View a workspace -> " and sort by "Last modified by anyone", "Newest to oldest", all of the bases show out of order. They don't seem to be listed by "Name" or by the "Last modified by anyone" column.

It's from this same Workspace view where I'd like to easily see what bases I've Shared with others, and also what bases others have shared with me. I did see the option for the latter, but now I can't find it where I'd expect to see both options. I'm trying to see the;

• Bases I own that don't have any collabs.
• Bases I own that have write collaborators (those who are billable)
• Bases I own that have read-only collaborators (non-billable)
• Bases I own that have public views (such as, a base with a table that has a view that's shared/embedded)
• Bases that another person owns where I have write/collaborative access.
• Bases that another person owns where I have read-only access.

Workspace Columns holding the above information would be most welcome.

With the Home Screen change-over email being received by subscribers (I received mine last night) - may we please have a break-down of the Home Screen enhancements that have been implemented or are at least scheduled since receiving and reviewing the communities feedback?

Hi all,

I wanted to reach out to this thread with some exciting news (@karlstens you beat me to the punch); we’re in the process of rolling out the first improvement since debuting the updated home screen experience (we're at 1% as of this evening, expanding to 100% over the next two weeks). Based on a lot of feedback from the community, our first set of improvements include:

• A static “Starred” full-screen experience: Based on many comments from this forum, we heard that users - especially those with a lot of workspaces and bases - needed a static home screen that they could customize. We’ve introduced that experience as a new filter on the home screen, and introduced a dedicated workspace tile and drag/drop functionality as well. You can find that filter in the same toggle as “Opened by You” and “Shared with you” - see screenshot at the bottom of this post.
• Visual updates on tiles: We also heard a lot of feedback that timestamps on when you last opened an app as tile metadata wasn’t useful. Instead, we’ll be updating tiles to reflect where an interface or base lives.
• Additional usability improvements: filters are now “sticky” and remember filter settings in workspaces. We’ve also made a number of bug fixes and usability improvements around navigation when returning to the home screen and better organization of workspaces.

I also wanted to update this group that we will be removing the opt-out on July 12th (also per an email you may have received). I want to make sure that you are aware of this upcoming deadline in case you need to update your workflows so you can take action to mitigate any potential disruption. 

While we hope these improvements will make your experience with our home screen more useful and enjoyable, we recognize this will be a challenging change for some. As I hope this initial update demonstrates, we’ll continue to improve and iterate on this new surface over time, so please keep the feedback coming.

Thanks for the update @Dave_Engelberg  - is there any way for us to see "Bases Shared By You", where the owner of a workspace has created a base, and shared it with others?

Hey @Karlstens - I interpret your question as: User Kelly creates Workspace "Marketing Workflow" and shares that workspace with Users Scott and Akshay. In that workspace there are multiple bases; would those bases show up in the "Shared with you" filter?

The answer to that question (lmk if I'm not understanding) is that the workspace will show up in your All Workspaces page, but we won't show all bases in that workspace in the "Shared with you" filter. The rationale is that we didn't want to flood "Shared with you" if someone shared a workspace with many bases within it. 

Yah, I was hoping an "Shared with Others" filter options would be available, to show the bases that I've authored, and then shared with others.

**Urgent update needed**

Hi @Dave_Engelberg,

The mandatory use the new home page turned out to be catastrophic! I had tested it as an admin and this wasn't good due to all comments mentionned earlier in this thread. But I hadn't tested it as a user... This turned out to be a huge mistake on my side.

We are using multiple Workspaces. Our users have access to some bases in each workspace, depending on their role. In the new interface, as they don't have access to the full workspaces, the Workspaces do not appear in the Workspaces list. Bases are therefore only available in the unfriendly "Home" section where all the workspaces are mixed together. This is unusable...

Can we please have an urgent update for this? This prevent us to use Airtable and we might have to urgently move to a different plateform if this is not fixed...

Thanks,

David

This is still homepage is still trash in every conceivable way. The "changes" you made with our feedback from this thread are not useful. Return the old homepage and actually LISTEN to the feedback given.

