Hi all! I’m Kelly - a product manager at Airtable focused on helping users build powerful, secure apps for their org. I’m excited to introduce some powerful new features (including my personal favorite, granular permissions), as well as a new way to think about what you’re building in Airtable.
Today most teams have the autonomy to choose the software and tools that work best for them. While this allows teams to move fast, it can also create massive data silos, misalignment, and disjointed collaboration. There’s critical data spread across dozens of applications, and no team has access to all of it, which can cause work to slow way down
We believe it’s time to reject the trade-off between moving fast and moving together. That’s why we’re introducing the Airtable Connected Apps Platform.
The Airtable Connected Apps Platform lets every team create powerful applications to be shared across the organization, built on shared company data, and on the same connected platform.
Building apps in Airtable isn’t new. To help teams create even better apps, we’re releasing new features to make them more powerful, more secure, and more connected.
Updates available today: We’re rolling these updates out over the course of the day; if you don’t see them reflected in your workspace, hold tight! You should see them updated by the end of the day.
Interface Designer is now officially out of beta for all Airtable users. You can transform data into intuitive and interactive app interfaces that can be quickly customized for each team member. These foundational updates and improvements make it easier for your team to interact with your app. New updates to Interface Designer include:
A redesigned editor in the sidebar provides a central place to make changes to your interface—all in real-time and keeping your canvas clutter-free. Whether you’re using a calendar to track deadlines or a visual gallery to look through creative assets, you can easily manage what you show and how it appears from a single location With the new editor, it only takes a click to change how your data is visualized.
A new top navigation bar within your interface allows your users to easily navigate between relevant pages in a cinch
And, our new full page record detail experience gives you the ability to fully customize what others can see and edit when they click into the details of a record. So if you want your team to update project status without seeing every project detail you’re tracking, you can customize exactly which fields they can view and edit.
Introducing granular permissions. Now, Pro and Enterprise users can decide how others interact with your app. Gone are the days of setting up a new personal view, shared view, or base to customize data for every new collaborator, department lead, or team. Now, you can simply drag and drop the data you want to share into an Interface, add rules and a dynamic current-user filter to personalize content for each collaborator, and share the Interface to the intended audience(s).
So, whether you want to share the entire app, only certain pieces via an interface, or choose exactly what data is shown to each user —your app is as dynamic and secure as you choose it to be. New updates to permissions include:
The ability to share an interface without sharing the underlying base through Interface-only editor, commenter, and read-only permission levels. You can share interfaces via email or invite link, and choose to share silently when you don’t want an email notification firing off to a large group.
Current-user filter improvements to personalize interface content. Add an element filter specified to “Viewer’s records only” to ensure each user only sees records tagged to them so they get all the information they need, and none that they don’t. You can also let end users adjust the filter themselves based on their needs by adding a Filter element and match a collaborator or email field to the current user. If you’re on Airtable Enterprise, you can also add a group user filter, and end users will be able to see tasks associated with their group.
Admin panel support for Enterprise admins to manage interfaces. Admins will be able to see who’s creating or using interfaces as well as who has access to each interface.
Coming soon:
Redesigned home screen: Discover and access the apps your organization relies on, right from the new home screen. Enterprise customers can opt into the new home screen today. We’ll be rolling out the new home screen to all users over the next few months.
Interface insights: Coming in the next few weeks, Enterprise users will now be able to see exactly how interfaces are being used
Verified data: Publish and mark key data so everyone can build apps with the same, accurate information. Verified data is currently in development and will be available in early 2023.
Data map: Visualize your data and how everything connects, so you can build, manage, and scale work. Data map is currently in development and will be available in early 2023.
Two-way sync: Automatically update data across multiple apps to ensure information is always current. Two way sync is currently in limited availability for Enterprise customers. It will be available more broadly in early 2023.
Apps by Airtable: Get started faster with apps that can be used straight out of the box—each is hand-built for an essential use case—and based on industry best practices. The first set of these apps will be available in early 2023.
Learn more about these updates and what a connected apps platform can do for you and your team in our blog post!
