This is HUGE!

Thank you Airtable team

I am confused about the interaction between interface access and user pricing. If I want someone to be able to view and edit and interface, but not the underlying base, do they still need to be a (paid) Base Editor? or is there a new user type Interface Editor that has a different cost?

The developer community is confused over what the term “app” now refers to. Can you clarify which one of the following it is?

• App = A base, its (Airtable) automations, and its Interfaces



• App = A collection of Interfaces



• App = A singular Interface

Thank you for letting us know about all these wonderful new features.


Thank you also to all the developers that made this possible!

When interface designer was first introduced it was not clear if interface designer would remain available to all users (including free users) once the beta was over. This announcement sounds like Interface Designer will be available to all users, but granular access permissions will be limited to Pro and Enterprise. Is this correct?

Hi Kuovonne — thanks so much for the kind words to the team (especially our awesome developers)!

That’s correct — Interface Designer will continue to be free, but granular permissions in Interfaces are available to Enterprise and Pro only.

Thanks @Jean_Francois_Bodin! Excited to be able to share these new updates with you all.

I have a CRM for an non profit organisation with 800 people in it. In an ideal world, I would pay a fixed fee to have the option to let those people edit their own data (or as a president for a local chapter, the data of his/her members). Same for clients or suppliers. It’s no option to pay for all of them, so they can edit x fields.

@Kamille_Parks - great question!

An app is any software that performs a specific function to automate or scale workflows. That can look differently depending on your workflow in Airtable. At a high level, we see an “app” as the full workflow you’ve built in Airtable. This includes a data layer which is the data in your base, logic set up for that data which can be done via automations, formulas, scripting, and more, and an interface for your team to interact with that app.

An interface is not an app, but it is the way that your teammates interact with your app. We’ll go further in depth in our AMA later this month!

Does this mean that if I have a Pro base, I can only share my interfaces with Pro users that are members of my workspace?

In other words, if I want to share my Pro interface containing granular permissions with another person, do I need to pay for another Pro license?

I would obviously prefer to be able to share my interface without having to pay for potentially hundreds of other Pro accounts when they will only log in once or twice per year to review their data. If I need to pay for that many Pro accounts, this is not something that would be economically viable for me and I suspect most other users. I understand Airtable’s logic if that’s the case, but I can also see a significant benefit to Airtable to having hundreds of free Airtable accounts set up to access my Pro interface, as each of these free users would be introduced to Airtable, and has the potential of becoming a paying customer.

Thanks.

I shared an interface with my secondary account as an Interface-only Editor. That account shows up as a billable collaborator in my workspace settings, but as expected the user cannot see the base only the interface.

So yes, sharing the interface does not get around paying for editing priveleges per user.

I’m in full agreement. I think the pricing plans should have some batch pricing for Interface-only users. And not just a handful at a time.

Thank you for all of these updates - I cannot wait to explore!

For the Interface Designer updates, now when a currently selected record gets filtered out of the a view, the Interface shows this:

Previously, when the selected record gets filtered out, it would stay in the “enlarged detail view” but would disappear from the list on the left.

Is this new behavior intended? Based on our existing workflows, this new behavior is very disruptive because I needed to continue to make changes to the record after it got filtered out.

I think I know the answer to this one (and will be happy to be corrected by the Authorities if I am mistaken).

You asked,

Can I only share your interfaces with Pro members of my workspace?

There are multiple elements to this question.

• You can share an interface with anybody, regardless of whether they’re a member of your workspace.



• Sharing the interface however is not the same thing as sharing editor-level access to your data (which the interface may or may not provide full or partial access to). If you want the people who access your base to be able to create and edit records, they will need to have paid accounts.



• But that doesn’t mean that you have to pay for their accounts. You can pay for them, or they can use their own paid accounts.



• Or they can create their own free accounts, which means they’ll have read-only access to your interface.



• It appears to me now as a result of some quick testing I did this afternoon that access to a shared interface does require that the user have an account with Airtable. NOTE that this is not the case with a shared grid view or a shared form view.



• Be aware that it is possible for users to do some editing in Airtable without a paid account, by using a pre-populated form and a record-specific web link. This is of course a limited form of access to a specific record, but the fact that you can do this at all is one of Airtable’s brilliant features. (Can’t do this in FileMaker!)



• Or if your occasional “users” are really visitors rather than users, you can just share filtered grid views with them. I do this a lot. No account of any kind required.

One of the best things about Airtable is that it offers access to bases in various ways, some requiring paid accounts, but many not.

God, that’s just so disappointing If only we never saw the editable share url feature

Yayyyyy!!! I’m so excited!!! Congrats on getting these updates out rather fast since the initial launch of interfaces beta, AirTable! :partying_face: I’m so glad I stuck it out (well I did leave once and come back lol), felt like we were waiting ages just to get small updates with Airtable for a while but you guys have really turned things around these past couple of years. Now I’m just waiting on Interfaces for mobile, and then I will happily be able to say “Airtable for life!”

