Skip to main content

Base Design

Need help with your Airtable base design? You've arrived at the right place.

  • 3,359 Topics
  • 8,416 Replies
3359 Topics
A
Adina_AppelNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Removing the "sum" from a Currency field?

Hi all! My organization is constructing new buildings and plans to raise funds for them by “selling” the various rooms and areas inside of each. I’m using a base to track the funding status of each area. For the “Cost” field in my base, I obviously want to use the “currency” field type. But we don’t want each section (in the “Grouped by building” view) to show a sum (total of that section’s costs). Is there a way to remove the automatic sum feature for currency type fields?? Thank you! Katie

311
A
P
Per_CarlenInspiring
asked in Base Design
Prevent deletion of linked record?

Hi! I have a field in Table A that links to another field in Table B. How do I prevent a linked record in Table B from getting deleted? Shouldn’t I at least get a warning? Thank you!

172
P
G
GVSPNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Rolling up data from different tables into one

Hi, Imagine the following scenario: A company has two subsidiaries Each subsidiary has multiple teams Each team can be assigned tasks Users from one subsidiary don’t have the right to access the other’s data I’ve set it up so each subsidiary has one base with a table that looks like this: Team name Assigned tasks Team name 1 Task 1, Task 4 Team name 2 Task 2 Team name 3 Task 3, Task 5 My plan is to use Multi-Source Sync feature to pull each region’s table into a new base. In this new base, how can I create a table that counts the number of tasks per region: Region name Assigned Tasks Region name 1 4 Region name 2 2 I imagine it can be done using a roll-up field, but each region’s data is in its own table… Hopefully, this makes sense. If you’ve encountered something similar, let me know how you did it.

11
G
C
Chelsea_EusebioNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Specific timestamp based on status/condition

Is there a way to track the timestamp of a certain status? Say: Pending / track pending timestamp Say: Completed/ track completed timestamp Wanted to see how long something takes to be completed. And wanted to backtrack on the existing records. Thanks!

20
C
A
Agustin_SchapirNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Form with SELECT on field from another table, WITH PHOTO/ATTACHMENT

Hello, I am moving and want to give away some of my things. I have created a table listing those objects (name, description, PHOTO), and now want to create a Form where friends can pick what they want. I have created the Form with the dependent field, and selected the all the fields from the original table. But when I view the form, it only gives me the Name of the objects, and doesn’t show the photo. Is it possible to have a Form with a nice Gallery view? (Alternatively, I had thought about creating a Gallery view and giving people a link to it, with the idea that they could edit each record and mark it as “requested”. But as far as I can tell, it’s not possible to give a link with EDIT privileges. I do not want to ask people to create an account) I this doable? Suggestions? Or maybe I am approaching this in the wrong way? Thanks much, A

414
A
M
Mindy_BenkertNew Participant
posted in Base Design
How to structure a database of ingredients and properties

Hi there! I am trying to figure out if Airtable will work for me and how to most efficiently set up my base. I formulate skincare recipes and need to setup a database of ingredients and their properties. For example in my recipes I use various: Oils Butters Essential Oils etc… I have some general properties that will fit all ingredients like (anti-aging, comedogenic, non-comedogenic) but I also have some things I want to track that are specific to certain ingredient categories. So each category above has general and specific properties that I need to track. What is the best way to do this? Should each category have a table? re: one for Oils, Butters, Essential Oils? Could I then search through all of my tables if I am looking for anti-aging ingredients specifically? Or should I just have one main table and somehow track these specific properties within that one table? How would I do that? I would love any help and direction, thank you! Mindy

80
M
D
Doug-CUSOMKnown Participant
posted in Base Design
Base Security & Cross-Workspace Accessibility

We have 2 business domains (Finance and HR) utilizing 1 Pro Account. We also have a few bases with master data that is shared across these domains (ie, associates). HR has ultra-sensitive data that they do not want anyone else to see. I’m trying to determine the best approach to keep non-HR users from seeing HR stuff. Possible approaches: Set permissions on the HR Bases to not allow read, write or view access. Is this possible? Create another Pro Account and separate one of the domains. The new Pro Account would need to access master data in the first Pro Account. Is this possible? Any and all suggestions welcome. Many thanks, Doug

42
D
S
Sally_de_WittParticipating Frequently
asked in Base Design
Can custom formatting be applied to columns in Airtable?

