I am in full agreement with other commenters on this thread. Granular permissions would make the difference between a barely useful database and an incredibly powerful tool. I am running an HR and program participant database and need to be able to allow certain employee / participant records to be seen by some users and not others, while allowing higher level staff to view more records. If I can set recording view/edit by a parameter, such as location, that would make Airtable a perfect fit for our needs at New City Kids.

Seeking the ability to allocate some users access to edit records but not create nor delete them.

I work for a broadcaster where we use airtable to track our commissioned recordings and associated broadcast rights. Because records are easy to delete and production staff only need to update existing records (i.e. recordings that have already been commissioned), I would hope to be able to grant them access to update existing records. This reduces the risk of inadvertent deletions.

To add to these suggestions - I’d like to be able to add a team member who can do things like sort and filter (perhaps temporarily) - non-destructive actions - but not edit the content itself - which is destructive.

So I’m asking for another level of user permissions rather than the more granular by-table (etc) permissions other people are asking for in this thread.

I need the ability to restrict access to not only functions such as edit, view, delete, but records.

There are two ways I’d accept:

1: Allow a single base design to contain different data for each “copy”. Basically, a template base that can be used to load data specific to one sales person. Multiple sales people would have their own “copy” with their own data but design modifications only need to be done once in the template to be reflected to all bases.

2: Allow access to view records based on user. This way I could ensure Salesguy X has access to specific accounts only.

Anything you add on permissions will be a great step forward. I’ve heard a number of great suggestions. Here from simple to most complex:

The ability to lock a user our of specific tabs

The ability to lock a user out of specific views

The ability to define read/write privileges for tabs or views

The creation of custom user groups which would apply to the above

The ability to hide columns per user group

The ability to set filters on tabs or views per user group

Anything will be a step in the right direction, Airtable is an amazing and intuitive platform with a huge future but you’ll need these kind of basic capabilities to be used in serious applications.

Still hoping for more granular permissions than there are currently!

Adding a +1 here! Looking to at least hide tables from specific user groups – so a ‘groups’ section to our shared users list would rock. Plus, some people should be able to edit some info, but not ALL THE INFO.

+1

Limit by tab and record (user can only see their owned records). Any organization constrained by PII rules needs this.

A possibly simpler approach would be to lock down views (e.g. only Creators can modify them). That would allow me to precreate views filtered to individual users so that they could not remove the filter and see other users’ records. It would also be helpful if you added a “Logged in User” to the Filter drop-down (right now it shows individual collaborators, which would require a separate view for each user. Adding “Logged in User” would allow me create one view that auto-filters to the logged in user).

Airtable,

Love your product, but the lack of user permissioning in Airtable is holding back both a) the companies that use your product and b) the growth of your company.

While you think of yourselves as a new-breed “collaboration tool”, it is clear from comments in this thread that many companies are trying to use your product as an SAP-like enterprise management tool (ERP).

Airtable enables companies to easily create and manipulate very stripped down cross-linked databases (without all of the baggage and cost of traditional ERP tools like like SAP) and immediately publish the data for distributed availability and use, including on mobile devices – all without any required specialized knowledge other than basic spreadsheet skills. That is super powerful and does not exist elsewhere!

However, without better user permissioning, companies using Airtable are unwilling to use it broadly and invite more (paying) users into the database because there is no way to allow users to view/edit data without granting access to view/edit the entire database.

You are missing a massive opportunity here. Look at capterra.com and all the software out there that has been created for specific end-markets (here is the list of just the categories of software: http://www.capterra.com/categories). Airtable could be used for just about all of those categories.

By contrast to software developed for specific end-markets, a product like Airtable is 100% flexible so companies can set up their data and processes exactly as they want them and they can manage data and processes across the entire enterprise with just one database – essentially companies can create and easily roll out their own custom enterprise software.

Your target market is enormous and you have the opportunity to be the first mover. But I’m afraid if you don’t address users’ needs re: permissioning, somebody else will come along and build a similar product that does.

Well said. I really like airtable but we won’t be able to keep using it for much longer without advance permissions + linking records between bases.

I love airtable, but as the others mentioned, we’re having to look elsewhere because of the permissions/privacy issue. We’re in video production, and are trying to create tables for Admins, Creators of the video projects, and Clients. Admins have access to everything, Creators access to the project(s) they’re working on only, and clients have basic read-only info on the status of their individual project. I absolutely LOVE the ease of use of Airtable, but as a new company, I worry about putting too much time into it if can’t really meet our needs by inviting others in.

+1 These are the two core features that we need for this platform to be the most useful app I’ve found vs. slightly better than Google Sheets.

I am very surprised by the omission of this feature, which is a complete show-stopper for using Airtable. Firstly there is an obvious use-case for a read-only API - and since any future enhancement will encompass that, you might as well get on and do it. Like yesterday. The other big use case is for an API that acts like a collaborator. So being able to create a ‘dummy’ collaborator and then operate the API with the permissions of that collaborator is extremely simple to explain, simple to manage, requires very very little extra UI, and does everything.

