Hi, I’m trying to recreate the structure of the attached spreadsheet in Airtable, but I'm running into trouble because each checklist item needs a different field type.
I'm a PM, and I'm building a checklist that I want to go through once per project.
Each checklist item requires a different field type. After discussing with ChatGPT, I was told that if there are 10 field types, I should create 10 separate fields and input each item only into its corresponding field type.
But this checklist isn't just for me — about 20 team members will need to fill it out frequently. If it's structured this way, it becomes very inconvenient for everyone to use.
What would be the best way to structure this kind of checklist in Airtable?
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Gemini told me to do it this way, but when I actually tried, the specific buttons or menus that Gemini mentioned are not in Airtable. I don't know if this is a feature that doesn't exist or one that has been removed.
## The Core of the Magic: Airtable Interface Design
Now, let's create the actual screen that your team will use. The data tables can be reserved for administrators, while the team interacts exclusively with this user-friendly Interface.
Open the Airtable Interface Designer.
Create a "Project Dashboard" page. This page will display records from your Projects table, using a List, Gallery, or Grid layout.
Designate a "Project Details" page that users will navigate to when they click on a project.
On this "Project Details" page, add a List element. Configure this element to display records from the Per-Project Tasks table.
Crucially, filter this list to only show tasks where the linked Project matches the project selected on the previous page.
Group the list by the Category field. This will neatly organize the tasks into sections like "Planning," "Design," and "Legal."
Here is the most important step: Set up Conditional Visibility for the fields in the detail view that appears when a user clicks a task in the list.
Select the Result (Date) field and set its visibility condition:
Show when Required Fields (Lookup)containsDate
Select the Result (Attachment) field and set its visibility condition:
Show when Required Fields (Lookup)containsAttachment
Select the Result (Team) field and set its visibility condition:
Show when Required Fields (Lookup)containsTeam Select
...and so on. Apply a corresponding visibility rule to every result field you have created.
Hey @Fab0409,
The attachment didn’t go through. Would you mind sharing a url of the mentioned document?
Does the checklist contain always the same 20 items and item types? Or is it really variable and dynamic?
Quick answer below. You would probably have two alternatives:
A. Have 20 fields. If items on your checklist are always the same ones, then I don’t see why this would be a big issue. Rather than having your team members work from the data base itself, I would probably suggest you build a form either in Airtable native forms, or probably way better on Fillout forms (more on the differences between Airtable and Fillout forms here).
B. If your checklist is dynamic (in terms of items and their types/formats) then I would HIGHLY suggest you build a fully dynamic form using n8n forms (not as straight forward, but exactly what you would need). First you’ll create a Checklist table and a Checklist Items table on Airtable. Checklist Items table should have a single select field called Field Type. You would use N8N forms on an n8n automation, you’ll pick up al Checklist Items for such specific Checklist. You would also pick up the field type per item, and send all of that as Json to the n8n form node. For more on info on n8n you can read this other post.
Image below shows a similar workflow (not exactly the same use case) for you to get an idea of what I am talking about.
Option B might be tricky, but if you need a dynamic checklist then this is what you are looking for.
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I now understand that the strategy depends on whether the checklist is fixed or dynamic.
In our case, once the checklist is initially set up, there’s a high likelihood (over 90%) that it will remain unchanged. Only a small portion of the items—less than 10%—might need occasional updates.
I had attached the spreadsheet at the top, but just in case, here is the link again.
I’d really appreciate it if you could take a look at it and suggest the best possible approach based on its structure.
If needed, I’d be happy to schedule a time to discuss this further. Thank you again!
Hm, how are they filling it out? Having one field per question would be the most straightforward way to deal with it so that part makes sense
You mentioned having multiple team members needing to fill it out, so assuming they all have access to the base, perhaps you could create different views for each team member that would only show the fields that are relevant to them?
e.g. the database team would see this:
And the management team would see this:
Ah, so you’re suggesting that even if there are 100 checklist items, each one should be treated as a separate field — is that correct? And then, we manage visibility by showing only the relevant fields to each team as needed? Is that what you mean?
Yeap that’s right, each would be its own field and you’d use views to split them out
First of all, thank you to everyone who responded to my question. I’d like to share a brief update on how I proceeded after that.
I was initially unsure about how to structure the checklist into a database — whether each checklist item should be treated as a record or a field. After some consideration, I concluded that each checklist item should be its own field, and I built the structure accordingly.
Then, I broke down the checklist items by team and created separate tables for each team.
Finally, I used the Record Picker element in the Interface feature to create a one-page checklist experience.
