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Nov 13, 2023 12:09 PM
Hi! Background info.... I have a number of clients whose information I have stored in an Airtable base. This information pertains to their upcoming meetings and information for them to prepare for those meetings.
Currently, I'm providing them with a 'share' link from specific views in the base so they can view their upcoming meetings on their computer and/or mobile device.
While the information translates fairly well to mobile, I'd like for it to be a little easier to view. Has anybody done this? Does Airtable have any 'mobile app' capabilities?
Hopefully that all makes sense! TIA!
Nov 13, 2023 01:38 PM - edited Mar 11, 2024 07:11 PM
Unfortunately, the mobile experience is not Airtable's key strength, so using Airtable's "shared views" (which is what you're already doing) is quite possibly the best option that you can get natively from Airtable.
However, in more recent news, Airtable just created 5 new interfaces that are more mobile-friendly.
But the 3 big problems with sharing interfaces are:
(a) All of your clients must create an Airtable account and log into Airtable to view the interface, and
(b) If you want your clients to be able to edit any information, you will need to pay for their accounts, and
(c) There is no privacy in Airtable when sharing interfaces. All of your clients will be able to see the names & email addresses of all your other clients. All they need to do is click on "Share" then "Manage Access", and they will see the full list of all your other clients — both names and email addresses.
So the best solution to ALL of these problems is to turn to an external portal app for Airtable.
A few of the leading customer portals are Noloco, JetAdmin, Softr, Pory, and Glide.
JetAdmin is probably the quickest portal to setup (although their customer support is weak), while Noloco is the most powerful & customizable portal with great customer support.
The CEO of Noloco gave a demonstration of his product on this Airtable podcast episode.
And I gave a brief tutorial of Noloco on this Airtable podcast episode.
I also presented a full one-hour webinar on Noloco called Building a Client Portal on Noloco powered by Airtable.
p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld
Nov 13, 2023 01:49 PM
I really appreciate your thoughts!
I actually looked at Softr a bit earlier today, but it seemed like it would still be a web address they would go to, the same as the share link... it would just be more 'mobile friendly' as far as viewing goes.
Would you say that's so, or is there more to it that I'm just not seeing yet?
Nov 13, 2023 02:20 PM - edited Mar 11, 2024 07:11 PM
Yes, that's right. They would still be going to a web address in their mobile web browser, but they would be getting a more mobile-friendly interface.