This would show the last known table schema and data that was shown, but would allow to make records and sync when the mobile device comes back online. Issues would be resolved via the web to validate issues.
+1 - for use in rural India!
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
To view, edit, and capture new data.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
With collaborators
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Read, edit existing records, add new records. Not so much tinkering with the database schema
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
Possible a few hours
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
Very tolerant but likely not a problem.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Mobile only
+4Katherine_Duh wrote:
Hi, everyone! First off, we hear you loud and clear on the desire for offline mode. We’ve spent much time internally exploring the possibility of offline mode (and even building some prototypes), but it’s a fundamentally difficult feature to build. Since Airtable is a collaborative product, an ideal offline solution would need to gracefully handle merge conflicts, and do so in the context of Airtable’s relational data structure and rich field types. For comparison, Google Docs uses an approach termed operational transforms, but this only works on simpler data structures (i.e. a Google word document is represented as a single long string of text, and a spreadsheet is represented as a shapeless 2-dimensional array of cells).
As we continue to explore the tradeoffs for various implementations of offline mode, it would be very useful for our team to get some detailed feedback from dedicated Airtable users like yourselves about why and how you would like offline to be designed. Just a sampling of potential things to think about:
- How would you want to use Airtable offline? Tell us your story. Are you a world traveler, wanting to find a way to look at your elaborately designed base of sightseeing spots without having to pay exorbitant roaming charges? Are you a construction baron, sending out remote workers to to survey your newly acquired plots of land? Are you a deep sea diver on a solo expedition in the Marianas Trench, logging undiscovered species of hagfish on the ocean floor? Do you just have really terrible WiFi in the boiler room under the stairs, where the boss moved your office?
- Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators? (Resolving merge conflicts when someone is the sole collaborator on a database is far simpler than doing so when you have multiple collaborators, some of whom are online and some of whom are offline, and all of whom are editing different things.)
- How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline? Do you just need a read-only version of the contents of your bases that you can access while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to edit the contents of records while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to change the database schemata while offline? (In order, these are: comparatively simple to implement; difficult to implement; incredibly difficult to implement.)
- For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline? For a few minutes, as you drive through a tunnel? (Please don’t Airtable and drive.) For a few hours, as you sit in an airport terminal and refuse to pay for overpriced WiFi? For a few weeks, as you trek through the farthest reaches of frigid Nunavut?
- How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually? One potential way of alleviating the issues that arise with resolving merge conflicts is to force end users to make decisions on how to solve specific conflicts. This, however, comes with its own set of potential problems (e.g. being stalled by having to resolve a merge conflict when all you want to do is work, your co-workers getting mad that you merged over their data without their permission).
- Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile? Anecdotally, it seems like many of the people who want offline mode want it for mobile, but it would be good for us to get some clarification on that front.
I would also love an offline mode on Airtable, as I’m currently trying to centralize more and more personal (and not so personal) things on it :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: !
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
Well, I’ve got a concrete example.
Not so long ago, one of our cats got really sick and we had to hospitalize it in 2 different vet clinics in just a few days : one near us and the other one pretty far, in a rural area, with no Wifi.
We got information there, information here and in just a few days, I accumulate a big and heavy pile of papers I needed to take everywhere and consult during interviews with many different vets. And it was a mess.
I was exhausted, anxious and couldn’t think straight so, I forgot things.
Since then, I’ve created a DB dedicated to our pets and I know can answer every precise question a vet could ask … but I need Wifi or roaming data (which I couldn’t get in the 2nd vet clinic) on my phone which was dying quickly at that time.
As I’ve got an iPad, if there was an offline mode, I could have just taken these 2 devices and travel lighter (without a messy pile of papers). It would have been a lot easier and far less stressful.
This just an example… I’ve got many personal other ones…
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
Alone
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Consult, populate and edit bases.
