Product Update: Improvements to Base Navigation

[Rotimi_Iziduh]

Hi everyone!

I’m Rotimi Iziduh and I’m the product manager working on various Core Surfaces here at Airtable. I’m super excited to share a set of upcoming updates that make the in-base experience easier to navigate, and improve the discoverability of the automations and interfaces features. Specifically, we are introducing a new top navigational structure that contains the below three tabs:

• Data: This is the default starting point of the old experience. As before, it is where you will review and edit the various tables and views that contain your data
• Automations: This provides easier access to automations that trigger various actions based on your underlying data
• Interfaces: This gives quick access to a visual layer to turn your underlying data and automations into apps that are tailored to your unique workflows

To illustrate this, here’s a quick before and after snapshot:

Before:

After:

We’re excited to launch these improvements and please keep an eye out for more exciting updates across your favorite Airtable surfaces!

Thanks,
Rotimi

These updates will be rolled out to 100% by end of day tomorrow. If you aren’t seeing these changes reflected, please try clearing your cache.

[Hendrik_Yang]

You nailed it! :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: It seems to me that Airtable just blindly chase Enterprise customers without caring other plans. It doesn’t follow its motto of democratizing database.

[ScottWorld]

Jean_Francois_Bodin:

It’s like having access to the airport’s lounge as a Business class passenger but when you visit the buffet, the cookie jar is for First class passengers only

Lol, great analogy! :grinning_face_with_sweat: Airtable is probably the most disrespectful tech company I have ever dealt with in my entire life.

[johnnydecimal]

Hey there @Rotimi_Iziduh, can I add one piece of feedback?

In the new bar we now have a permanent ‘Insights :sparkles: ’ tab. When I click it, it helpfully suggests that I ‘Upgrade to Enterprise Plan to get insights…’

There is zero chance I, or the vast majority of people, are ever going to upgrade to your Enterprise plan. Primarily because I’m not a massive company that employs thousands of people.

So now I just have to look at this button until the end of time. This is really poor UX. Please give me some option to make this button go away.

[Jack_Chan]

Do you know if there are any plans to allow users to export the Manage Fields view? What I want to do is capture how each field is currently designed – saves a lot of documentation!

[ScottWorld]

@Jack_Chan

You might want to check out On2Air: Schemas:

On2Air | Airtable Apps for Your Business Operations – 19 Apr 22

On2Air: Schemas | On2Air

On2Air Schemas is an Airtable app to visualize your Airtable base design on a diagram and track history on meta-data changes.

[Angelena_Zeiser]

How do I submit a feature request? My table is grouped by field and it’s a pain when manually adding new records, the record alignment doesn’t stay at the bottom until a user has it entered at some point. Also the back button in Manage Fields should be directly underneath and not all the way to the left.

[Karlstens]

Good morning everyone,

@marks - Could you speak with the team to have that Field ID return via the search results? Often when writing an Automation, if it fails and the log returns the failed Field ID, I have to search for that manually.

It would be great if we could just paste the failed field ID into the search and have the field in question returned;

Note how searching (as per above screenshot) for a field ID, it fails to return anything.

[WilliamPorter]

Angelena_Zeiser:

How do I submit a feature request?

Go here:

Product Suggestions

Drop product suggestions and ideas here.

My table is grouped by field and it’s a pain when manually adding new records, the record alignment doesn’t stay at the bottom until a user has it entered at some point.

Create another view specifically for creating new records, and configure that view so that it does NOT group records. Simple as that.

I usually have a view called “New and Recent” that is filtered on the Creation Date, so that it shows records created (say) today or yesterday. I move it near the top of the views list and train users to go to that view to create new records. This view is NOT grouped.

Also the back button in Manage Fields should be directly underneath and not all the way to the left.

Hmmm. Not sure I agree with you there. This is one of those UI/UX problems that must be solved, but which don’t have any one solution that is clearly best. That said, when I want to go back — in any app, on my phone or my computer — I tend to look to the left side of the display for a button. (On my Samsung phone the < button is at the bottom on the right, so that’s an exception that I’ve gotten used to.) In any case, if they move the Back button underneath “Manage fields” (where I am guessing you’d like to see it), then people will complain that it’s not in the upper left area. They can’t win on this one, and ultimately some of us just have to learn where it is and get used to it. :slightly_smiling_face:

But note: If you’re done working in Manage fields and want to go back, just click Manage fields again. It’s a toggle!

William

[Jeremy_Martin]

Thanks, I suppose that is what I’ll have to do.

Before the previous automation release, there was a final step to make a change live (can’t remember what it was called) after you had tested it. It would have been great to have that functionality again.