Base Design

Hi everyone,Looking for real-world experience / benchmarks from folks running large Airtable bases.I’m currently redesigning our team’s base. We’re at ~330k records today (hard limit is 500k) and we’re already seeing performance issues (slow loads, sluggish automations/scripts at peak times, recalculation lag, etc.). Our first version was built to meet immediate needs, and we’re now rebuilding with a more best-practice / scalable approach.Airtable Support mentioned (and we’re also observing) that even with ~170k record “headroom,” the base can still struggle well before 500k depending on schema + computation complexity. We suspect a big contributor is heavy rollups / formulas / long calculation chains across linked records.What we’re considering / already doing: Reducing rollups + nested formulas, especially ones that fan out across many linked records Breaking long “calculation chains” into fewer dependency layers Keeping “fact” tables as thin as possible (minimizing computed fiel

Hi! I wanted to put up a topic about a feature which would tell you which fields should be killed. Airtable could develop something which ranks fields by dependencies and “data completion” (data completion being a stat calculated by “Number of Records where Data Exists” / “Total Number of Records”. This way, we could know if theres not a lot of people using this field and secondly, whether there are dependencies. Omni is great but lots of bases get too many fields over time and we have to start deleting them. I want features that make my bases more elegant/simple.

I have a table of contacts that includes zip code for each contact. I want to provide a view of contacts for a given county. I can get a list of zip codes for the county, but it's too many zip codes to list each one as a separate condition on a filter.I thought about setting up a zip code table and using a linked record from the contacts table. Is there a way to create a new linked record field that links based on an existing already-populated column? There are too many records to select linked records manually.Or, is there a way to create a view with filter criteria that references another table?Thanks for any suggestions.

Hi all!I’m having an issue of forms responses not populating into my data table after the form is submitted. This is a unique problem though, because what seems to be happening, is that when a response is submitted, by anyone, it pushes the last response through but doesn’t appear itself.For example, a coworker submitted a test response last Friday. I received the confirmation email on Friday, but the response didn’t populate into the data table UNTIL I submitted my own test response. I immediately saw my coworkers response populate into the data table but not mine, even though I received the confirmation email for my response. Has anyone encountered this before? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!Brandon

Submitting our form causes buffering. The device used to fill out the form is a cell phone.I am not sure if it’s a data issue or maybe the size of the logo used in the form.Can anyone advise about this issue? Thank you

Hello! I am baffled by this issue. Essentially, I am creating a way for my office to check-out certain items (laptop chargers, phone chargers, etc.) using QR codes. I’ve got a form that allows people to use their phones (yay!), and I’ve got an array of QR codes that are just text based and give the name of the item, so every time someone scans them, the text pops up with the item name, and then they answer form questions like:whether the item is being checked out or backed in (the person enters this themselves), the name of the person doing the checkingAnd this is great. My fields track all the information I need, the QR codes work, etc.  BUT I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME LINK these records to my “Equipment” table, which I am making so our tech team can keep an eye on things like:Is this item available or checked out currently? Who was the last person to check it out? When was it last checked out?As you can see, I’ve tried a linked field, but I have to continuously select the Equipment N

I’m creating a list of property. Each item has one or more owners pulled from a separate table. I need to be able to add multiple owners for each property and assign a percentage of ownership. Eg. Property A is 100% owned by Bob    (owner is pulled from another table but percentage is specific to this record)Property B is 50% owned by Bob and 50% owned by Jim. Any ideas?

I track media hits through a Base with 3 tabs/tables: Reporter Info, Media Campaigns and Articles. I’ve been trying to link these 3 tables so when I enter an article’s URL in the Article table, which also has columns for Media Campaign and Reporter Name, it will automatically fill the article URL and Reporter Name in the Media Campaigns table...and the article URL and media campaign name will appear in the Reporter Info table under the Reporter’s Name. I have managed to link the Articles table to the Media Campaigns, so the article’s URL will auto-fill but the corresponding Reporter field won’t automatically appear for that Campaign. And If I’m on the Reporters page, and select the reporter’s name, I have to enter the Media Campaign name, which then does auto-fill the article URL tied to that media campaign and reporter.But I want all 3 fields to automatically fill in the Reporter & Media Campaign tables, when I enter those fields in the Article Table. Is that possible?   