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
A few minutes to some hours.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
Very tolerant if it’s explicit : « This what added while offline (by « X » if collaborators) at that « Date + time » > « Accept / Reject / Merge ? »
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Mobile
Offline mode is a must-have feature to crown Airtable king.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
I use Airtable to manage my personal life, which includes a tremendous amount of traveling and my business. I’m constantly working while on the move- and without offline caching, I’m not even able to access Airtable content at all. Currently, I’m having to take screenshots of the things I’m working on, work on them offline, then work again to add them back into Airtable when I do have an internet connection. This is pretty bad. Also, I can’t even count the amount of occasions I needed to access info that was only available on my Airtable that, without an internet connection, was frustratingly unaccessible.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
Alone for now specifically because I can’t rely on my staff to work efficiently without offline caching. I’m willing to do spend the hours doing the extra offline workarounds but can’t force my team to do the same.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Review databases and uploaded content, add to and edit databases, drag and drop attachments that are immediately accessible locally and cloud sync when back online.
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
With all the traveling A LOT. But realistically, I’ll get wifi at least once a day so from a few minutes to 24hrs- though there definitely shouldn’t be a time limit! Max 1GB of caching should be enough for pretty much everyone.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
Very. Although this should work like Dropbox. Latest data automatically overwrites previous data, but there’s an option somewhere to view ‘Version History’ with the ability to overwrite the current data with a previous version.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Mobile has to be the first priority but the Desktop version definitely needs it too for power users.
As a side note, I’m using the free version now but will absolutely upgrade when this functionality is built in as I can drop the other apps I’m using just to work around this offline limitation.
I love Airtable. It’s an amazing product that has completely changed the way I work for the better, but it’s lack of offline support just makes it not quite entirely practical.
Hope this is being worked on and will roll out soon. Please keep me in the loop on this.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
We use Airtable for out youth sports organization. Right now I use it for one team as without offline we’re in too many remote locations that don’t have a connection. Our parent organization is 60+ teams and would likely roll out a similar implementation. We often interact with partners, recruiters, college coaches, vendors, etc in remote locations. We would like to access data about players, venues, schools and other elements as they were last entered online.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
With collaborators: players, coaches, parents.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Review last known state of the data and enter new data.
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
Odd question I think but typically no more than 24-72 hours.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
This would be unlikely in our application - particularly if we could limit which tables could be edited offline. (I work in cloud/mobile/desktop software so this is a qualified estimation. Though if you’re looking for a model to follow, try github!)
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
We would only use offline mode for mobile
Great product by the way. I have used QuickBase extensively and find Airtable to be far more connected to other services and far more accessible for end users.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
I work as a film producer at a production company and travel frequently to shooting locations with various cell reception. Sometimes in the middle of corn fields and sometimes in rural landscapes with no cell reception at all. For Airtable to be a go-to no-brainer and for me to expand the usage of the product, I need to know I can access my Base anywhere in the world even if it’s just for reference/read-only with FULL data access from the Base including attachments and files. If we can’t see the data without an internet connection, the product becomes useless as soon as connectivity drops (bad location, weak internet, flights w/o wifi, 3rd world countries).
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
Currently alone, but hoping to expand to my assistant and other executives at the company.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Immediately need access to a read-only version of my Base. It would be wise to choose which Bases read-only offline access is needed for so the database size doesn’t grow without cause.
At a future point, it would be nice to change various cells’ information based upon project we have in development. I use Airtable to manage my submission/read list and to track my notes different writers.
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
for read-only - indefinitely for Base Owners or have an admin choose how long a team-member should “check-in” to ensure data isn’t stolen.
For editable Bases - whatever makes sense for Airtable. After that period of time has gone, the Base should transfer to Read-only.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
I hate doing this. Whatever is frictionless.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Both are important. My heavy workload is done on a mac, but use mobile for reference all the time.
