Paid Pro to Free Base Syncs not Updating?

UPDATED ANSWER BELOW

HI ​@Heather_Hale,

Oh, that’s very interesting — were free bases allowed to be the destination of syncs in the past?

I don’t know if that was ever possible, but if it was, then Airtable has removed that feature, because syncing is not listed as a feature on their pricing page for free plans, and I am not able to setup any free bases as the destination of any sync — even if the source sync is also on a free plan.

But you have a bunch of easy solutions for this:

1. Since you already have a paid workspace, you could just bring the other user’s bases into your workspace, and just give them access to their particular base.
    
2. Alternatively, if your users want their own workspaces, they can just upgrade their workspaces to paid workspaces.
    
3. Perhaps your users don’t need their own bases? Airtable’s interfaces allows you to show users ONLY THEIR OWN RECORDS, so PERHAPS you can can just share your existing interfaces with them — and invite them in as READ-ONLY USERS. Read-only users are 100% free in Airtable.
   
   Then, if you needed your read-only users to edit records in Airtable, you can do that through Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable because Fillout is 100% free and it lets your users update Airtable records directly through a form.
   
   Fillout also offers hundreds of other features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer. I show how to use a few of the advanced features of Fillout on these 2 Airtable podcast episodes:
   
   -Using Fillout to update an existing Airtable record & create an eSignature approval process with PDF file creation.
   -Using Fillout to create an order entry form with line items.

4. You could always customize your own automated sync solutions using Make’s advanced automations & integrations.
   
   If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread. For example, here is one of the ways that you could instantly trigger a Make automation from Airtable.

Hope this helps!

If you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

Thank you olivamark and williammark! I appreciate your prompt responses! ;-) 

Yeah, it must be some sort of a recent change because this set-up has worked for me for 7+ years.  Maybe it was a feature of the legacy team plan? It sucks to have to design and entirely different workflow now (or look for another system!) ;-/

Thank you ​@ScottWorld for your detailed response. 

1.         I have brought some other users’ (spec project) bases into my paid Pro (legacy Team) workspace but unless I’m mistaken (?) then they (or I) would have to pay for an account for each of them to have edit access, right? (i.e.: I have tried this workaround with READ ONLY Views but then no one can edit but me ;-/ ) so this is not a solution (unless I’m missing something?)

2.         Yes, of course ;-/ I’ve done this, too – but then I spend all my time doing unpaid on-boarding, training, tutoring, tech support – and sales and marketing for Airtable (and defending it against all the other competitors in the marketplace and/or the existing workflow systems clients may already have in place). This isn’t a solution either as my clients and project partners shouldn’t have to pay to get up and running and understand inside and out a tool I use – they just need to be able to EDIT and comment on the UPDATED information curated from my master databases.

3.         Yes, interfaces are fine but again – this is not a solution - because it doesn’t allow ANYONE to EDIT or comment (on who they know, actor ranking preferences, adding songs or comps to the database or responding to a variety of issues). I don’t see how that’s any different than just emailing them a static PDF? Feels like a moot point for any effort at cloud collaboration of references, hit lists and strategies.

4.        I’ll add the couple of hours of podcast videos to my “To View” (when I can get to) list - and I checked out your affiliate links to Fill Out and Make (olivamark and williammark also suggested Zapier or Integromat/Make above as well). 

I really would prefer to find an Airtable-native solution versus buying, learning and setting up more plug-ins (and tool after tool) - or hiring a consultant.

I really just wanted some community support to solve this problem within Airtable.

To reiterate or clarify

(in case anyone else - or Airtable? :-) ) has a suggestion or solution or apparently a new workaround to something that was working just fine til recently?!

My Paid (Pro/Team Legacy) base-to-Free-base sync works perfectly ONCE after setup but never automatically updates after the initial sync.

You SHOULD BE ABLE to create a synced table (exporting/pushing or importing/pulling (i.e.: copying) data from one table to another where the destination table then stays up-to-date as the source data changes) and where you can BUILD ON IT by adding your own fields, creating custom views and/or combining with other data. 

There are no error {⚠️} icons but neither are there the lightning bolt icons (as there are in the paid-to-paid bases, indicating the sync is active).

Nor is there a “Sync Now” button or option anywhere (ANYMORE).

What changed?

How can I get it working again? 

THANK YOU!

Yeah, if they just need to edit existing records but you don’t want to spend any additional money, then I would give them read-only access to whatever interfaces (or bases) that you want them to have access to, and then use Fillout’s advanced forms to let them edit those records.

They would just click on a link or a button within the record, and it would take them to Fillout to edit that particular record.

I show how to do that on this Airtable podcast episode:

• Using Fillout to update an existing Airtable record & create an eSignature approval process with PDF file creation.

For commenting, I would just put those comments somewhere within the record instead of using Airtable’s commenting feature.

Alternatively, you might want to look into Airtable’s portals, which lets you add editors at a reduced cost. Although there is a minimum of 15 users.

And Airtable’s portals are still pricier than 3rd-party portals, so you may want to look into 3rd-party portals.

The most popular portals that are currently available for Airtable are:
Noloco, JetAdmin, Softr, Pory, Glide, and MiniExtensions.

Hope this helps!

If you have a budget and you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with this or anything else that is Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

My Paid (Pro/Team Legacy) base-to-Free-base sync works perfectly ONCE after setup but never automatically updates after the initial sync.

Hm, on a free account I can’t set up a synced table at all actually, and so it seems likely that they’re phasing out the functionality that you have.  May want to open a support ticket to confirm!

Just out of curiousity, you’re able to select ‘Airtable base’ on the free base on your side?

You SHOULD BE ABLE to create a synced table (exporting/pushing or importing/pulling (i.e.: copying) data from one table to another where the destination table then stays up-to-date as the source data changes) and where you can BUILD ON IT by adding your own fields, creating custom views and/or combining with other data. 

Unfortunately I don’t think this is possible at this point.  When we look at the Pricing page, all syncing options are on Teams and higher, and so we aren’t able to sync data over to a free base at all

You could potentially use the API to keep stuff in sync, but free plans have an API limit of 1000 and so you’d only be able to push 1000 updates, and it’d also be a bit of a pain to set up

Unless you want to get everyone paid accounts, it seems like the only thing you can do right now is give people read-only access, and with workarounds like Fillout or Airtable forms you can allow them to update data, but they wouldn’t be able to add their own fields, set views, etc I’m afraid

It seems that feature is no longer available on Free plan.

Alternatives are to try using one of the app builders.

Either Airtable’s own Portals or Softr or Bubble or Zite (By Fillout)

Here’s an example website I built for my own portfolio. All cards in it are powered from an Airtable base. You can get close to Airtable’s shared interface with editing features through Zite. 
Check it out: https://4awshrxcwv.zite.so/

Pricing is like $19 for custom domains and unlimited users. Fillout is always great value. Ping me if it sounds like something you’d want to explore.