We can’t wait to hear what you think, and see what you build, with these updates!
We would also love to have you join us for a Community AMA on October 27 at 9 am PT where we will talk about all the updates to Interface Designer. I’ll be sharing some of our thinking behind these features, and will also be available to answer all your burning questions! You can register here and we hope to see you there!
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Loving the updates! Can’t wait to try everything out. Still a little confused on the terminology though.
Do Interface pages mean the Top level tabs that now show up?
When we say sharing the Interface, are we sharing the Interface or each Interface page? For eg. in my example, the Interface would be Tasks & Invoices and the Pages would be Create New Task…
Interface Collaborators, can they be users outside the Airtable system? Similar to how sharing Airtable forms was? Essentially can I share the Interface link the way I could share Airtable form link?
Currently I’ve been sharing the Interface Page (?) Link in Automations with Base collaborators. This is the link that is in the URL. Will they still be able to access the Interface Page through that link or will I need to specifically Share the Link with them?
Thanks!
I totally understand how creators of Airtable interfaces want their customers to be able to update data in an interface without having to pay full price for all those additional users.
I am sure that Airtable is aware of this desire, but it takes a lot of work to implement this. They have to both figure out a pricing model, and build the underlying technology to support that pricing model.
All of that takes careful planning and a lot of time. And Airtable has demonstrated that they like to release things in phases. For example, this newest feature that allows users to see only their records in the interface without access to the rest of the base required the ability to add values to the users/collaborators field that were not members of the base. That feature was quietly released a while back when it was ready. While slightly useful by itself, it really was essential groundwork for the current interface-only access. In that same way, this current method of having interface-only editors being paid collaborators is a required engineering groundwork before it is possible to have a new pricing model.
It would be nice if the workflow for sharing an interface stated that there would be additional cost associated with sharing the interface with edit permissions. However, that is not as clear cut as it might appear. The base cannot know who is already a paid collaborator or not. The person could be a paid collaborator with edit access to a different base in the same workspace (or even a different workspace in an Enterprise plan), and the base cannot have access to this information. Careful wording could be added to indicate that there might be additional charges and to contact an administrator if not sure.
I totally understand how creators of Airtable interfaces want their customers to be able to update data in an interface without having to pay full price for all those additional users.
I am sure that Airtable is aware of this desire, but it takes a lot of work to implement this. They have to both figure out a pricing model, and build the underlying technology to support that pricing model.
All of that takes careful planning and a lot of time. And Airtable has demonstrated that they like to release things in phases. For example, this newest feature that allows users to see only their records in the interface without access to the rest of the base required the ability to add values to the users/collaborators field that were not members of the base. That feature was quietly released a while back when it was ready. While slightly useful by itself, it really was essential groundwork for the current interface-only access. In that same way, this current method of having interface-only editors being paid collaborators is a required engineering groundwork before it is possible to have a new pricing model.
It would be nice if the workflow for sharing an interface stated that there would be additional cost associated with sharing the interface with edit permissions. However, that is not as clear cut as it might appear. The base cannot know who is already a paid collaborator or not. The person could be a paid collaborator with edit access to a different base in the same workspace (or even a different workspace in an Enterprise plan), and the base cannot have access to this information. Careful wording could be added to indicate that there might be additional charges and to contact an administrator if not sure.
always so nice points by @kuovonne , absolutely agree!
Editing to add: I am using a workaround, using the record picker to add quick changes for now, but it’s great to know this change is soon to follow. Looking forward to it. Thanks Airtable team. You guys are doing amazing!!!
OK so I’ve been working in my interface app for less than 20 minutes and I have already found a problem with my workflow. I made a central dashboard page where I can update tasks from without having to leave the dashboard. I also have a time tracking table linked to that task. I don’t like the fact that if I click the time tracking record (and I have “allow users to open record details enabled”), it takes me to a new page. I liked the fact that it would not open the record in a new page, but in a modal, like in the first pic. When I just want to enter a quick datapoint, this slows down my workflow significantly. Today, I will have to work in bases because of this. You guys should allow us to have an “open in a new tab” option, or “Open in modal” option (i prefer the latter). And now, after the update, if I go back and toggle “allow users to open record” off, when I try to click on the record it just doesn’t open up at all - it doesn’t go back to being a modal, like it was before. I can only edit the fields when I initially click the “add record” button to add a new time tracking record. Frustrating.