Hello I have converted an Excel spreadsheet into an Airtable base. In excel, I have columns that are formatted to show [month] & [weeknum] based on a date that is entered. Is this possible in Airtable? Kind regards, Sally

51
Kamille_Parks11
W
William_GuichenNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Sudden drop in base performance

Hi everyone! I discovered Airtable about a year ago and have been so impressed by the functionality in brings to an analytics system! Has solved a deep conundrum I have always had with giving users an interface to interact with the data manually / flag things / add their own insights, that I can easily feed back into other systems. One of those key bases has suddenly started becoming practically unusable due to a huge drop in performance. It’s got around 12k rows, roughly 120 columns (all strings / numbers), and if I perform a full download using the API I can see it’s only about 37MB in size. The base doesn’t contain any fancy Airtable fields or linked fields even, so given its size and simple functionality, should be performing fine! We are on one of the higher tier plans so that row count should not be an issue. Does anyone have any tips on performance optimization, and also perhaps tools I can use to figure out what is causing the base to be so slow? The base is constantly filtered

41
Justin_Barrett
C
Christopher_CanKnown Participant
posted in Base Design
Form View Link Tied Directly to Linked Record?

I’m curious if anyone has any insights into how I can do what I’m trying to do: Essentially, I have a form that clients fill out before a project. That form is contained in its own tab within my base. Then I have another tab with events. Each event need to have a form response associated with it. Ideally, I’d like to send a client a link to the form that would already be linked to that specific event. But I’m not sure what the practical way to do this would be.

21
Justin_Barrett
L
Lucy_BNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Is it ok to build junction tables from other junction tables?

Hi All! I have a base where I am trying to monitor my inventory. I want to build a Summary table (Total Warehouse Space) that is a junction of two other Junction Tables (Shipments In & Shipments Out). But each of those tables is already a Junction Table (Product & Quantity). Logically I don’t think this is a problem but I want to double check that there is not an issue I am missing.

20
L
B
Better_Image_ApNew Participant
posted in Base Design
iPad Pro using Apple Pencil on attachments

Newbie here. I really need to be able to use my iPad Pro and annotate using the Apple Pencil write on top of PDF attachments. There doesn’t appear to be an app for this and I’m surprised there aren’t more people looking for it to be made. There has to be a way to get Airtable to allow this. Does anyone know how I can do that?

60
B
J
Jaime_KaiserNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Header Images In Grid View?

Hey All, The company I work for just started using the free version of Airtable and my boss wants me to make it so that there is a header image for each entry in grid view instead of the blank space with a grey image logo. I thought I could accomplish this by adding an attachment field and uploading an image there, but even with jpegs attachments, the image still isn’t showing up at the top. How do I fix this? Thanks, Jaime

304
J
Andrew_Carville
Andrew_CarvilleKnown Participant
posted in Base Design
Sync or link primary column across tables

Hi all, Sorry for the newbie question but some of the other posts around the same topic don’t seem to quite address what I’m looking for… In short, I’m using Airtable to manage a number of property developments. My primary field/column is a list of the addresses of each property. I would like the first table to be called ‘Tasks’, with each column representing a particular task in that development (ie. lodge planning approval). The second table would be called ‘Documents’, and each column would have a type of doc for each property (ie. feature survey pdf). Maybe a third table would include details of any tenants in the properties, etc. Most importantly, I would like to add a new property in one table, and have the primary field in each table also add the new property. What’s the best way to do this? Am I better to leave everything on one very large table and achieve it using different views? Or separate tables and sync or link the primary field? Any help would be appreciated! Cheers, An

72
Andrew_Carville
Heather_Hale
Heather_HaleInspiring
asked in Base Design
How to keep TITLES straight for ONE Person with Multiple Companies?

I’ve got my PEOPLE and COMPANIES in separate sheets in one base. Cool. (Love it if we could link multiple bases!) I finally figured out I should link all their social media spheres into one sheet, too (so those entries don’t go on forevah!) Q: But how do I keep straight (i.e.: link) the many TITLES one person who wears a lot of hats may have with their variety of entitles? Example: A gal who’s the CEO of her own company but ALSO the VP of a joint venture/partnership, on the Board of a charity and maybe the President of a trade organization? Sure: I can reciprocally link her - as a person - to a variety of companies/entities (and of course, lots of peeps with one company) - I get that - but how do I keep all her various TITLES straight? So I know which title goes to which company - for the same person? A whole 'nuther “Titles” sheet? Like the Social Media sheet? Ugh. Better way? Beuller?

152
Heather_Hale
A
A_T1Known Participant
posted in Base Design
Is there a way to count the total number of the records?

If I want to know the total number of one base, one workspace, or totally. How can I get that number?

