Advanced User Permissions

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#261

Another alternative involves updating records through forms and automations. You can create a button that opens an update record form targeting the record of choice. Then use automations to take the input from that form and update the record.

It’s more work than the three sentences above may make it sound, but it allows you to give a view-only link to someone and restrict exactly what they can see and edit.

Also, don’t take Bill’s attitude too personally. Although he is right, the sarcasm at the end of the post might be a bit much :slight_smile:

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#262

Yes, there’s always an edginess when digging for clear requirements and I am known for being a little blunt. :wink: However, I wasn’t attempting sarcasm in this case - I was simply recognizing that Orem had reflected on and complained about the earlier comments that were unhelpful and invited him to provide some thoughts that are detailed and contained substance.

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#263

Is it possible to do collaborator-field based dynamic permission? i.e. to let only assigned collaborator to see or edit the line.

#264

Nope, you can’t do that @Ohad_Shavit

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#265

Thanks Jarvis. Is there any alternative?

#266

In Airtable, you can probably use a workaround that uses Airtable sync. It might take a few trial-and-errors to get it working the way you like, but it’s the cheaper route: Re-Linking data or two way sync?

The more expensive but hassle-free route would be to use https://stacker.app/ (so far this is the only 3rd party utility which allows you to do what you’re looking for in the most plug-and-play way)

#267

It’s been over a year now since you posted this and yet it seems like it still isn’t possible to do very simple things with permissions. For example, why isn’t it possible to restrict collaborators to a single view? We use Airtable as an editorial calendar and we want our writers to only be able to see the posts we have assigned to them - we don’t want them to see the whole calendar. As far as I can tell this isn’t possible with Airtable as it is now. We are forced to share everything with everyone.

7 Likes
#268

Hi Katherine,

Lack of security is a concerning topic: it seems that advanced permissions is such an important request that you guys should prioritize this soon no? Can you give us a hard deadline here if possible?

In my case I want to have a massive base that links all sorts of KPIs for the entire company as well as strategic projects and OKRs showing how things relate. The problem is that this requires (1) certain tables of this base to be visible only to some users, (2) specific permissions on who can view/edit certain fields and (3) data protection (e.g. ensuring that a user won’t steal all of our info by downloading stuff, using copy and paste or print screens).

I know that this is not easy but this is not only a product-changing feature that brings Airtable to the next level but also apparently a must-need for so many people.

If you could, thus, give us a hard deadline we would appreciate because at this point given the lack of security of the tool I don’t know if I can trust it to build my company on top of it.

Thank you

3 Likes
#269

Hi @DiegoF, and welcome to the community!

I do want to apologize in advance for your message being the target of one of my wild rants. :wink: Do not take any of this personally.

Hard deadlines telegraphed to all competitors? Seriously? This is software we’re talking about here, dude! :wink:

No one - not even the developers - know when something in the security category will be ready. Competitors would love this information as well, so you’re basically asking the company you want to bank on, to risk its existence to make you feel all warm and fuzzy about choosing Airtable. Not gonn’a happen.

As to the security features of Airtable, this aspect of the platform will never be complete, but I agree 100% - some level of improved permissions agility is needed now and more-so in the future. The vast community here has made these requirements clear.

However…

We must also consider why you are asking about these permissions features and the underlying objectives -

I get it - you don’t want to spend any more money on a visualization and dashboarding/reporting platform the likes of which is not Airtable or perhaps anything remotely like Airtable. This is a grand vision for a platform designed to collect and collaborate on data. But it’s not irrational - it’s just grand.

At the outset, Airtable’s reporting capabilities are near-flatlined [today], and you want it to get to the next level. I think your use case – while perfectly rational – is out of reach in a practical sense and not just because of the security constraints.

In my view, data science use cases require viz-ready(i) data and Airtable is not the most agile aggregation platform to make that happen. So, even if you had advanced user permissions, the pathway to analytics would still be like hiking Angle’s Landing in a 30-knot crosswind.

Another aspect of this use case is the general fitness-of-purpose of Airtable itself. To create your grand vision you must test a number of deeper requirements to see if they fit the spirit of the platform. I’m not suggesting it wouldn’t be ideal for a single platform to be the perfect data collection and management tool with a higher purpose for running your business at an analytics level. Your vision may be grand, but it’s also ideal.

