Hello — looking to use Airtable to manage editorial workflows (including with freelancers/clients) for our content agency. I’ve experimented with the platform a bit but want to make sure the platform will work for our needs — and that we set it up correctly from the beginning so it’s easy for my coworkers to begin using it. Short summary below of what I’m trying to do (and also looking for best practices from a consultant who works with Airtable regularly). If it sounds like a fit, let me know — would love to talk. Thanks!
Basic setup:
(1) Should we put all clients in the same base (using a client field tag), or does it make more sense to create different bases for each client? There seem to be benefits and drawbacks to both approaches. I like the idea of having all clients in the same base so we can have a company-wide calendar view (doesn’t seem possible to have a calendar view across multiple bases). But we likely won’t use the same record structure for each client, so one base likely won’t work.
Custom workflows:
(1) Any way to set up workflow and alerts in Airtable (i.e. collaborator submits draft and editor gets an alert — via email or even Slack?
(2) Suggestions for how to retain published stories without cluttering our editorial workflow view (possibly as a separate view, filtered by “publish” tag?)
(3) Ways to create custom client-facing views to share our editorial calendars with clients (without letting them see all content/activity in the base)?
User/permissions:
(1) For freelancers: We assign out a lot of production to freelancers, who will only need occasional (and limited) access to Airtable. It seems to make sense to add them as read-only, but I’ve run into two problems: (a) they’re unable to @ mention editors, which means we can’t keep editorial conversations in Airtable; (b) they’re able to see everything in the base, not just the stories they’re tagged as a collaborator. Workarounds to either of these issues?
(2) For clients: On a few of our accounts, we occasionally work with clients in our CMS. They are able to read story drafts and make suggestions (SEO titles, etc.). They likely won’t access the system frequently so I’d rather not pay a premium user fee. And, similar to the freelancer access issue, I want to ensure that they can only see what we want them to see — not all of our client work across bases.
Other:
(1) Interested in popular integrations we might use, e.g. Slack (possibly with a third-party tool like Zapier)
(2) Smart suggestions about how to use base views (grid, Kanbasn, etc.)
Thanks!
derek@original9.com