Curt_Kanemoto wrote:
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
I work as a film producer at a production company and travel frequently to shooting locations with various cell reception. Sometimes in the middle of corn fields and sometimes in rural landscapes with no cell reception at all. For Airtable to be a go-to no-brainer and for me to expand the usage of the product, I need to know I can access my Base anywhere in the world even if it’s just for reference/read-only with FULL data access from the Base including attachments and files. If we can’t see the data without an internet connection, the product becomes useless as soon as connectivity drops (bad location, weak internet, flights w/o wifi, 3rd world countries).
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
Currently alone, but hoping to expand to my assistant and other executives at the company.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Immediately need access to a read-only version of my Base. It would be wise to choose which Bases read-only offline access is needed for so the database size doesn’t grow without cause.
At a future point, it would be nice to change various cells’ information based upon project we have in development. I use Airtable to manage my submission/read list and to track my notes different writers.
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
for read-only - indefinitely for Base Owners or have an admin choose how long a team-member should “check-in” to ensure data isn’t stolen.
For editable Bases - whatever makes sense for Airtable. After that period of time has gone, the Base should transfer to Read-only.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
I hate doing this. Whatever is frictionless.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Both are important. My heavy workload is done on a mac, but use mobile for reference all the time.
An initial ability to just access the data offline in a copy of the Base that is uneditable and updated on the app manually would be irreplaceable. I use Airtable for storing Machine data, location, parts and service manuals, pictures in order to service and maintain hundreds of industrial machines all over my state. With cell phone coverage or wifi being mandatory, i am fairly tied down to taking pictures and screenshots of my Base so i can use that info offline. Offline usage could be limited to adding new records and editing current records. If there are conflicts it could just put that data in a New Record that could be manually resolved once i have internet access so the data isn’t lost, it’s just dislocated. I am using Airtable to manage all of my daily business, it is awesome.
Without being able to use this app offline / standalone it’s completely useless for many usecases as mentioned. One of those being taking notes while being offline in an airplane…
Please implement at least a basic version of the offline mode. For example having a workspace in a single user mode. Or a workspace only available offline.
Since I am a software architect I am assuming that implementing such a feature in a profound basic version would not take longer than a week! But improve the whole project tremendously because it would open up a gigantic new field of possibilities with the tool!!!
+1 for offline mode so that this is useful for researchers on the field or out at sea. Would be nice to be able to access a local cached copy during a long flight.
I was really hoping for a happy ending at the end of this thread. Alas…
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
Primarily on long flights. I want to look data up, do some filtering and sorting, make some comparisons. Read-only would be fine; I just want to be able to view it offline.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
My personal Airtables are alone currently, but I could see adding collaborators in the future. At work, I have 3 collaborators. We don’t edit that often.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
I’d be happy with Read-only access of a single tab quite honestly.
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
In most cases it would only be a couple hours.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
Quite tolerant.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Desktop; I use my laptop for Airtable.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
I’m on planes and in internet-spotty subways a lot.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
Both, depends on the base. Offline need is for both.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Everything, but at least reading, sorting and filtering. Then filling out or editing rows. Then creating rows and columns.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
Whatever makes offline Airtable possible.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Both, but mostly mobile.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
We run corporate team off-sites, and many of the venues we host events at are in the mountains with no cell service. I would want to run through programming and inventory while onsite to make sure we are set up. As it is, I am exporting each table to a csv, importing it to google docs and enabling offline mode.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
Write is mostly alone, but read w/ collaborators. Would love cheaper “read-only” collaborators too.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Read-only access is probably sufficient for my purposes.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
If read only, not a problem right?
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Mobile.
Katherine_Duh wrote:
Hi, everyone! First off, we hear you loud and clear on the desire for offline mode. We’ve spent much time internally exploring the possibility of offline mode (and even building some prototypes), but it’s a fundamentally difficult feature to build. Since Airtable is a collaborative product, an ideal offline solution would need to gracefully handle merge conflicts, and do so in the context of Airtable’s relational data structure and rich field types. For comparison, Google Docs uses an approach termed operational transforms, but this only works on simpler data structures (i.e. a Google word document is represented as a single long string of text, and a spreadsheet is represented as a shapeless 2-dimensional array of cells).