1201
kuovonne
D
DN1New Participant
asked in Base Design
Main column not allowing me to convert type to Single Select

Sorry for the newbie question. I imported an excel file into Airtable. My main column (far left column in image) I would like to convert it to Single Select. In the second screenshot you will see that it does not allow me to do so. I tried then to create a new column from scratch and create each value with the color coding, with the intention of deleting or hiding the original column on the far left, but it doesn´t allow me to do that either. How can I make this work? Thanks! Airtable reddit 1|411x269

284
D
Tony_Sullivan
Tony_SullivanNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Lookup a field other than primary key

I have two tables I am working with. One has student information, and the other has their addresses (Since a student may have multiple addresses for various reasons). I want to be able to link the address to the student in question. This is no problem, other than the fact that our primary key (for import/export) purposes is the student’s ID number. What I am looking for is the ability to lookup by the student’s name (Which is a field in the student table) so that instead of typing in student ID, you can type in their name and get results. How can I go about doing this? I feel like I am missing something obvious :grinning_face_with_sweat:

91
Databaser
D
DerekPotterNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Automatically delete record after one year

Hello! I am trying to set up records to expire (and be deleted) one year after being created. How can I do this? I do have Zapier, if needed. Thank you!

201
Justin_Barrett
C
Connor_FordNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Inventory Base / Order Form

Hello, I’m working on an inventory ordering base. for managers of various store locations to replenish items within 3 different categories - Ice Cream, Doughs, and Pre-made Sandwiches - each of which have about 10-20 different options at any given time. Right now, I have built a “Menu/Inventory” table with items and prices for each and an “Orders” table that houses the order form. On the “Orders” table, I’ve created 3 linked fields for each of the categories mentioned above (Doughs, Ice Cream, Pre-Mades) containing their related items and separate fields for quantity ordered and price total per item. The “Orders” table is where the form lives for managers to submit their restocking requests. I’m looking for general insight into how to set this up so it runs efficiently and have a few specific issues to resolve below: First, I’m running into issues with the price total per item fields - right now, I’ve manually entered in each item’s price to a simple quantity x price formula but am won

70
C
Tony_Sullivan
Tony_SullivanNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Display something other than Primary Key on Calendar/Gantt Views

I am working on adding some calendar based views for some of the bases in our system. One such view would be a calendar that uses a date field to show when adjustments need to be made for a customer. The dates show up in the calendar with no issue, however, the calendar only shows the customer’s ID number. We would like to change it to display the customer’s name, and if possible, perhaps add some more information from other fields to use as a quick reference. Is this possible, and if so, how would I go about doing this?

10
Tony_Sullivan
Q
Q-munity_TechNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Display job board grid view

Looking to create a base with this design. I can’t figure out how to change the fields to appear like that. I can only see a point to increase the line size. How would I go about this?

20
Q
M
Maya_Hajj_HasanNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Hello! 👋 How can I adjust the leave rules in an existing HR database to suit my needs?

I recently discovered the KasPer Lite Human Resources database, and it has been very helpful! One thing I did want to change about the settings was the “Leave Rules” tab. I basically want employees to accumulate personal days based on when they joined the company. For example, Dave joins the company on 9/30/21. I want him to have 30 days paid leave valid for use until 9/30/22. What I noticed in the “leave rules” tab was that everyone has a holiday year start and a holiday year end. I want the holiday year start and end to depend on when the employee joined the company. Is this doable?

00
M
W
Wes_ChristensenNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Can I use Airtable for a simple neighborhood project?

Hi, I am in charge of a little neighborhood project. I’ve collected almost 700 vinyl record albums from neighbors who no longer want them. I want to distribute them to the 15-20 other neighbors who do want them. Because of the pandemic and for scheduling purposes, I don’t want to just put the albums out on a table and invite the neighbors over to pick through them. So I have entered them into an Access database. Since I am certain that there will be some albums chosen by more than 1 neighbor, I am developing an algorithm that will allow me to distribute them fairly. What I need now is a way for the neighbors to let me know which albums they want. I thought about just sending out a printed list and letting them mark the ones they want, but this has a couple of problems. It is messy and error prone both for them and for me. And there are almost 700 albums. I think a cloud-based application is the ideal solution. It would allow each neighbor to “log on” to the master list. They would see

314
ScottWorld
C
C-B_2021Participating Frequently
posted in Base Design
How to Filter Single/Multiple Select fields

Hello, I’m trying to see whether it is possible to create a single select field that only shows “Products” from a column if they are a “Current” line to be used on a form. The single select field on my form shows all “Products”, regardless of whether they are “Old” or “Current”. Referencing the graphic below, is there any way to achieve this? It would essentially be: Single Select OF Products WHERE Products = Current Any support would be very appreciated. Thank you :slightly_smiling_face:

641
C

Badge winners

Show all badges
Terms & Conditions