Sending Records to External Partners in a Confidential Base

[Ryan_Burke]

Hello - I am just getting set up with AirTable to manage my supply chain.

One of our partners requires advanced notice of any in-bound shipments, to include multiple attachments. I’ve created a Shipment Log table to accomplish this, where I can just click “send record”, enter their email, and they receive all of the pertinent info.

HOWEVER, the AirTable-generated email they receive has a “View in AirTable” link at the bottom. When anyone clicks this, it shows my entire base, which does include sensitive information such as pricing, other partners, internal comms, etc.

How can I send individual records to external partners without giving the option to view anymore than the specific record sent?

[Elliott_Nguyen · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ryan_Burke,

Welcome to the Airtable Community!

As an alternative method to sending one record at a time. May I suggest using views and view share links? How you could accomplish this by doing the following:

• Create a view designated for each partner
• Run a filter on each view that filters for records designated for the partner
• Hide any fields that may contain sensitive information
• Share the view using a view share link with the designated partner

By using this method, the partner with the specified view share link can have access to the records that are designated for them to see without fully accessing your base.

Hope that helps!

[Bill_French]

Elliott_Nguyen:

Create a view designated for each partner

Yep - I agree, this is the most ideal approach unless @Elliott_Nguyen has dozens or more partners.

In any database, if you can avoid copying data, the better. Ideally, you want to create virtualizations of your data and that’s what Airtable Views do really well.

A view for each partner is a practical solution until it’s not, right? If you don’t mind the added effort of creating and managing views for each partner, it scales indefinitely but I suppose there’s a practical limit for that as well - imagine a view selector that has 1,000 views to pick from. No human wants to do that.

[Moe]

Ryan_Burke:

can I send individual records to external partners

One of our extensions allows you to Share Public Link for Individual Airtable Record. So they can’t see anything other than the specific record that you sent.

[ScottWorld]

Also, for a very expensive (but highly customizable & extremely elegant) solution to this problem, check out Stacker. Each one of your partners can login and see only the records assigned to them (and only the fields that you want them to see).