As we continue to explore the tradeoffs for various implementations of offline mode, it would be very useful for our team to get some detailed feedback from dedicated Airtable users like yourselves about why and how you would like offline to be designed. Just a sampling of potential things to think about:
- How would you want to use Airtable offline? Tell us your story. Are you a world traveler, wanting to find a way to look at your elaborately designed base of sightseeing spots without having to pay exorbitant roaming charges? Are you a construction baron, sending out remote workers to to survey your newly acquired plots of land? Are you a deep sea diver on a solo expedition in the Marianas Trench, logging undiscovered species of hagfish on the ocean floor? Do you just have really terrible WiFi in the boiler room under the stairs, where the boss moved your office?
- Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators? (Resolving merge conflicts when someone is the sole collaborator on a database is far simpler than doing so when you have multiple collaborators, some of whom are online and some of whom are offline, and all of whom are editing different things.)
- How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline? Do you just need a read-only version of the contents of your bases that you can access while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to edit the contents of records while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to change the database schemata while offline? (In order, these are: comparatively simple to implement; difficult to implement; incredibly difficult to implement.)
- For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline? For a few minutes, as you drive through a tunnel? (Please don’t Airtable and drive.) For a few hours, as you sit in an airport terminal and refuse to pay for overpriced WiFi? For a few weeks, as you trek through the farthest reaches of frigid Nunavut?
- How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually? One potential way of alleviating the issues that arise with resolving merge conflicts is to force end users to make decisions on how to solve specific conflicts. This, however, comes with its own set of potential problems (e.g. being stalled by having to resolve a merge conflict when all you want to do is work, your co-workers getting mad that you merged over their data without their permission).
- Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile? Anecdotally, it seems like many of the people who want offline mode want it for mobile, but it would be good for us to get some clarification on that front.
Want it for mobile write and edit to create /edit new tasks and projects and thoughts and deciision journaling as I use it for my central repository for all these things. And as such it needs to be available at all times when I have inspiration or a thought comes to me regardless of whether I have service (on a plane, in the countryside). I personally don’t use collaboration at all for this as it is inherently private.
Yes an offline mode would be most useful. I am often in remote places and need to check my entries. Wouldn’t need to edit as much as read.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
I travel often, so on planes, in places with no signal and worksites that don’t offer wifi.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
Mostly alone, but occasionally with collaborators.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
At least reading and creating new records. Updating records would be perfect. Why not do that, make it so you can’t change structure while offline?
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
If it means I get to work with Airtable offline, absolutely. Let’s do it.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Tablet, then phone, then desktop.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
In areas of patchy internet connectivity, esp. when making site visits.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
With collaborators.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Simply being able to view read-only version would be great.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
N/A - only need read-only.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Desktop.
Any progress on this topic? Here is my information!
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
I use Airtable for inventory management. I add my inventory to the table but most of the time I am at a warehouse where there is no internetconnection. As a workaround I use my phones wifi hotspot but it is not ideal.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
I use it alone but my bookkeeper will check my sales every quarter
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Reading and adding items to the table would be sufficient. Store it on a local device and upload it once connected to the internet.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
Will not be a problem since Im the only one adding items to it.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Mobile.
+2Howie wrote:
CEO of Airtable here. Thanks everyone for your feedback so far!
I’ll address joshua_soule’s question, which I interpret as/distill into “can offline read/write access be thought of in the same way as online collaboration, but with exaggerated latency.” The answer is: not entirely.
Some Airtable user actions, such as editing a cell or creating/deleting new rows, are performed immediately on the client’s local data representation (see related concepts of “optimistic UI updating,” “optimistic concurrency,” and “eventual consistency”). Thus, they could theoretically be performed offline. In fact, you can do so today by disconnecting your internet connection without closing the browser tab or the iOS/Android app, making changes, then reconnecting—in absence of any conflicting changes from other clients, your offline edits should seamlessly sync.