The trouble is, this use case has a lot of devils in the details and the permissions model deficiencies pale in comparison. There’s nothing about Airtable that evokes comfort about a “massive base”. :slight_smile: But let’s say you can squeeze everything into a base that you need to effectively craft KPIs and other metrics needed to operate a moderately complex business. You still need aggregations. Airtable has rollups, but these are rudimentary and weak; you need a far different level of aggregation technology the likes of ElasticSearch.

Overall, the vision is smart, but I get the sense that your expectations don’t really fit well without aggregation into something more suitable for revealing KPIs and analytics about a business.

I also hate to toss cold water on anything without at least offering an alternative strategy, so here’s one.

Executive Base + Custom Apps

  • Imagine a base for business analytics (only).
  • In that base, there might be a few tables that describe the analytics a collection of custom apps might render. It may also describe target users and reports/notifications that are processed with actions.
  • The executive base holds no critical or sensitive data about the analytics.
  • The custom apps describe the security context based on each user’s identity (this is very secure and difficult to breach).
  • Any user could be shared into this “executive” base but only users you designate through the underlying custom apps would be able to see each KPI/metric/conversation/report.
  • The custom apps are responsible for aggregating the data from many other bases/tables.
  • The custom apps are also responsible for rendering KPIs, metrics, and data visuals using Vega and perhaps D3.
  • The custom apps are able to provide conversations between authenticated users keeping sensitive data and discussions well sequestered.

This vision is well within reach of Airtable today. It may not be financial practical for every business using Airtable, but it is ready and quite easily implemented (i.e., no technical showstoppers).

(i) viz-ready: data that has been aggregated to a level where rendering is the last step.

2 Likes
#270

This is a really tough requirement. Currently every collaborator in an Airtable base can instantly and quietly copy all the data in the base. Airtable could change this to make it harder to copy a base.

However, preventing people from printing screens is unrealistic, and Airtable could not prevent it.

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#271

We also really need some more nuanced user permission levels. It’s a big risk to our data if the admin does not have the ability to lock records certain. At the very least, having an editor level permission minus “delete” ability would be an improvement.

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#272

We really need to be able to have a user update rows but not create or delete rows in a base. It’s too easy to accidentally create a row, then you have to delete it. We can’t add more users until this happens. So now one person downloads to excel where other people update, and then the one person copies the data from excel back into Airtable.

#273

@Claudia_Berman You can prevent people from adding or deleting records using Table permissions. See this support article for more info.

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#274

THANK YOU! I completely missed that. I couldn’t find it in support, and I can’t believe I missed it in that tab.

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#275

Hello can’t we have a simple granular permission like only a person who created a row in a table can view it? i really like airtable but as it is i can not use it, i want my users to be able to view and edit only their own records. and not have to create a base or table for each user

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#276

No movement here then?

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#277

In 4 more years maybe

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#278

Bumping. Would love this feature.

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#279

Hi @Rose_K , wanted to bring your attention to the second largest thread in this community, second only to the “linked bases” feature request. The request is 5 years old, and while progress has been made in user permissions, no progress has really been made for advanced user permissions.

We’ve received two or three answers on how Airtable would like to take its time and do it right, and take our feedback in the meantime. But it’s been years since then, and not only have users suggested various ideas on how to achieve it, but other SaaS programs like Coda and Notion have already implemented them within these years. Some SaaS like Stacker and JetAdmin have even built entire products around Airtable which handles user permissions fantastically in the last 3 years. But users shouldn’t be paying $300/month for a basic neccesity like this - it should be baked into the product.

So the question on everyone in here’s mind is, is this something we should give up hope on? I’ve learned over the years as in many cases, anything other than a direct answer (e.g. specific plan in the current roadmap) would be equal to saying “yep, it’s not in our plans now” :frowning:

Last sliver of hope from when I’ve started following this thread from 2017.

3 Likes
#280

A month goes by without a reply from @Rose_K or the Airtable team. Very sad to see

1 Like