Hello!We have a medium-sized team (50 people) that has recently moved to a newly built interface. Everyone in this team will have editor permissions for all of the fields that they see in the interface pages.We also want to be transparent with our entire org (300 people) and share this interface with them as many will be making requests via a form that creates record in this interface. However, we’d like to restrict them to editing only a few fields.Is this possible? Or will I just have to limit them to having commenter permissions?

Is there any word on a feature to allow users to change the day of the week that you use for the first day of the week? I know a lot of US calendars will use Sunday for some reason, but I don’t actually know any businesses that run on a Sunday start. I’ve always used a Monday start to the week. And I’m pretty sure most of the rest of the world uses Monday to start the week.I noticed people have been asking this for almost 8 years according to the help center. And it seems like the easiest change.People were trying to suggest that we change our browser settings to some part of the world that does Monday start, and others were reporting that that doesn’t actually change the user experience. And making that change messes up every other application I use, so it doesn’t make sense. Just about all my productivity applications let you set this as a personal preference, and I’m kind of stunned this is still out there.How can this be escalated, or is there a way to see if it’s on the roadmap?

I am trying to figure out what is the best way to track tasks that have multiple layers and steps in Airtable. Let’s use an example here to explain: There is a task at my company where we track the payment for assets we purchased from a third party source which...Step 1 - requires sending an LOD (Letter of Direction) and making sure the LOD is acceptedStep 2 - tracking the payment is made to my companyStep 3, if applicable - tracking the pass through of a payment that was made to the prior payee rather than our company (which happens when the LOD is not accepted in time before the next payment cycle) So I would name each task (1) LOD, (2) Payment, and (Pass Through). Each task would have the following statuses to track:(1) LOD - Need to Send; Sent and Awaiting Confirmation; Revising LOD; LOD Accepted.(2) Payment - Waiting for Payment; Missed Payment; Paid.(3) Pass Through - Need to Request Pass Through, Requested, Paid. I don’t want to create a Single Select option for Tasks and Status

We use a standardized setup of multiple Airtable bases per project, with one base acting as a central master.Example:For project P1, Workspace 1 contains three bases: A1 (master), B1, and C1.There are one-directional syncs from A1 → B1 and A1 → C1.We want to duplicate this setup for a new project (P2) into a new workspace, resulting in bases A2, B2, and C2, while: retaining the same sync structure (A2 → B2 and A2 → C2), keeping all interfaces intact, and minimizing manual setup or reconfiguration. Achieving this would allow us to deploy a reusable, project-based Airtable application with minimal effort.

Hi all,We currently use Airtable as an HR Management solution. It contains tables and data to store all sort of sensitive information regarding the employees.This leads to a big problem: whoever has the right to build the Airtable app, sees data that he should not have access to.I know that if we are talking about end users, it’s possible to mask specific information in the interfaces. But here I’m in front of a different requirement:Somebody who has the right to design and build the solution should not have access to the underlying data, or at least to part of itI believe there’s no way to achieve this? Anybody else is facing the same problem?

I have a table that lists the openings and closing of homes. Each record is a specific date and an opening or closing. So there is single select field that has the choices Open or Closed. Each record has a date and the single select and a customer and the property along with a few other fields. Right now 27 records.I also have a summary table with a link to the open and close table. Each record is a customer’s open and close records in the link field. That table has 22 records.I want to filter for the latest opens so I can create a list to email through an automation so I get a l list every week what's currently open.Does anyone have a idea of how to do this?.Thanks. ScottLinked table screen shotOpen Close Table Screenshot   

I have a question about adjusting my base design to accommodate a new data requirement.I use my base to run our property management company. It consists of 4 main sections: Customer tables, Contract tables, Property tables and Invoice tables. When I created the base I did not think about the possibility of a customer selling one home and moving and retaining our services for the new home. Silly me. Our customers are owners of generational homes in a resort and as such they rarely sell.In the contracts table I have a field that captures the year we took them on as a customer of that property. That year is derived from the signature date of the contract for the current property. All fine and good until they move. Now we have an old customer with a new house and the years as customer is now only valid for the new property. I lose the history of their original contract. I need to have a way to keep the original year.I have thought about putting a field in the customer table for their origi

