So happy that someone finally filled the void left by Dabble DB.
One of the features I found most useful there, but can’t seem to do in Airtable, is linking to entries in another Base. Often, one will have multiple bases which handle distinct aspects of a business or project, but in which one piece of data overlaps.
Example: A political campaign may want Bases for contacting voters, managing events, and recording donations. Those are distinct domains which need their own Bases, but which could benefit from linking parts of them together. For example, it would be great to link donations to the event they occurred at, or voters to donations, or record who attended each event.
In Airtable at present one has to either cram all of those bases into one, or foregoe the linkage which makes this software so great. It may seem like a small thing, but once you can link bases, the sky is really the limit.
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We would love to have one list for each of the following: clients, projects, product/service offerings. Otherwise I have to re-create each time.
Is it possible to link or share tables between multiple bases? I’d like to have a common company/account table that can be used in one base that’s focused on CRM and another that’s focused on product feedback and support? Is that possible with AirTable? If not, it would seem to be a big miss that would force me to either create a super-mega-base that supports all desired use cases that have any shared data or have a bunch of redundant versions of the data that’s common between use cases.
The mega base can work, that’s where I am at right now. However the guys over at @openside have a solution for you using Zapier and their on2air product.
E.g. I have a couple of clients running lots of bases (even > 100) synced for over 2 years now. I had to create a custom web service for that though.
New to AirTable at the Pro level. Have read through this thread, and it appears I’m not alone in the need to link across bases. With the clear demand from users on this, just wondering if AirTable themselves have weighed in on this. Is it something they at all plan on expanding? I’ve seen the third party workarounds via Zapier and Opentable – definitely not my first choice to get some outside add-on to integrate and have to pay more money and have to worry about two additional accounts just to get this to work and so on…
Just interested to know if AirTable has acknowledged this thread/demand in any way?
New to AirTable at the Pro level. Have read through this thread, and it appears I’m not alone in the need to link across bases. With the clear demand from users on this, just wondering if AirTable themselves have weighed in on this. Is it something they at all plan on expanding? I’ve seen the third party workarounds via Zapier and Opentable – definitely not my first choice to get some outside add-on to integrate and have to pay more money and have to worry about two additional accounts just to get this to work and so on…
Just interested to know if AirTable has acknowledged this thread/demand in any way?
Hey Devon! Airtable staff responses are highlighted in yellow. We’ve got some thoughts from our founders in here and @Katherine_Duh’s prompt is marked as the solution to this thread. We do hear you and would love to hear your thoughts on her questions. Thanks!
This feature will be huge. Here is our use case:
We are a small web design, marketing agency.
Each client gets an assigned Workspace
Each Workspace has bases for:
Web Projects (for site design & development tasks)
Client Data (business info, links & login info, service tracking)
Any other use cases that need a base for that client
In the Web Projects base, we have Views that prioritize tasks from 1 to 4
The most useful ability (one that I was just researching to see if been would be possible:
Create a Master base that pulls in all of the Priority 1 task records from every client’s Web Projects base.
Then we can see - in one base - and with all of Airtable’s Views capabilities - all of the current highest priority tasks across all of our clients.
How this could work:
Records update in the Master base in real time. If I change priority on a Task in a client base, it will appear or disappear from the Master base
Records changed in the Master base update in the client base in real time as well.
Permissions can be set on the Master base per user. If they have access to the record in the client Web Projects base, they can see it / operate on it accordingly in the Master base as well. If they don’t have rights to the record… they can’t (see it and / or work on it)
I don’t know if it is necessary to add new records from the Master base - assign it to a client base - and have it appear in the client base as well. At least for the current use case I have in mind. It simply:
Lets us see what we have on our plate across all of our clients in real time
Lets us work on those records from one base
Right now we’re opening and close all of those bases to track what’s happening and set our work agenda. I love the way Airtable works but this is really inefficient way to get things done.
100% agree, this is by far the biggest issue with Airtables functionality. This tool isnt a professional business grade tool until you can link hundreds of thousands, or even millions of records together from different “Bases”.
Right now, I have to cram all the data I want to use the “database linking” functionally with into a single bass. This means I’m going to need to cram 30-40 tables into 1 base, along with 5-10 views per table, making it hard to locate/find what data I need. We should be able to link several “Bases” together that host completely different sets of data that might have a need to be related to one another.
I would like to echo this request as well! The one drawback I have found about Airtable is that there is no elegant way to track an individual’s ‘plate’ of project tasks through linking to other bases. I would really like to have a base that helps keep track of my own personal tasks (that would draw from tasks within different bases) and the ability to do so would make Airtable my dream solution for project management! Even though I love the project management within each base, the current lack of ability to link tasks leaves a major gap in managing workflow across bases.
I’ll also add that I would switch to premium in a second if Airtable had this feature.
I second this! Linking bases would add a whole new level to the organization of projects in our non-profit. An option to have data link to all its applicable bases from a single source would streamline processes and get rid of unwanted clutter.
I agree! Our team would use Airtable for everything if we could link bases!
Clearly, this is a very popular feature request! As Andrew said above, it’s certainly something that we are thinking about, though there are a variety of technical hurdles that would need to be cleared first. Since this is a huge undertaking, we want to make sure that we approach this in the correct way. Any specific ideas on how and why you’d want linked bases to work would be greatly appreciated!