Hi @Londya_E — thanks for the note! I hear you on the modal feeling a bit more “lightweight” than the full page experience.
One of our fast follows is to allow builders to choose between viewing the detail pages as a modal or a full page; this should be rolling out in a few weeks, so stay tuned! You won’t need to do any extra design work, you can just one-click choose to view it as a modal as soon as the functionality is released.
Loving the updates! Can’t wait to try everything out. Still a little confused on the terminology though.
Do Interface pages mean the Top level tabs that now show up?
When we say sharing the Interface, are we sharing the Interface or each Interface page? For eg. in my example, the Interface would be Tasks & Invoices and the Pages would be Create New Task…
Interface Collaborators, can they be users outside the Airtable system? Similar to how sharing Airtable forms was? Essentially can I share the Interface link the way I could share Airtable form link?
Currently I’ve been sharing the Interface Page (?) Link in Automations with Base collaborators. This is the link that is in the URL. Will they still be able to access the Interface Page through that link or will I need to specifically Share the Link with them?
Thanks!
Hi @Ruchika_Abbi1! So glad you’re loving the updates. We’re working with our learning and support team to make sure all of the terminology is up to date — in the meantime, here’s some answers to your questions!
Yes — Pages are the top level tabs that show up. An Interface is a collection of pages.
Sharing is at the interface level — meaning that all published pages get shared. (Note that you can “hide” pages from your top nav bar in the properties panel, but these pages are still accessible by URL).
At this time, Interface Collaborators must have an Airtable account — different from how base forms work today.
Base collaborators today still have access to the Interface, so no need to share it with them again! Copying the URL should still work just fine for your usecase.
Hope this is helpful!
Really exciting changes and even more so the vision for what Airtable can become… congrats to the whole team pulling this together.
For me the two way sync not only within airtable but from other software e.g. SalesForce to create verified data could place Airtable at the heart of our org… developing automations is so much easier than in SF but with record count constraints there will always be the need to feed from other internal and external sources
Hi @Londya_E — thanks for the note! I hear you on the modal feeling a bit more “lightweight” than the full page experience.
One of our fast follows is to allow builders to choose between viewing the detail pages as a modal or a full page; this should be rolling out in a few weeks, so stay tuned! You won’t need to do any extra design work, you can just one-click choose to view it as a modal as soon as the functionality is released.
Thanks! I like the idea of the details page being a modal.
Emily, when playing with the details page, it appears that each table can have only one details page design. It would be nice if I could have a new details page design for each linked record field. I know that would be a lot of different engineering involved but it would be really nice.
Use case 1:
I have three linked tables (clients, projects, and tasks) and two interface pages: clients and tasks. Both interface pages show the linked projects. However, when looking at the projects from a clients page, I would like to see a different details design versus when looking at the projects from a tasks page. When coming from the clients page, the project details should show info about tasks but not the client. When coming from the tasks page, the project details should show info about clients but not tasks.
Use case 2:
I have two tables (projects and people), with multiple linked records between the two tables: project lead, team members, other interested people. When looking at the details for the project lead, I want to see lots of details, but for other interested people, I only want to see their contact info.
Thanks! I like the idea of the details page being a modal.
Emily, when playing with the details page, it appears that each table can have only one details page design. It would be nice if I could have a new details page design for each linked record field. I know that would be a lot of different engineering involved but it would be really nice.
Use case 1:
I have three linked tables (clients, projects, and tasks) and two interface pages: clients and tasks. Both interface pages show the linked projects. However, when looking at the projects from a clients page, I would like to see a different details design versus when looking at the projects from a tasks page. When coming from the clients page, the project details should show info about tasks but not the client. When coming from the tasks page, the project details should show info about clients but not tasks.