Firstly there is an obvious use-case for a read-only API…

Per-API-key base permissions are on our roadmap, but just wanted to point out that you can already accomplish this by creating a separate Airtable account and giving it read-only access to your base, then using that account’s API key.

Thanks for flagging that up - that seems like a decent workaround.

This is the solution we all need. Have permissions for views (this solves table and field dilemmas)

I love airtable on a personal level, but I can’t convince my company to adopt it yet because there are minimal permission options.

Here is my use case:

Industry: Manufacturing

Users: ~20-30

We are currently using Asana for this, but I think with permissions, AirTable would be better. We have three main teams that use Asana to track issues: Sales, Service, and Production. Each team uses Asana to track problems they see in the field or things they need fixed/updated (think tech/marketing/service issues). Every week we have an in-house production meeting, where we go through all production issues from sales, service, and production. Right now each team has their own board where they can post requests and other issues, and the cards that pertain to multiple people are added to the correct corresponding boards in other departments. While this works fine for now, it doesn’t have the search and sort functionality that I need. Airtable would allow me to re-order everything by different parameters which would help our team better identify priority issues. Our problem lies in that the three different groups don’t need to see everything on each others tables, just the entries that pertain to them. They all also need to be able to edit and comment on things shared with them.

We have many other uses for airtable as well, but until I can get more permissions, it will not meet our needs, but it is so close!

I love the iCal subscription link which enables me to share each band member’s tailored gig calendar for all appearances where they are named in the personnel column. I would really like to be able to limit their viewing permissions, tho, to specific fields (venue, address, sound check time, lodging, etc.) Instead they can click thru and see all fields - including the more sensitive money info.

For me I’d be thrilled if each calendar view could have a “hidden fields” feature like other views have.

Or, another solution would be to have some “private” fields that are viewable only by Creator-level or Edit-level users (NOT by anyone with an iCal subscription link.)

Thanks for working on this! It seems like lots of folks are chomping at the bit for a similar feature.

Long live Airtable!

Hey there @Ruth_Merenda, I’m running a band too and would love to ask how to get that iCal subscription happening… is it easy to setup? I have looked (even in the Blocks thing I’m beta-testing for Airtable) and can’t find it!

@Katherine_Duh @Howie

Looks like there’s a lot of consensus here on how the permissions could be set up to meet nearly all use cases, and Google Sheets & Smartsheets both have working examples that would be a great start (a million times better than nothing at all).

I work in the office for a construction company and I’m checking out Airtable. I’m very close to getting tables set up so that we can use Airtable as our one, master system. Not having any fine-tuning for permissions may end up being a dealbreaker for us.

1. I’d like to give foremen the ability to checkmark a job complete, add remarks into a notes box, and upload photos, but I don’t want to give them blanket permissions and them accidentally delete or edit a table, record, etc.


2. The “old guard” here in construction is definitely not computer-savvy, so in addition to permissions control, only letting them see the 1 specific view they’ll use is very useful. One wrong click into another table/view and they’ll be lost.


3. A big concern with estimators/salesmen is that they don’t want their customer info out there for other estimators to try to steal.


4. Some of the formulas, rollups, and records would definitely need to be lockable, especially ones regarding money. Again, to help prevent someone mistakenly editing/deleting something. Imagine someone accidentally deleting a record for a six-figure project and it not getting billed.

Would love to move our spreadsheets to airtable, but need granular permissions, is it possible to have 1 large table with multiple users being able to access it.

Depending upon what we setup id like for instance : a table with 26 columns. Admin users would have read / write access to all 26 columns. Manager users would have read write access to the first 20 columns, and read only to the last 6. Staff users would be able to read / write the first 10 columns, read only the next 5, but not be able to see any others.

Is that possible ?

I would also love to see more granular permissions. Here’s our use case:

1. Inventory of department systems and data


2. Edits should be made by specific named users that are assigned by a super admin.


3. Those users can only edit records in their department, but they can view all other records


4. Those users cannot remove any records


5. Instead, they flag records for removal and an admin with delete control will take action to remove the record if approved

We can get some of this functionality in Airtable, but we need a user type that has create and update permissions, but does not have delete permissions to begin chipping away at this use case. Delegating users doesn’t make much sense right now without us being able to control deletes. This is for reasons of governance and audits.

Recently I started freelancing with an ad agency.

I noticed they were using the separate tools that would be better if combined into one Airtable base.

I got excited about recommending Airtable. Could I notch a win with this company by showing how they could save money an and time with Airtable.

Nope, I can’t. Granular permissions are important for this company. They use many freelancers and each one has a set of things they can do and see

@Hashim_Warren - That’s funny! Coincidentally, I had exactly the same experience with a content marketing group on Thursday! I actually built a demo base for them and did a one-hour presentation, but in the end, I can see that it will not work because of the number of freelancers they need to “partially” involve. Exactly the same issue!