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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
Vasilis_Siranid
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Hi there!

Is there any way to delete a record from an interface?

Thank you

ScottWorld
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

Hi @Jordan_Scott1,

While itโ€™s cool for newbies to discover interfaces by always placing Interfaces at the very top of their Airtable Home Page (i.e. above all workspaces), I would actually much prefer to have the Interfaces section draggable & moveable on the home page, just like we can move workspaces wherever we want.

I work with tons of different client bases, so as my clients have started publishing all these new interfaces for themselves, all of their published interfaces are now cluttering up my home page by pushing down all of my most important workspaces & bases much lower on my home page.

This is not desired behavior, because it makes the experience of working with Airtable much less user-friendly.

My most important workspaces & frequently-accessed bases used to be at the very top of my home page, but now all of my workspaces & bases have been pushed down much further on the page, off the page completely, beneath all of my clientsโ€™ published interfaces!

This requires me to constantly need to scroll to get to the very things that I use the most frequently. Sure, I can click on my workspaces in the left margin to help me scroll down to my workspaces, but this is still an extra step, and it still places my workspaces off-screen. These things used to be right at the top of my screen.

This is not desirable behavior for me, because I donโ€™t have a reason for everyoneโ€™s interfaces to be at the top of my screen at all timesโ€ฆ I need my most important workspaces & bases to be at the top of my screen at all times.

However, all of this also calls into question the organization of Interfaces in generalโ€ฆ it doesnโ€™t necessarily seem like it makes a lot of sense for all the Interfaces from all the bases to be grouped together in a separate โ€œInterfacesโ€ sectionโ€ฆ it seems like they should be grouped with the base/workspace from which they are interacting with.

p.s. I should add that my bases are viewed as a grid, not a list. If I change it to a list, things are slightly better because I only have to scroll down one page instead of multiple pages, but really no scrolling should be necessary as all. This entire Interfaces placement needs to be completely rethought by Airtable.

Paul_Warren1
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

Agreed. It seems like icons for Bases could have an โ€œexpandโ€ feature that reveals all of the associated Interfaces.

ScottWorld
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

This is really the perfect idea!

Bill_French
17 - Neptune
17 - Neptune

I think thereโ€™s a deeper issue lurking inside your comment. It suggests you are storing different clientโ€™s financial data in multi-tenancy - i.e., all clients in the same base if not in the same tables. The risk, of course, is data leakage between clients and that โ€“ in the accountancy profession โ€“ is a big red flag.

The possibility for data leakage impacts all sorts of things from local and federal compliance issues to legal and liability issues. Most insurers will refuse to pay any liability claims if the architecture is multi-tenancy without segregated schemaโ€™s and discrete security contexts. This is usually stated in the fine print of the policies.

Fundamental to this architecture โ€ฆ

  1. Each client has a registered schema
  2. Infrastructure code sets the active schema
  3. Any application instance has a connection pool per schema

As to #1, this is tantamount to a separate base at the very least, and even this might not be enough segregation.

#2 and #3 are almost impossible to achieve with Airtable unless you create a custom front end or maybe use Stacker to abstract the clients from the data at rest.

Paul_Warren1
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

I have to agree with @Bill.French. I hope none of your clients are on this forumโ€ฆ

Furst_Name
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Pretty well cancels out any potential for HIPAA certification.

Bruce_Halliburt
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

This feature is just what Iโ€™ve been waiting for - thank you Airtable Team!

One request: Please make it possible easily move around the columns in a grid view inside an interface like you can in a normal grid view. Currently, you have to add fields to the visible list in the right order, which is a little annoying. For example, I may want to move a field from the 5th column in the Grid View to the second column.

Keep up the good work!

WilliamPorter
9 - Sun
9 - Sun

WHAAAAAT :exploding_head: :heart_eyes: :star_struck: Iโ€™m DM-ing for beta!

Arenโ€™t we all already using the beta? :slightly_smiling_face:

WilliamPorter
9 - Sun
9 - Sun

If you provide a Grid in your interface, user can select one or more records and then right-click near the field-selection box and pick โ€œDelete Selected Recordsโ€ from the contextual menu.

You can I think do it with an automation as well. (I saw a video made by @Kuovonne where she appeared to be doing this.)