The problem is that if changes are made from multiple clients simultaneously—whether by a team collaborator, or yourself from multiple offline devices—these clients increasingly diverge in their local states. In other words, if the Airtable server is the “real world,” each client gets more and more carried away with their imagination and starts to construct their own alternate reality. (Actually, this problem would remain even if you took away the Airtable server and instead made the system peer to peer, at which point you would have to grapple with consensus determination, which becomes increasingly complicated as the data model becomes more sophisticated, i.e. an entire relational database instead of simple numerical values).
Some amount of (or more accurately, “some types of”) divergence can be cleanly merged together: for instance, if you and I edit completely different cell values without making any other changes. In these cases, it’s obvious that our intended changes are completely independent of each other and can be trivially resolved. (For some very simple data structures, you can even construct a highly limited “world” where changes can always be cleanly merged together, but this doesn’t work for more sophisticated applications).
However, this isn’t always true. In some cases, our respective intents come into conflict. Within these cases, it’s sometimes still easy for Airtable to arbitrate our dispute and make a decision on what the outcome should be—in the case of two people overwriting the same cell value, the last edit received by the server wins. Note that for many cell types, Airtable’s behavior is actually a bit more advanced than “last-edit-wins”. For instance, if a multi select cell contains options Albatross and Buzzard, and you remove option Albatross from the cell (thus locally believing the resultant state to be Buzzard) while I simultaneously add option Cockatoo to the multi select cell (thus locally believing the resultant state to be Albatross, Buzzard, Cockatoo), Airtable actually resolves the resultant state to Buzzard and Cockatoo so that both of our intents are preserved, rather than simply clobbering one of our changes with the other .
Sometimes, though, there’s no clear way (not just for Airtable, but on a theoretical level) to resolve the conflicting intents—if one user changes a column, and another simultaneously changes values in the old column, for instance, it’s unclear what the human-desirable outcome is. One of the users’ intents must prevail (at least partially) over the other’s. This is where having 2 seconds of online latency is different from 2 days of latency (i.e. offline mode). With 2 seconds of latency, the most work you’ll lose or need to manually re-perform is 2 seconds. With 2 days of latency, you could potentially lose up to 2 days of work, as your subsequent changes could depend on the first change, which will be rejected. In other words, offline mode prevents you as the user from getting near-realtime feedback that a change being rejected due to another client’s conflicting changes, and instead lets you spiral increasingly into an invalid world of local state which becomes growingly impossible to resolve with the other clients’ world(s).
As far as I know, there are no database systems that gracefully handle all of the above problems. (Airtable is the first end-user relational database that handles fully realtime collaboration). We do believe this is an important feature, but there are necessarily tradeoffs to be made in its design. Your detailed feedback will help guide us to design the right tradeoffs.
FANTASTIC answer! Thank you for the detailed explanation. Now we know!
There are some alternate solutions depending on your needs.
What type of data do you want to update or entry mechanism?
Here are some ideas of integrations:
- When you schedule a meeting, have it automatically create an entry in a table.
- When you update a row in a spreadsheet (such as Google Sheets, which is available off-line), add or update a row
- When you add a file into DropBox, create a new entry.
All of the above entries can be done in their original tools in Off-Line mode.
So if you use a Google spreadsheet and keep the entries listed there, they can automatically update your AirTable Base and Table without an Internet connection.
My tests with Zapier are a bit mixed in terms of update time. My Google sheets updates happened immediately while my DropBox updates took about 5 minutes to refresh - however, for those of us that are looking for a great way to handle immediate updates, this might be the solution. Keep in mind - this is part of Zapier’s integration - by default, they only check every five minutes.
Consider Google Forms or other tools with useful offline viewers for data.
Yari - the example you gave about using it for inventory management would be perfect in this regard, as long as you didn’t mind having the data in a Google spreadsheet as well.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
In remote Indigenous communities in the far north of Australia, where we can lose internet connectivity for hours (sometimes days).
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
With collaborators.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Read-only would be sufficient.