I’m looking for some advice re database design - and how to make the data entry easier using an interface…I’m a literary agent and specifically at the moment I’m trying to build the back end for tracking royalty statements. The tables I currently have are:ClientsTitlesContracts (which will usually only link to one client, occasionally two, but often multiple titles)Editions (which are created automatically when a contract is added and the formats a title will be produced in are decided - each edition will link to one title (although there will be, potentially, many editions per title, and one contract and which ever client/clients the contract and title are associated with). Payments (where I am trying to track the income and use views to be able to see what each client/title has earned)I’ve then gotRoyalty Statements (which is the top level statement info)Royalty Statement Detail (where a line for each edition covered is created so that I can record the sales/income for each edition. 

Hey all!  I work in higher education, and we use Airtable to do a lot of our forms and petitions. When students submit these forms, we require them to include their unique 10-digit student ID.  I am trying to do two main things: Whenever a form is submitted, the ID number is checked. If the ID number has not been used in a form submission before, it creates a “student profile” in a new table.  All forms that are submitted with the same ID number are grouped under the same “student profile” so that our colleagues using the interface will be able to see all forms submitted by a student.  Does anyone have any advice? 

In the left view column I have created forms. I also see that at the top of the page there is a row of links; Data, Automation, Interface, Forms. My question is should the forms created in View be duplicated in Forms or are they separate functions?Thank you if you can help.

I'm getting a pop-up saying "This form was upgraded" when I edit one of my forms.  I've tried both options it gives me, but I can't get the message to stop popping up.  It's unclear what to do.

I have 3 tabs. Tabs 1 and 2 are two batches of records. How do I select records from tab 1 and 2 where status is x, to populate tab 3. Then when I update a record in tab 3, I want the original record fields in tab 1 or 2 updated with status or other field updates and comments in the record in tab 3. 

Buenos dias He borrado una base por error. Manera de recuperarla???? Gracias

Dear community,In the company I work for, we have a base which contains a lot of sensitive data about clients. We are currently on the Team plan. I noticed that there is no inactivity log out in Airtable. The only safety measure I could potentially take is 2FA. Although, preferrably I would have 2FA, a inactivity log out and something that makes it only possible for colleagues to log-in when they are on their work MS365 account.I see this last thing is possible with SSO, but that's only applicable for business. Since we are a foundation, that is hard to afford for about 20 employees. I hope someone in the community can help us with this security issueThanks a lot,Sid

ContextI have my base created, and my main table is named the “Event Plan”, within this table, each row is the record (event name).In the second table, called my “tasks” lists all the tasks that an event requires. The Problem I’m FacingRight now, my airtable reuses the same task records across multiple events. So I have ONE "Copy Creation" task that links to all the events (because each event has this task). But this creates an impossible situation: that one task can only have ONE start date and ONE end date, even though the events run on completely different schedules. Your GoalI want to create an Airtable where:Each record/event in the table is a separate project with its own timeline Every record/event has the same 27 tasks that need to be completed (Copy Creation, Brand Review, Registration Page Live, etc.) Each task has its own start date and end date specific to that event's timeline I don't want to manually create 27 tasks every time you start a new webinar Ideally every time I

Hello community,I’d like to clean up our database a bit — especially fields and formulas that were created through “trial and error” and are no longer really needed.What’s the best way to check whether a field in the database is truly not being used anywhere? Do you have any tips or best practices so I don’t accidentally break something?

In Airtable, my base contains tables named "People" and "Events". Multiple people can participate in multiple events and share specific types of relationships as a consequence. For instance, Person 1 (Charles) and Person 2 (Amy) can both participate in an Event named "Marriage of Charles and Amy", forming a specific type of relationship (spouses) as a consequence, so that Charles is "spouse of" Amy and Amy is "spouse of" Charles. Likewise, birth events create "parent of" and "child of" relationships, and so on. Using a junction table, what would be the best method to illustrate the types of relationships multiple people can share as a consequence of participating in specific events?