It would be useful if Airtable’s Duration field supported configurable input and display units instead of being limited primarily to hours, minutes and seconds.
The field configuration could offer:
Base input unit:
- seconds
- minutes
- hours
- days
- weeks
- months
- years
Display format:
- minutes only —
90 min - hours and minutes —
1 h 30 min - days and hours —
2 d 6 h - weeks and days —
3 w 2 d - years, months and days —
2 y 4 m 8 d
This would make Duration fields useful not only for time tracking, but also for:
- project phases,
- treatment programmes,
- subscriptions,
- warranties,
- contracts,
- employee tenure,
- long-term plans,
- product lifecycles.
Ideally, Airtable would preserve one normalized internal value while allowing builders to choose both the input unit and the displayed combination of units.
This would eliminate many additional Number fields and formatting formulas currently required for durations longer than hours.