Use case 2:
I have two tables (projects and people), with multiple linked records between the two tables: project lead, team members, other interested people. When looking at the details for the project lead, I want to see lots of details, but for other interested people, I only want to see their contact info.
Hi @kuovonne! Thanks for all of the kind words on the launch so far
That exact usecase is another one of our fast follows! You’ll be able to create multiple detail pages that can be triggered from different entry points. See the design that our engineers are working on right now. Keep an eye out this winter for this update!
Hi @Londya_E — thanks for the note! I hear you on the modal feeling a bit more “lightweight” than the full page experience.
One of our fast follows is to allow builders to choose between viewing the detail pages as a modal or a full page; this should be rolling out in a few weeks, so stay tuned! You won’t need to do any extra design work, you can just one-click choose to view it as a modal as soon as the functionality is released.
Oh that’s wonderful! Thanks for following up on this!
Thanks for the post Kelly. Lots of things happening!
I have some suggestions from my day-to-day users of must have features - We’re needing;
An Interface Button that connects to Extension Functions - such as an interface button that connects to the Print Button within the Base Extensions Page Designer App. My users want to be able to print from that app without leaving the interface. Currently, it’s only possible to access Extensions via the Base Extensions tab, which is costing them time and too many page clicks. It’s confusing, especially for new users where our desire is to keep them within an Interface.
Interface Filter Elements are missing “OR” operands.
If you compare the Interface Filter Element that controls a Timeline Element, to a Timeline View with the table filters, you’ll see the Timeline View has a complete feature set of And, Or, Grouped filters - whilst the Interface Filter Element is hardcoded with AND. It’s a deal breaker.
Lack of Colours, no dynamic colour changes - I can’t detail enough just how much of an impact colours make on visually impaired users, or new users needing colours to clarify regions within an interface. Null, grey and one colour simply doesn’t cut it. Make Interfaces tie in with the colours specified within Select and Multi-select fields please. I want an entire (or regions of the) interface to light up in RED when that records Select field has a red option selected.
Searchable Linked Record secondary fields - It’s great we can show multiple fields within the Linked View cards, but it’s very frustrating that these fields aren’t searchable! Currently, only the Linked Field primary field returns upon searching - but users are absolutely needing the ability to search for any field that’s deemed visible within the Linked Card.
More options for Text sizes, that are standardised for all fields - regardless of Link, Multiselect, Text, Rollup, Lookup - we need the same text display appearance options for all fields. Sometimes we want pillform, other times we just want bold large letters in italics. Interface designers shouldn’t be limited in the ways fields may appear on their interface, just due to the type of field being referenced.
Thanks so much for the thoughtful feedback @Karlstens. All of these suggestions make a lot of sense and are on our radar, but it’s always incredibly helpful to get more context on why these changes would be useful to customers like yourself. I’ve shared this with the team as consideration for future product iterations!
Hi @Londya_E — thanks for the note! I hear you on the modal feeling a bit more “lightweight” than the full page experience.
One of our fast follows is to allow builders to choose between viewing the detail pages as a modal or a full page; this should be rolling out in a few weeks, so stay tuned! You won’t need to do any extra design work, you can just one-click choose to view it as a modal as soon as the functionality is released.
This would also be great functionality to add to the interface buttons menu, for when you want to open a record url with an interface button. Thanks!
Hi @kuovonne! Thanks for all of the kind words on the launch so far
That exact usecase is another one of our fast follows! You’ll be able to create multiple detail pages that can be triggered from different entry points. See the design that our engineers are working on right now. Keep an eye out this winter for this update!
Thank you so much for monitoring this thread and replying to people. It is a wonderful improvement in Airtable’s community engagement style. It can be hard balancing time between working on the engineering side of a product versus communicating about the product; thanks for walking that line. (And also a thank you to @Jordan_Scott1 for supporting this increased involvement by Airtable’s product managers on these forums.)
Thank you also for let us know about all these fast follows! It is so nice to get these peaks into Airtable’s roadmap and not have people hanging wondering if their asks have even been heard.