I'm SO GLAD I'm not the only one who absolutely hates this update. It's the worst UI update I think I've ever seen from any product or service. The organization makes absolutely zero sense, the little starred box is tiny, the starred screen you're so proud of in this update isTERRIBLE (everything is lumped together rather than being grouped by workspace and it's a huge pain to drag and drop because everything keeps shifting every single time), everything is way more cluttered looking than it was before with these useless tiles instead of just the icons, and you to have scroll more or click extra buttons just to access the same things bases in a workspace.

Whoever designed this and whoever approved it should no longer be in their current roles because they're clearly awful at their jobs.

I've been using Airtable since at least 2016, and I'm starting the research today to find a new platform to move everything to.

Hello,
I find this new home screen awful.
I did my best to keep the old home screen until you made it mandatory for us to switch to. 

Here's why : 

1) The default setting mixes up the bases from all the workspaces, and even the "free plan" and the "pro plan" workspaces ... It's messed up.
If I want to display a particular workspace so that I have a global view of ALL MY BASES, in it I have to :
1) go the side bar 2) choose my workspace 3) set the order to "alphabetical" so that I don't have to scroll th whole page 4) it's only after all these movements that I can have a kind of global view of all my bases ... from one workspace only ! 

2) Why don't I have the possibility to sort my bases the way  I want, by a simple drag and drop like before, instead of forcing me to class them alphabetically or by "last modified" ???????? 

3) Why are the interfaces not separated from the bases  ??? Could I at least have the possibility to choose this setup  instead of your forcing me to mix up my bases and my interfaces ??? 

4) Last but not least : among all this mess (sorry), we don't even have the possibility to rearrange the workspace the best we could with the limited possibilites you give to us ... Because the homescreen goes back to the default setting (sorted by "last modified", workspaces mixed up ...) every time we refresh the page. 

5) EMERGENCY EDIT : UNBELIEVABLE. The alphabetical sorting (less of three evils) doesn't even work since it takes into account the emoji used as an icon of the base ... This homescreen is the joke of the century
I'm sorry but just for this, you should allow your customers to go backt to the old home screen, again. Its is not okay to provide your customers with a less-than-beta version of a homescreen @Dave_Engelberg 

Please Airtable, could we at least have the two possibilities ? One "non global" homescreen and one "global" homescreen, like the old one,  with a global view of all our bases, separated by workspaces, themselves separated between the interfaces and the bases, and the possibility to sort the bases like we want ?


This homescreen is awful, not user-friendly,  and I don't even want to think of my colleagues who will discover it the next days. 

Yah, it has to be said, that the emoji-first-letter-base-name-hack is god awful. Each base should be given the option of a base image either via an icon (and whilst we're talking icons, the existing available icon selection needs to be bumped significantly) OR emoji, and then a normal string text name.

Because now we have the classic issue of not being able to sort bases via base name correctly, because of this hack-job, which I admit, sure, was great 8 years ago... but we've definitely out grown this and it needs to be addressed with all other newly introduced Home Page issues.

The new home page is TERRIBLE!!! I want to see all bases and not just ones I've opened. Until yesterday, I was able to switch it back to the old experience and now that capability is gone. All of our workspace collaborators are missing in the new experience, save one or two. When I switched back to the old experience yesterday, they were there and functioning and now today, it's back to the same horrendous home page and workspace collabs are missing again. Even though people are base collaborators, they still can't access the bases.

The recent update has made it quite difficult to locate my bases, as there is no option to sort them by the date created. This has caused significant inconvenience. I am disappointed in the team responsible for this design, as it seems they have overlooked key aspects of user interface and usability. It's crucial for those in charge of such updates to consider the end user's experience and to incorporate feedback into future improvements.

"A visual refresh that focuses on increased scannability and legibility on the home screen"

What is more scannable or legible about a ton of extra boxes and lines that never existed before, plus the need to do a ton more scrolling and clicking and back and forth?

This visual "refresh" is greatly adding to the reduced functionality of this new home screen

Home Screen is more difficult to use, impossible to customize, and uses the wrong criteria for how we find our databases. We don't just use things according to how recently we used them. That's never been helpful and always been an unwelcome emphasis in the AT organizational paradigm. I want a way to get back to the old Home Screen, and remove all the "recently used" things or make them optional. 