This was my first question as well.

These updates are amazing, but unfortunately interfaces are crippled for many use cases if we have to pay a subscription for every person who needs more than read-only access.

Also, unable to find this info anywhere

I tested this out and unfortunately the minute I added my fake user as an Interface collaborator (with Comment-only permissions) it added a collaborator to my account.

Extremely disappointing.

Would have made for a perfect customer portal…now I’m back to hunting for new apps.

Any chance Airtable is considering updating its pricing policies so Interface commenters/editors don’t hammer your billing will new users?

This would make for a great customer portal, but far too expensive to add dozens or hundreds of customers as paid collaborators.

It would be extremely great if Airtable add pricing for interface or app-only users (similar to Google Workspace Frontline)

Update: It appears that the jarring behavior described above only applies when the record gets filtered out of the view by an automation. If the record gets filtered out of the view by user action, then the following message appears at the bottom of the record:





A similar message appears in the record list on the left:

Is it possible to get this same behavior for records that become filtered by automation?

For a portal functionality, which is what we really asked for, it’s better to have a fixed pricing tier than to pay per user imo. Who wants to start paying whatever amount for 800 user for example? Maybe 750 of them only need to edit 2 fields in 1 year…

Thanks for the post Kelly. Lots of things happening!

I have some suggestions from my day-to-day users of must have features - We’re needing;

An Interface Button that connects to Extension Functions - such as an interface button that connects to the Print Button within the Base Extensions Page Designer App. My users want to be able to print from that app without leaving the interface. Currently, it’s only possible to access Extensions via the Base Extensions tab, which is costing them time and too many page clicks. It’s confusing, especially for new users where our desire is to keep them within an Interface.

Interface Filter Elements are missing “OR” operands.


If you compare the Interface Filter Element that controls a Timeline Element, to a Timeline View with the table filters, you’ll see the Timeline View has a complete feature set of And, Or, Grouped filters - whilst the Interface Filter Element is hardcoded with AND. It’s a deal breaker.

Lack of Colours, no dynamic colour changes - I can’t detail enough just how much of an impact colours make on visually impaired users, or new users needing colours to clarify regions within an interface. Null, grey and one colour simply doesn’t cut it. Make Interfaces tie in with the colours specified within Select and Multi-select fields please. I want an entire (or regions of the) interface to light up in RED when that records Select field has a red option selected.

Searchable Linked Record secondary fields - It’s great we can show multiple fields within the Linked View cards, but it’s very frustrating that these fields aren’t searchable! Currently, only the Linked Field primary field returns upon searching - but users are absolutely needing the ability to search for any field that’s deemed visible within the Linked Card.

More options for Text sizes, that are standardised for all fields - regardless of Link, Multiselect, Text, Rollup, Lookup - we need the same text display appearance options for all fields. Sometimes we want pillform, other times we just want bold large letters in italics. Interface designers shouldn’t be limited in the ways fields may appear on their interface, just due to the type of field being referenced.

That would be a role of commenter I think. But I do like to see pricing based on app maker / editor not on app user.

Editing to add: I am using a workaround, using the record picker to add quick changes for now, but it’s great to know this change is soon to follow. Looking forward to it. Thanks Airtable team. You guys are doing amazing!!!

OK so I’ve been working in my interface app for less than 20 minutes and I have already found a problem with my workflow. I made a central dashboard page where I can update tasks from without having to leave the dashboard. I also have a time tracking table linked to that task. I don’t like the fact that if I click the time tracking record (and I have “allow users to open record details enabled”), it takes me to a new page. I liked the fact that it would not open the record in a new page, but in a modal, like in the first pic. When I just want to enter a quick datapoint, this slows down my workflow significantly. Today, I will have to work in bases because of this. You guys should allow us to have an “open in a new tab” option, or “Open in modal” option (i prefer the latter). And now, after the update, if I go back and toggle “allow users to open record” off, when I try to click on the record it just doesn’t open up at all - it doesn’t go back to being a modal, like it was before. I can only edit the fields when I initially click the “add record” button to add a new time tracking record. Frustrating.

I’m just wanting to say an absolutely massive thank you to the developers for this. It has been so much fun playing with Interfaces and watching updates and feedback being implemented in real time. I am genuinely amazed at how quickly this has been released and we are so so grateful. :star_struck:

Obviously it’s not the finished product just yet, and there will be always more tweaks/updates needed. But this new functionality has already accelerated our organisation beyond what we could currently achieve, and this new platform design will absolutely slingshot us forward.

All of your hard work will be making a huge difference, so please pass on our appreciation.