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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
Mike_Wilson1
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Not that Iโ€™ve seen. I actually was just trying this again yesterday and didnโ€™t see that function.

Hendrik_Yang
9 - Sun
9 - Sun

Thanks for the info. And yes Iโ€™ve checked Stacker previously but the pricing for the functionalities I want is quite steep for our department.

Ron_Manke
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

I completely agree. Itโ€™s not priced to the market for my clientโ€™s applications.

Karlstens
11 - Venus
11 - Venus

A couple of things on my interface use.

  • The entire interface reloads for a few seconds after I start typing. Waiting it out is one thing, but my text entry location losing focus is a real pain. I keep my interface open the entire working day, and as itโ€™s a private base I donโ€™t understand the need for this loading routine that executes multiple times a day. Often I am on the phone entering information from that conversation but having to wait for the reload and reposition my cursor.

  • Could a method be added for a persistent note area, so that as I cycle through records, the persistent text area stays the same? Been thinking about this a lot lately. Itโ€™s like I need two side-by-side record views openโ€ฆ maybe I just do that in two different browser windows. :thinking:

Rune_Koldborg_J
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

I agree! Being able to publicly access these interfaces would be extremely beneficial. Letโ€™s hope as soon as itโ€™s coming out of beta that it will be available without an airtable account - and that a couple of these interfaces will be available on the free tier as well.

Avark_Web
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Stacker is way too expensive! If Airtables just allowed Interface designer to be used like how shared views are used. this would be awesome.

Ron_Manke
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Agreed!

Not sure why thatโ€™s the caseโ€ฆ

Rebecca_Elam
9 - Sun
9 - Sun

Looks like it might be closer. At least they said something about the go to base button going away.

Jose_Alberto_Fu
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

And now old apps are called extensions so interfaces could be the next no-code apps Airtable step.

Londya_E
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Hi,

I submitted a couple of bug requests for this this morning, but also wanted to post here just in case, because it is an urgent problem that needs fixing as it is interfering with the work I can do in AirTable today. The bug I am referring to is when you add a field to an interface page, the โ€œeditableโ€ button is selected but you can not edit the field. I tried to select โ€œView-Onlyโ€ to see if toggling it would make it work and it would not. So it seems the toggle is stuck on โ€œeditableโ€ and the field is not editable. Below is a screenshot of what Iโ€™m talking about. The top objective field is the field in question was added this morning. The bottom objective field was added yesterday before I experienced this problem and that is what the top field should look like. Please fix this ASAP. Iโ€™m unable to publish my interface pages Iโ€™m building without it. And I needed to publish them today! Please help.
interface bug