Help

Faster cell editing on mobile 📱

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Jordan_Scott1
Airtable Alumni (Retired)

I am excited to share that as of today you will notice some improvements to our mobile experience so that it’s faster than ever to update your data on the go. You can now edit individual cells in the grid view and make changes inline, without opening the entire record. This means you’re now just a tap or two away from updating text, selecting from a list of options, and more!

You can expect to see even more improvements to Airtable’s mobile experience over the coming year :partying_face: , so please drop your thoughts and feedback below!

Additional resources:

8 Comments
Hannah_Wiginton
10 - Mercury
10 - Mercury

Thanks for sharing, @Jordan_Scott1!
I’m so glad y’all have improved the mobile app this year!

Furst_Name
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

All of my bases target my mobile devices so any developments in this area are of interest to me. I noticed about 4 days ago that this “in line” editing/switching had suddenly activated… colour me happy.

ScottWorld
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

@Jordan_Scott1

This is a very welcome improvement for the mobile experience! :slightly_smiling_face: Thank you for adding this into the product!

However, the #1 biggest problem with mobile Airtable usage still remains:

Shared Views on mobile are “essentially unusable” because they don’t show the toolbar, so users can’t sort/filter/search/group/etc. when they’re using a shared view on mobile.

I know of 3 businesses who abandoned Airtable because of this limitation. If you’d like, I can give you their contact info so you can find out which platform they switched to.

I know that Airtable probably doesn’t care about losing 3 customers as much as I do since I just run a small Airtable consulting firm — but this is such low-hanging fruit & something that already works 100% properly on desktop & something that all users expect — that Airtable shouldn’t be losing ANY customers to such a trivial matter.

kuovonne
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

If you request the desktop site on the mobile browser, you can sort/filter in shared views. I find it strange and would like to be able to filter/sort without this workaround, but I thought I’d let you know it is possible.

ScottWorld
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

Yes, I know about that workaround and have guided dozens of people to that workaround in these forums, but it’s not a long-term solution because:

(1) A company can’t tell all of their customers to switch to desktop mode whenever they go to particular pages on their website.

(2) Everything on the screen gets shrunk down to unreadable sizes, so then your entire experience is scrolling & zooming.

kuovonne
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

I’m still getting used to the changes in cell editing on mobile. I used to hardly use the mobile app. Then when the app was updated to have “Recently Opened” bases at the top, I started using the mobile app every day, multiple times per day. I wish there were a way to “favorite” bases in the mobile app, so when I open the other random base, bases wouldn’t drop off the lists.

Much of the time when I’m using the mobile app, I’m recording a start/stop time. When I edit a date/time field from the expanded view, I get a nice clear “Done” button in the upper right corner of the date picker. However, when I edit the date/time field from the grid view, I get a small “x” in the same corner. I wish the interfaces were consistent.

I wish the date/time picker behavior matched the date/time picker on the computer. On the computer, if the field is blank, clicking the cell brings up the date/time picker, but does not enter a value if I close the picker without selecting a date/time. On mobile, if the field doesn’t have a value, simply opening the date/time picker and closing the picker sets the field to current time, even if I didn’t explicitly select a time. If I want to close the picker without setting the date/time, I have to tap “clear”. I also wish there was a “now” choice that was always enabled if the field shows a time (versus “today”).

I also have one base that I tend to use on both mobile and computer, but I always use different views on the different devices. I wish that the mobile app would remember it’s view, and not always switch to whichever view I last used on the computer.

ScottWorld
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

These are great suggestions, and I have all of the same desires!

Peter_de_Leeuw
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Hi Scott, here I am with my very similar item.

I have a group of people that do not need an access to the database (in fact, I dont want them to have) but I want them to be updated on results after certain actions, like new data entry by forms.

I have created a grid view that sorts, filters and groups the data.
For me it is enough if the people can see the view on their mobile devices just like I configured the view.
They do not necessarily need to be able to resort or to filter.
But the view that is shared by a link does not look like my view. In particular, the entries are not grouped.
Using the same link on a PC shows the view exactly like I want it, and if I open the view on my mobile device as a registered person, again everything is ok. The problem ONLY occurs if I follow the link, do not login, and use the mobile device.

Best
Peter