Hi @Dave_Engelberg,

Based on all the extremely concerning comments from your community and without any answer, maybe interest, from the Airtable team, here is a list of suggestions that would probably help:

1. Remove or allow to hide the "Home" page. It was useless in the previous version, it is still useless.
2. Change default landing page to "All Workspace" page.
3. On the "All Workspace" page, add an option to expend all workspaces as default.
4. Base ordering: If it is too complex to drag-drop bases and record their order, simply add a sorting by "Custom Order" and add a "Custom Order Number" in the bases parameters. Users will happily do the rest for now...
5. In the workspace views, add a numbered badge (or alternative) on each bases individually shared (for the bases shared at the base level and not the workspace level).
6. Display the Workspace for users who have access to some bases but not the entire workspaces.

Each of these points should take 5-10 minutes to code and the same to test. So a total of 1-2 hours to update a dreadful home screen that makes you lose customer and transform it in a workable tool! A fantastic deal!

PS: You can take the code lines and branches from the "Home" page, sorting by "Opened by you", "Last modified by anyone", "Shared with you" and burn them! This is pure garbage that should have not made it to the concept board, let alone the beta. It is baffling that this was pushed.

For those still frustrated - this is the work around I am using.  I went in and Starred all of the boards.  This allows me to see them in the Starred section where we now have the ability to drag and drop them into any order we like.  I keep the starred section open and use the Search feature at the top and have been able to quickly and efficiently find what I need.  I hope that helps you.

To Team AirTable - just wanted to say thank you to listening to our initial concerns and adding in features that were asked for.

Hi @Dave_Engelberg,

Thanks for your answer. A couple of comments:

1. It is wrong to assume that your customers will adjust to unrequested and poorly designed changes. Making changes that break your customer experience will make them leave, not adjust.
2. This is not frustration. This is your customers telling you that you screwed-up and highlighting what essential features in their eyes have been broken. It is a message where some willing customers try to help you retain your customer base.
3. Great to see that the Drag & Drop functionalities works. Now can we have it applied to pages that make sense (workspaces)? No one want to use a "Home" or "Favourite" page where all Workspaces and bases are mixed! This is pure madness.
4. Before focusing your efforts on improving and developing more valuable features, I would suggest you start by fixing what has been broken. Adding shinny things on top of a turd will not make your turd smell better! (the turd being you Home Screen...).

As a side note, an emergency meeting has been planned in my company early next week to discuss how we can mitigate the risk caused by this home screen while we explore alternative to change platform. Cf to point 1., I guess we are adjusting to the change after all!

I've been using the new Homescreen in tandem with creating new bases that I've had to spin up - and unfortunately my experience has been an unguided hectic mess. I treat bases like I treat files on my computer. I typically organise my files with two methods - either via placing them in a sub-directory, or, by tagging and indexing them with searchable metadata. Often I employ both methods to find and coordinate thousands of files.

When it comes to bases - and I don't have thousands of bases, I approximately have less than 100 bases all up. The fact that I can't easily navigate/manage and organise less than 100 bases (and interfaces) via the new homepage is disappointing.

I've mentioned this previously in other Homepage threads - where we've discuss desired, simple, and incremental improvements that could be made to the old homepage - please, take your lead from the like of Stardock Fences. 

• Give bases indexable, searchable properties so we can easily find bases from the Homescreen search. Consider aspects of a base that could be index, perhaps table names, Dashboard names, Scripting App names, Automation Names.
• The ability to tag bases, or give bases keywords to search by or organise with. Tags could represent clients, projects, budgets, what ever, and could visually form regions to store and display bases in.
• Sort out the workspace billing dilemma that we all face, and treat workspaces like sub-directories without billing constraints. I pay for Pro features, and this needs to evolve from having a single "Pro" workspace.
• Update the Base Icon mechanism so that the base name needn't include an emoji (and break base name alphabetical sorting)
• Starring a base shouldn't be a requirement for a manually organise bases in a HomeScreen, but rather, starring should simply act as a toggle filter, to show/hide non-starred bases.

Please bring back the "switch to old home screen" button. I hate the new home screen, I don't care what bases I have opened in the last 30 days (it is many) I like to be able to order them so that I can quickly find what I need. 

Dave, on behalf of many of us in Airtable community, I am begging the team to iterate on the new home screen faster. Or, at the very least, make the old version accessible again. This is not an update that the people wanted. It was not broken before, but now it is. Please hear us.

TLDR; The new home screen is downright dreadful and makes Airtable overwhelming.