How to add a new record from an interface?

[Miguel_Montalvo]

Hello,

I am really thrilled with exploring the features of this new and game-changing Airtable functionality. I think it would be super useful to my team which deals with hundreds of social media posts per month created and edited by several of our departments.

To give this a go, I started by creating an interface which would help our education department organize their programs and link social media requests to records another table - I already have all that setup. Where I am stuck on, is on the ability of creating a new record from the interface itself (i.e. create a new upcoming program from the interface where I am browsing the programs). I cannot find an element such as “add new record” or for that matter “delete record”. Do we have to go back to the regular grid-views to add or delete records? That sounds a bit convoluted…

I am loving the new feature and I understand that it is in Beta, but I really want to use it to its fullest and would love any suggestions, or if we could add that functionality for the full version.

Thanks so much!

[Justin_Barrett]

Welcome to the community, @Miguel_Montalvo! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes: @kuovonne covered the currently-available options in the announcement thread when this same question was asked:

Introducing Interface Designer :tada: Announcements

Ways to create a new record: in a grid view, the same as a regular grid view (assuming that the filtering allows it) from a linked record field itself (but not in a grid view based on the linked record field) from an automation triggered by a data change in the base There is no native form view in Interfaces. All data entry needs to be tied to an existing record.

[Heirtable]

Yes I agree. As nice as Interfaces are they just let you look at records. If you’re going to add something like this it seems natural that users would want/expect a way to ADD new records in the interface. Without it the whole thing seems stunted. And I don’t mean adding via some convoluted script – I mean natively adding records in an interface.

Did it not occur to the product managers that this would be key functionality??

[Karlstens]

With enough user cases feedback to Airtable Support via feature request, I’m sure they’ll add it relatively soon.

[Joe_Hewes]

I guess the issue to consider is when you are looking at many different data areas on one screen how would the user know which table the new record would be added to.

Could become very confusing very quickly with a global control, if when clicked the new record was not added to the area they expect.

In a large amount of cases the new record would require a set amount of data preinserted to stay on screen (for linked or filtered grids for example).

Not saying there isn’t any scope for a new record button, just these points need to be considered.

[Nj85]

I think would be great if they would add a new record element (button) that you could map to the specific table and specific fields.
That way you could put multiple new record buttons on the same interface in different areas.

[Karlstens]

Yah, further to a “new record” button, would be handy to have record navigation buttons too, such as previous, next, first and last. Also the ominous delete record button too.

Be cool if designers can either place the buttons separately, either as small or large, and also perhaps have a navigation tool-bar widget too, where all the buttons are placed together into a more defined/efficiently spaces area.

[joelgabauer]

Although not ideal, you can create a text field and hyperlink it to a form that creates a new record in the base you are in.

[Justin_Park]

I am just here to place my vote for add a new record functionality in Interface Designer. Then you can use these element to create essentially a custom form. The Interface Designer is sweet but without this function it feels half-done :pray:

[Justin_Barrett]

Justin_Park:

I am just here to place my vote for add a new record functionality in Interface Designer.

With a little work (including a little script), this is completely doable using the current setup. Inspired by one of the demos that @kuovonne shared in the announcement thread, I’ve added such functionality to interfaces in two of my bases already, and it’s been a huge help. Granted it’s a little hacky, but it’s not nearly as deep of a hack as some of my solutions from a couple of years ago. :slightly_smiling_face: I’m thinking of putting together a short walkthrough of the process and sharing the automation script that I wrote—which only needs minor tweaks when installing in any base—but that’ll have to wait for this weekend I’m afraid.