The ability to add rows would be nice.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
If adding rows was supported, we’d be happy to manually eliminate duplicates in case two people added the same data in different instances.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Desktop.
Hi,
We are looking into a database solution for our inspection company. Airtable looks promising however offline access is a must otherwise we would be better off using third party google sheets applications. Very troubling that management have been absent from this thread for so long and there is no official update as to the progress of this feature, especially with the amount of business they are losing. For every person that posts there would be three that can’t be bothered and just write it off.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
Inputting data to forms (including photos / attachments) from mobile devices. Inspection reports, daily logs etc. Offline access for adding to different sheets. Editing of existing information not necessary, only adding new lines and potentially editing the content created offline.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
With collaborators.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Add new lines of data to existing forms.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
If the time/device/user/location of the conflicts were displayed it would be quite easy to sort out. I can’t imagine there would be too many conflicts the way we would use it.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Mobile device (iOS and Android).
Just re-iterating nearly every comment in the last year, it’s a real pity that this topic hasn’t been followed up by management with an official update.
Cheers
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
Creating records and inputting data to forms (including photos / attachments) from mobile devices. Offline access for adding to different sheets. Editing of existing information not necessary, but would be really nice and would require being able to edit records created while offline
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
With collaborators.
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Add new lines of data to existing tables/forms and edit those new records ideally
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
If the time/device/user/location of the conflicts were displayed it would be quite easy to sort out, and even so, with create only conflicts would be limited.
Happy to process 5-10 conflicks a day
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Mobile device (iOS and Android).
Katherine_Duh wrote:
Hi, everyone! First off, we hear you loud and clear on the desire for offline mode. We’ve spent much time internally exploring the possibility of offline mode (and even building some prototypes), but it’s a fundamentally difficult feature to build. Since Airtable is a collaborative product, an ideal offline solution would need to gracefully handle merge conflicts, and do so in the context of Airtable’s relational data structure and rich field types. For comparison, Google Docs uses an approach termed operational transforms, but this only works on simpler data structures (i.e. a Google word document is represented as a single long string of text, and a spreadsheet is represented as a shapeless 2-dimensional array of cells).
As we continue to explore the tradeoffs for various implementations of offline mode, it would be very useful for our team to get some detailed feedback from dedicated Airtable users like yourselves about why and how you would like offline to be designed. Just a sampling of potential things to think about:
- How would you want to use Airtable offline? Tell us your story. Are you a world traveler, wanting to find a way to look at your elaborately designed base of sightseeing spots without having to pay exorbitant roaming charges? Are you a construction baron, sending out remote workers to to survey your newly acquired plots of land? Are you a deep sea diver on a solo expedition in the Marianas Trench, logging undiscovered species of hagfish on the ocean floor? Do you just have really terrible WiFi in the boiler room under the stairs, where the boss moved your office?
- Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators? (Resolving merge conflicts when someone is the sole collaborator on a database is far simpler than doing so when you have multiple collaborators, some of whom are online and some of whom are offline, and all of whom are editing different things.)
- How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline? Do you just need a read-only version of the contents of your bases that you can access while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to edit the contents of records while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to change the database schemata while offline? (In order, these are: comparatively simple to implement; difficult to implement; incredibly difficult to implement.)
- For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline? For a few minutes, as you drive through a tunnel? (Please don’t Airtable and drive.) For a few hours, as you sit in an airport terminal and refuse to pay for overpriced WiFi? For a few weeks, as you trek through the farthest reaches of frigid Nunavut?
- How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually? One potential way of alleviating the issues that arise with resolving merge conflicts is to force end users to make decisions on how to solve specific conflicts. This, however, comes with its own set of potential problems (e.g. being stalled by having to resolve a merge conflict when all you want to do is work, your co-workers getting mad that you merged over their data without their permission).
- Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile? Anecdotally, it seems like many of the people who want offline mode want it for mobile, but it would be good for us to get some clarification on that front.