Based on your responses, it seems like there are at least few reasons why one might want to link across bases, all of which raise interesting questions that we need to consider going forward:
Linking across bases could work as a form of granular permissioning (e.g. the Sales team has access to the sales base, and the PR team has access to the PR base, and though they might be able to see selected data from the other team’s base, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to alter it or read all of it). If this is your main reason for wanting cross-base linking: would your needs be met by Airtable implementing more granular permissioning controls at the table level or even the field level (e.g., password protected/hidden/redacted tables/fields that certain users are not allowed to see)? Is it more important to you that different users have access to different bases for privacy reasons (i.e. it’s mission critical that certain users don’t see certain bits of information), or for convenience reasons (i.e. I don’t want all users to see everything in one big base because not all of that data is relevant to their interests)?
Using linking across bases in order to create a manager/“master” base, which draws information from a number of sub-bases. Would your needs be met in this case by some sort of reporting functionality that takes information from many bases, or is it particularly important that this information takes the form of another base?
(Please correct me if I’m wrong about this.) A general sense that a large base with many tables feels cramped—that you have to “cram” what feels like too much data into one place. If this describes you, can you articulate why you feel this way? Is it because of how a base with many tables looks? Is it because of loading times? Is it because you feel like having too much information in one place is overwhelming?
Other considerations: How would you like linking across bases to interact with permissions? Say there are two bases, A and B. A user has access to Base A but not access to Base B, and Base A includes links to Base B. What should the user see when they look at Base A? How would linking across bases work with editing? Should you be able to edit the contents of Base B while in Base A, or should you have to go to Base B first?
There are so many things to say about linking bases, but this is enough for now, I think. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Hi @Katherine_Duh, I’m not sure how active this thread still is but, for me, the concern is less about permissions (although that’s part of it) and more about allowing teams to zero in on the information that’s important to them and then use it in the rest of their processes.
Just yesterday I put together a process using an Airtable form that could solve problems for a variety of teams across our business. However, I don’t want all of those teams to be working out of my team’s base and moving their processes there just because the table with the information exists there. Instead, it would be great to have a clean base where the process could start and then filter information out as needed to the various teams’ bases, including ours, as we all need segments of the data.
This is not the only use case we’ve seen for this; we’re basically cramming all of our team resources and processes into one base and it can feel a bit cluttered/difficult to navigate. We’ve also had a master database example like you suggested where we want records from different teams’ bases to be pulled into a master.
I have multiple bases which each have a table that has identical fields. (They are prioritized task lists for tasks associated with that base)
I would like to have a master view of all of the task lists for all of the table rows in the different bases.
Is this possible?
short answer is unfortunately no.
The way I would design a base with the current state of Airtable is to put all of your records into one base (as they share an identical structure), and use a new view in place of each base.
This is a long standing, much(by far the most) requested feature.
This remains one of the biggest gaps that prevents me from using Airtable.
I get a lot ads in my Twitter feed from Airtable talking about “centralizing” information like Org Charts, Alumni Records, etc. Without the ability to link to that centralized information across different bases, Airtable’s marketing message is setting people up for disappointment and/or failure later. Like @Lauren_Pacifico mentions, the only workaround is a bad data design that clutters and crams everything into a single base.
Please implement linking to another bases.
Linking to other bases would be very helpful for what we are trying to accomplish with our company’s new hire onboarding process.
I’d like to have a single point of entry of employee information, but share only pertinent information with a 3rd party vendor (that would be a collaborator on a separate base) for setting up an account and login information on their platform. I’d rather not have to enter this information in twice (error in redundancy, and maintaining the integrity and privacy of our employee’s information, etc).
Also, as I’ve seen on other posts in this topic, to ensure granular permissioning of what data can be viewed and edited–and by whom.
Linking to other bases would be very helpful for what we are trying to accomplish with our company’s new hire onboarding process.
I’d like to have a single point of entry of employee information, but share only pertinent information with a 3rd party vendor (that would be a collaborator on a separate base) for setting up an account and login information on their platform. I’d rather not have to enter this information in twice (error in redundancy, and maintaining the integrity and privacy of our employee’s information, etc).
Also, as I’ve seen on other posts in this topic, to ensure granular permissioning of what data can be viewed and edited–and by whom.
Hi Kate- While I am strongly in favor of linking bases, do you know you can share just a single view within an airtable? You can also password protect it, and allow read only or edit access. So, you can filter out info you don’t want to share by creating a view specifically for the 3rd party vendor, the click the arrow at the right end of the table menu. Select your options there for sharing permissions. If you are on a pro account for this base you can password protect access via the link as well.
This is a very important feature for us, and is preventing us using Airtable across over 200 employees. Any timeframe for this?
Another vote for linking bases; or at least more granular permissions. Technical difficulties asides, this seems like such a logical feature, especially seeing the way Airtable markets itself (“centralize your assets”)
I agree, this is a needed addition to the Airtable platform the ability to link to another base
Is there anyone from Airtable that could let us know if this feature is on the roadmap or not? If yes is there an expected timeframe? Our company continually has to work around this limitation.
Another +100. I have a CRM built for my company in one base and separate bases for investment, sales, recruiting, marketing, etc. Each of those needs to link to people in the CRM. It would not serve us well to include all these different pipelines into one CRM, for both organization and confidentiality purposes.
Is there any news as to where this feature is in the roadmap?
Hello, any one here? I think this would also address the security issue , so we can share one base with some people and another with some other such that linking still works but not everyone has to see everything. Sounds like a good solution to me to kill a few birds. I wonder why Airtable team is so quiet on these threads…
I have so many tables in my base currently but I need them all to be talking to each other so its the only option. Agree with all the comments above.
Airtable staff responses are highlighted in yellow. We’ve got some thoughts from our founders in here and 