Here’s another suggestion relating to the community forum. What do you think of updating the “About me” portion of your community profile to indicate your role in Airtable? Your profile has the Airtable badge so it is clear that you work for Airtable, but there are a variety of Airtable staff members who have posted on these forums and it isn’t always clear who is a product manager versus support staff versus something else.
Congrats on rolling out these great new features! Not sure if this is the best place or not for a bug report but I am having an issue: in addition to my main Airtable account (Pro) I set up a separate free test account to test what an unpaid user might see if I invite a read-only viewer of my Interface. In Interface pages I’ve set up, I am having problems displaying grid layout elements. When I’m logged in to the main account, everything displays fine, as it does when I “view as” the test account (while still logged in to the main account). But if I share with and log in as the test account user I can see all the elements in the Interface page except that any grid elements just display as gray boxes.
UPDATE: I now see that if I click “Allow access to data in the base” when sharing this seems to fix the issue. Is this the intended design? I would have expected that checkbox to work something like the way sharing views does (limit/allow access to a view or the whole base). If someone has designed an interface with a grid and intends to share it outside an internal team, when would you NOT need/want to check this box? Is there a place in your release notes where you explain what is and isn’t exposed by checking this box?
This looks very promising! I was wondering when Interfaces would be out of beta just the other day, so I’m glad to know the team has been hard at work on them.
Played around a bit yesterday (for me) and I noticed that adding Fields to an Interface page has some odd behaviour. For some reason, they seem to automatically want to jump to the top of the page (the header) no matter where you actually drag them to. Then, when you do place them, the interface jumps upwards several sections. It’s also quite tricky even just moving them around. Is anyone else experiencing this issue, or is it just me?
Also, I second having more colour options. I’d also like to place actual borders around text fields rather than just having them grouped by one dull background colour. I think that way it could break them up more and be easier for people to read.
I’m not trying to be negative here! I know it must be a lot of work getting this sort of thing out, and I am really enjoying it so far other than those two caveats. Hopefully one day we can share the interfaces as a view-only way of publishing data, but I’m aware it’s still early days. Good luck to the team with continuing to update and refine everything!
Congrats on rolling out these great new features! Not sure if this is the best place or not for a bug report but I am having an issue: in addition to my main Airtable account (Pro) I set up a separate free test account to test what an unpaid user might see if I invite a read-only viewer of my Interface. In Interface pages I’ve set up, I am having problems displaying grid layout elements. When I’m logged in to the main account, everything displays fine, as it does when I “view as” the test account (while still logged in to the main account). But if I share with and log in as the test account user I can see all the elements in the Interface page except that any grid elements just display as gray boxes.
UPDATE: I now see that if I click “Allow access to data in the base” when sharing this seems to fix the issue. Is this the intended design? I would have expected that checkbox to work something like the way sharing views does (limit/allow access to a view or the whole base). If someone has designed an interface with a grid and intends to share it outside an internal team, when would you NOT need/want to check this box? Is there a place in your release notes where you explain what is and isn’t exposed by checking this box?
Thank you so much for monitoring this thread and replying to people. It is a wonderful improvement in Airtable’s community engagement style. It can be hard balancing time between working on the engineering side of a product versus communicating about the product; thanks for walking that line. (And also a thank you to @Jordan_Scott1 for supporting this increased involvement by Airtable’s product managers on these forums.)
Thank you also for let us know about all these fast follows! It is so nice to get these peaks into Airtable’s roadmap and not have people hanging wondering if their asks have even been heard.
Here’s another suggestion relating to the community forum. What do you think of updating the “About me” portion of your community profile to indicate your role in Airtable? Your profile has the Airtable badge so it is clear that you work for Airtable, but there are a variety of Airtable staff members who have posted on these forums and it isn’t always clear who is a product manager versus support staff versus something else.
Can’t be stressed enough!
Big step in the right direction!
However, I noticed that when I share read-only access with another user, they have the ability to invite other users with read only access as well to the interface. These new users can also invite even more users…
Are there plans to restrict this sharing ability in the future?
