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New: Updates make creating and collaborating easier in Airtable

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Don_McGray
Airtable Employee
Airtable Employee

Simplicity-Launch_EM_1200x600_v2

Hi all,

My name is Don and I’m a product marketing manager here at Airtable (for those of you I’ve had the opportunity to connect with already, hi again!).

I wanted to share that we’ve published a blog post today outlining many improvements and iterations we’ve made over the past months to make it easier to create and collaborate in Airtable.

For context, much of this work came from a desire to make our product simpler: A team of engineers, designers, product managers, writers, and well, marketers like me, have been spending time talking to our users about what frustrates or confuses them in Airtable. From there, we built a list of improvements we wanted to roll out to our customers.

And today, you’ll see much of that work in Airtable—some of these updates you may have seen already, and some are new, but we wanted to share them all in one place.

At this point, I’m guessing you’re ready to hear the updates:

  • Easy add with a single click, you can now easily add automations, views, extensions, and more.

Screen Shot 2022-09-22 at 12.09.35 PM

  • Quick groups make it easy to group your records by any field with a click, with some suggested grouped fields already present for you.

Screen Shot 2022-09-22 at 12.09.46 PM

  • Quick sort works the same as quick groups: Sort by any field in your base with a click.

Screen Shot 2022-09-22 at 12.09.52 PM

And there’s more:

  • Quickly add yourself as a collaborator: Now, you’ll appear as the first user in a dropdown so you can assign yourself tasks
  • Upload multiple attachments easily—a much-requested feature from the community
  • Search for specific fields in grid view
  • Use field IDs when configuring form URL share links
  • Open automation actions with a right-click
  • Easily locate field IDs in the field manager (@kuovonne and the team at Gap Consulting, who’ve both talked about workarounds to get this info before)
  • Improved collaborator autocomplete when typing comments on a record
  • Filter linked record IDs so you can sort by linked records (like “quarter” or “project”), @Jose_Martinez1 , I think you requested this one 🙂
  • Control-click/command-click a table to open it in a new tab
  • Check off completed records with a new “x” icon in the checkbox field—shout out to @ScottWorld for the inspiration on this one!
  • See more accurate error messages after uploading videos so you can take action

That’s a lot 😅 ! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Don

34 Comments
kuovonne
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

Oooh. This is nice. I must have missed the original announcement. I’m going to be using this a lot.

I think @Kamille_Parks noticed that the icon choices for checkbox fields and rating fields no longer are the same. Checkbox fields now have more icon choices than rating fields.

Can you remind me how to do this?

Is there a way to control the list of collaborators? For example, how does one remove a collaborator from the list? Since collaborator/user fields can now include users who do not have access to the base, it is harder to control the options that appear in the dropdown.

Kamille_Parks
16 - Uranus
16 - Uranus

The Checkbox field has always had more options than the Rating field if I recall correctly. Before, Checkbox had all the same options as Rating (star, heart, thumbs up, flag, and dot) plus a “ :heavy_check_mark: ”. Now Checkbox has all those plus “ :x: ”, so Checkbox has 2 more icon choices than Rating.

I would prefer if all the icon/color options were same. (Also if Interfaces respected the color choices, which they currently don’t)

WilliamPorter
9 - Sun
9 - Sun

Thanks for this. These look great. I’m pleased and excited to see these improvements keep coming. Great work, y’all.

Now, I want to give the devs special props for something. I actually started this reply to say thanks (of course) but also to complain that the Add More button may be a problem for my end-users and to ask if it could be removed for them. Then I thought perhaps I ought to test this before I make a fool of myself, so I logged into my other Airtable account where I have only editor privs, and lo and behold, the Add More button is hidden there. That’s brilliant and exactly right.

I apologize for ever doubting you. :winking_face:

ScottWorld
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

Oh wow, this is cool!

SeanKeenan
Airtable Employee
Airtable Employee

You can now directly Ctrl-V (windows) / Cmd-V (mac) into an attachment cell! Just have the cell selected and hit paste :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: .

It should also work if you’re trying to paste multiple attachments to a single cell!

Databaser
12 - Earth
12 - Earth

Not really following on this one…

Jean_Francois_B
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

Thanks @Don_McGray, you have been busy for the past 2 years :winking_face:

Is it me or this is also quite new for Automations token field selection/options “Grid of Records”:

Screen Shot 2022-09-27 at 11.22.58

ScottWorld
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

Oh right, I forgot to mention this too. Right-clicking on an automation action doesn’t do anything for me.

Don_McGray
Airtable Employee
Airtable Employee

Hi @ScottWorld, @Databaser: This one might be subtle enough that it’s easy to miss. Previously, if you right-clicked on an automation action, you’d see the browser menu (and not an Airtable menu). Now, if you right click on an automation action, you’ll be able to move the action, duplicate, or delete it.

If you’re not seeing this, please let me know and I’ll follow up with our team!

ScottWorld
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

Ah, I see! Yes, that’s the behavior I get! Thanks! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes: