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Apr 21, 2018 06:22 AM
How would you approach representing a sitemap in Airtable?
I can see how using a select field would help me denote different types of pages.
But how can I overcome the fact that a sitemap is essentially a hierarchical construct?
Thanks, all.
Apr 21, 2018 07:55 AM
Off the top of my head,
[Pages]
table where each record represents an eventual entry in the sitemap.{PageTitle}
, {URL}
, {Category}
, and the like.{NextPage}
and a {SubPage}
linked-record field, linking back to the [Pages]
table — that is to say, linking back to their own table.Most records would have a value assigned to either {NextPage}
or both {NextPage}
and {SubPage}
. If only {NextPage}
was linked, the next record in the map would be at the same hierarchical level as the current one; if both were linked, the following entry in the map would be the page linked from {SubPage}
at the next-lower hierarchical level. Following that would be a number of {NextPage}
-only records at the sub-level; when a record with neither appears, the next map entry would be the {NextPage}
from the last record encountered with both fields linked.
Now, as to what you actually do with all these data once you’re finished — well, that’s a different question.
Apr 21, 2018 07:56 AM
If your on the Pro plan, you could use the “Org Chart” Block to create a visual hierarchical site map.
To do this, you’d need a “Parent Field” that is a link to other records in the same table.
Here’s an Org Chart I made for example:
https://airtable.com/shriXPNMNeYSMQZJB/tbleZdX8PHmnzI5fk/viwi6C6m32GFdZT3c
Apr 21, 2018 11:43 AM
@Jeremy_Oglesby Thanks for the Org Chart suggestion.
Ideally, I was hoping also/instead to represent in a hierarchical tree-like form. There are already several threads advocating a hierarchical feature.
On Org Chart…
If if can be used to show this sort of top-down visual hierarchy like a family tree, then the name Org Chart is a bit limited.
More so… I know Airtable gave everyone a free trial Pro account when it launched Blocks. I didn’t have a need for any of them, so didn’t use it, and it naturally expired. It would have been more useful had the company left the initiation of a Pro upgrade trial up to me as a user. Now that my trial has expired, I’m loathe to put down $240 without having even used the feature.
Apr 21, 2018 11:51 AM
Thanks, W_Vann_Hall.
Hmm, I’m not understanding this would work, however.
Maybe it’s not right.
Apr 21, 2018 12:47 PM
@Jeremy_Oglesby
I’m now trying out Org Chart with some credit I built up.
It’s pernickety, like Airtable clearly wasn’t built for this.
And the lack of a Print option for the Org Chart is not very useful!
Apr 21, 2018 01:35 PM
:pensive: sorry - I got around some of the issues by creating dummy records to serve as divisions between sections. It’s worked fairly well for representing people in company divisions.
I never had the need to print mine, so I didn’t know there’s no option to print it… that is a bit frustrating.
Jul 01, 2019 10:31 AM
Hi @Robert_Andrews1, I came across your post and wanted to share our template for a site map that uses the org chart. Hope it may be helpful!
May 29, 2020 04:03 PM
You could create a single table for all the vertices of your site. In that table create a parent field so each record could point to its up level. Then create a path field to hold the whole item hierarchy. This will allow you to filter and order the items using the path field.
The only way I found to fill out that path field was through Airtable API with a script. The gif below is an example of a multi-level project tree.
If you found that promising, I wrote a post detailing that API approach and also open-sourced and provided free access to a hobby app to do that.