Big step in the right direction!
However, I noticed that when I share read-only access with another user, they have the ability to invite other users with read only access as well to the interface. These new users can also invite even more users…
Are there plans to restrict this sharing ability in the future?
@J_Jones Yes, that is the behavior today. We are exploring additional sharing controls so I’d love to hear more about your use case. Why are you trying to prevent sharing? When would you use this additional restriction vs. not?
Hi @Londya_E — thanks for the note! I hear you on the modal feeling a bit more “lightweight” than the full page experience.
One of our fast follows is to allow builders to choose between viewing the detail pages as a modal or a full page; this should be rolling out in a few weeks, so stay tuned! You won’t need to do any extra design work, you can just one-click choose to view it as a modal as soon as the functionality is released.
This is great to know, the ability to customize the record details page is great, but I would much prefer it to open in a modal!
On a related note, is there any way to navigate to the previous/next record when inside the record details view? I tried adding a “Go to previous/next record” button, but I couldn’t get it to work because the button needs to be connected to a “Record Source.” Being able to navigate between records within the detail viewer would go a long way towards making the full-page view as quick to work with as a modal view.
Thanks so much for the thoughtful feedback @Karlstens. All of these suggestions make a lot of sense and are on our radar, but it’s always incredibly helpful to get more context on why these changes would be useful to customers like yourself. I’ve shared this with the team as consideration for future product iterations!
Appreciate that, thanks Kelly.
Can you please confirm if Airtable Devs are still reviewing and using the Interface Designer Feedback submission form?
I submitted a new idea just now, but also created a thread discussing improvements needed to the Interface Designer when working with an active record that contains Linked Records fields - that allows the user to see and edit them directly without pop-ups.
I’m surprise the level of engagement from Airtable in this thread! Keep it up guys! I know you are now focusing on Enterprise but those in the lower plans can and might be the enterprise in the future! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:
Appreciate that, thanks Kelly.
Can you please confirm if Airtable Devs are still reviewing and using the Interface Designer Feedback submission form?
I submitted a new idea just now, but also created a thread discussing improvements needed to the Interface Designer when working with an active record that contains Linked Records fields - that allows the user to see and edit them directly without pop-ups.
@Karlstens yes, we do actively review the feedback submitted through that form! It’s an invaluable resource we use to prioritize product improvements. Love that mock-up thanks for sharing for inspiration!
Hi @Londya_E — thanks for the note! I hear you on the modal feeling a bit more “lightweight” than the full page experience.
One of our fast follows is to allow builders to choose between viewing the detail pages as a modal or a full page; this should be rolling out in a few weeks, so stay tuned! You won’t need to do any extra design work, you can just one-click choose to view it as a modal as soon as the functionality is released.
Oh, I’m really eager to see this pop-up detail feature!!
Hi @Kelly_OShaughnessy,
Two questions regarding the video at the link below:
At 0:26 in this video, the video shows a user changing the value of 2 lookup fields. Lookup fields have always been read-only. Is this behavior changing?
At 1:13 in the video, the video highlights the new button functionality in interfaces that allows the button to show 2 different states: a “before action state” and an “after action state”. Is there any way for us to revert the button back to its original “before action state” again? For example, if we wanted to revert the record back to “needing review” again?
Thanks,
Scott
Hi @Kelly_OShaughnessy,
Two questions regarding the video at the link below:
At 0:26 in this video, the video shows a user changing the value of 2 lookup fields. Lookup fields have always been read-only. Is this behavior changing?
At 1:13 in the video, the video highlights the new button functionality in interfaces that allows the button to show 2 different states: a “before action state” and an “after action state”. Is there any way for us to revert the button back to its original “before action state” again? For example, if we wanted to revert the record back to “needing review” again?
Thanks,
Scott
Whoa, good spot! And note that they’re also coloured too!
Hi all! I’m Kelly - a product manager at Airtable focused on helping users build powerful, secure apps for their org. I’m excited to introduce some powerful new features (including my personal favorite, granular permissions), as well as a new way to think about what you’re building in Airtable.
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