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Introducing Interface Designer ๐ŸŽ‰

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Jordan_Scott1
Airtable Alumni (Retired)

We are excited to announce that as of today, the Interface Designer beta is open to everyone, which means you will now be able to create interfaces right from your bases, no code required.

What is Interface Designer exactly? Interface Designer lets you build visual and interactive interfaces using your baseโ€™s underlying data. By creating custom interfaces for your stakeholders, you can isolate the information thatโ€™s critical to them and none of the other details. This makes it tremendously easy to understand the status of a project and whatโ€™s required from whom. Jump right in or keep reading for a comprehensive round-up of everything youโ€™ll need to get started, plus information about a few other features youโ€™ll start seeing after today :tada:

Before we go into more details, make sure to mark your calendars for the next Airtable Community AMA on December 1, with Product Manager JB Bakst, where weโ€™ll dive into all things Interface Designer.

Common Questions

What are some of the common use cases for interfaces?

Interfaces can be used for just about anything, but some of the popular use cases weโ€™ve seen so far include dashboards to view aggregated information & metrics, summaries to view key information about a project, record summaries for research insights, and record triage for things like customer feedback or campaign asset reviews - we canโ€™t wait to see what you come up with next!

What permissions are required to create an interface?

Creator and owner permissions on the base youโ€™d like to build an interface for.

If I share an Interface with another individual or team, can they see the underlying data?

For now, interface access requires you to have base access. So yes, anyone you share an interface with will have access to the underlying data.

When should I use Interface Designer vs. Page Designer (or another feature?)

Some key distinctions that Interface Designer offers:

  • Dynamic & interactive
  • Can share data from multiple tables within a base side by side
  • Easy to onboard collaborators without needed to teach them how to use the Base or fear that they may edit the wrong thing
  • Filter records based on the collaborator viewing the interface

Page Designer is ideal for instances where you need to provide a non-editable view of static information during a specific moment in time. One example is if you need to deliver a presentation or want to create a PDF.

Resources to help you get the most out of Interface Designer:

Guides:

Support Articles:

Videos:

Want more great news? We didnโ€™t stop there, take a look at all the other fun features you can expect to see starting today as well.

Enhanced features for admins:

Youโ€™ll notice a slick redesign of the Admin Panel, created to be more user-friendly. Next, weโ€™ve added significant new security controlsโ€”like Audit Log APIs and workspace share restrictions. And finally, weโ€™ve improved base performance across the board, making your largest bases more responsive than ever before.

Additional power for your workflows:

And finally, weโ€™re proud to share new integrations to help you bring more data into Airtable, and improvements to automations.

Weโ€™ve updated our automations interface to make it even more intuitive, with easy-to-read modals. Now itโ€™s easier to set up a new automation with a fancy full-screen mode, and a handy guide that will walk you through every step of the process. Weโ€™re also starting to beta test conditional logic, which allows users to trigger automations only when certain conditions are met.

And last but not least, weโ€™re adding new integrations for external source syncs from our partners at Zendesk, Github issues, and Google Driveโ€”available to all customers on Enterprise plans.

176 Comments
Paul_Warren1
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

This is incredibly good news!! The lack of meaningful permission features is the biggest collaboration pain point in Airtable! It is the primary reason we had to par-back our use of Airtable and eventually led to the death of our airtable tool. So excited to hear more!! :drooling_face: :drooling_face: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Cameron_Kaiser
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

This is an excellent addition to Airtable - well done! I spent a bit of time drafting one up and I can already think of so many ways interfaces will help streamline workflows. Interfaces are simply more intuitive than row-based processing for most people; I think a lot of people at my company are going to be very happy with this!

Allen_Moldovan
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

Hi Jordan,

Is a form element for interfaces on the roadmap? I would love to see some native functionality which accomplishes similar data validation as that demoed within Kuovonnes previously posted interface video.

egordin
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

Congratulations to the entire Airtable team. This is a HUGE release and Iโ€™m so excited about it.

I have a few questions:

  1. Will there be a separate Interface Designer forum category where we can ask questions and submit feedback?
  2. How do we participate in the conditional/branching logic beta test? I didnโ€™t see that in my current automations.

Thanks again to the Airtable team for all of the hard work to get us here!

Nathalie_Collin
9 - Sun
9 - Sun

Can we share outside our circle of paid members? Or is that what this is intended for?

Jordan_Scott1
Airtable Alumni (Retired)

Hi @Allen_Moldovan :wave:

Thank you for the feedback! We are exploring lots of different elements we could add to Interface Designer over time - including views and forms - so stay tuned for more updates to come.

Allen_Moldovan
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

Hi Again,

Thanks for the quick response and transparency! Iโ€™m looking forward to seeing what the team comes up with. Iโ€™ll be hawking the announcements category!

Jordan_Scott1
Airtable Alumni (Retired)

Hi @ScottWorld :tada:

Right now, you can access elements like Record list from the layout that is built to support that workflow. As we continue to build this feature, weโ€™ll provide more flexibility in how you can set up your interfaces to make sure you can build exactly what you need! Lots of exciting updates coming :slightly_smiling_face:

Abraham_Bochner
8 - Airtable Astronomer
8 - Airtable Astronomer

How can I get access to "beta for adding branching logic to an automationโ€™s actions

kuovonne
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

Hereโ€™s another sample interface that I built for viewing and editing data across three linked tables, including adding and deleting linked records.