Katherine,
Our custom built solution syncs some pretty complex finance data and attachments around the world and we don’t have to worry about resolving conflicts. The way we manage this is to effectively assign someone as the master database admin who can make structural changes to the data and layout of the master database. Other users can either only enter new data records and push them up to the server. Or, they can pull down existing records after ‘checking them out’. This acts as a record lock like in a traditional database design. It’s more of a push / pull process than a true sync, but along with only letting users edit their own records, then you don’t have to worry about conflict management and works perfect for offline access.
Once records are ‘pushed’ up to the server, database admin can ‘lock’ a set of records once they’ve been reconciled, effectively taking them out of ownership of the local user.
As long as each record belongs to one user, there aren’t any data integrity issues and you can download a full view of all the data as any user (depending on permissions), but you can only edit what belongs to you.
For single users, you get everything. You just have to remember to ‘push’ the data back up when you get a connection, but this can be done automatically.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
Use case 1: Collect data including health statistics from villages in rural Asia where there is zero connectivity for days at a time. Push this back up to a central command and control clinic to analyse and summarise.
Use case 2: Collect finance data from team on the move in rural areas including expenditure. Push back up to central server once connection allows.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
Collaborators
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Add new records to a defined layout
View existing data that belongs to user
Read-only data from other users
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
Hours, days, weeks. The reality is that if it’s offline, it’s offline, it’s not about seconds, or minutes, it’s just the data is sitting on my offline device until I next have connectivity.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
No tolerance. I don’t feel that it’s needed if you have clear record ownership.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Primarily mobile devices (Tablets and Phone) but in reality, if I loose connection on the desktop in the jungles due to the sat phone going down, I don’t want to stop working.
An offline version would make this program perfect for me… I would be willing to pay a little extra for that ability.
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How would you want to use Airtable offline?
`I am currently a PhD student, who has been looking for a way to organize my research notes. Most of my professors tell me to create a spreadsheet. I hate trying to make a spreadsheet do what a database does much better. Yet, having not found an existing database program that really does what I want it to (and is affordable to a student with a family…) has been frustrating. I thought about creating one in MS Access, but I work MAC at home, and PC at the office. Plus, who has time to deal with Access?
I just want to be able to have an offline version of my database for travel and/or when my work wifi gets spotty. Sometimes, it is also helpful for my productivity to unplug from internet (no emails, social media, endless web browsing to distract me!) -
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
I primarily use Airtable alone. being able to use offline + collaborate would be helpful, but not necessary. -
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
I would like to 1) view records and 2) add records. I don’t need to manipulate the structure. -
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
A few hours, maybe a day or two. -
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
I would be just fine to manage conflicts manually. -
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
I am ok with picking one over the other. I could work primarily offline or primarily online on my desktop. (I don’t even need mobile offline editing, if that makes it easier.
Everthing about Airtable works for our application and is it so well put together. I was able to put together a nice database in minutes. But lack of offline capabilities makes all the great work by Airtable completely useless for us. This is so disappointing.
I looked at Airtable originally over 70 weeks ago, and reluctantly rejected it outright because of this. I am again looking at it now, and very little progress seems to have been made in this area, despite so many would be paying upgraders crying out for it, then and now!
Despite alot of buzz about tech in agriculture, actually we are really struggling to find any simple app that can allow us to record simple crop observations and photos while in remote areas. That missing capability means that we can’t adopt this as a database for all stock management, complaints, crop knowledge and development, customer and supplier communications etc. This is because all of these things are intertwined with our product (which is a crop in a remote field somewhere) that we have to understand with data.
How would you want to use Airtable offline?
We are trying to record observations of crops in agricultural locations.
Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
With a small number of collaborators assigned to data relevant within geographical areas - data conflict not likely
How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
To read/update records, save data, photographs while operating in the field. Database structure does not need to be changed offline. Data admin can be done in an office with wifi.
For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
Hours at most, not days.
How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
Generally not tolerant, would prefer a system that was able to manage that itself. Possibly if they were flagged.
As stated above, not likely in our situation.
Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Mobile in rural areas
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