Hi there!
Welcome to the Airtable Community 👋 To understand how Airtable works, there are a couple of key concepts. Every Airtable base is composed of tables, records, fields, and views.
- Each table houses a unique type of information (accounts, opportunities, interactions, etc).
- Each record is a row of information within that table.
- Each field (column) is an attribute of the record and Airtable allows for many field types.
- Finally, Airtable allows you to create different views of each table so that you can see your information represented in ways that make the most sense for you.
There are 5 core concepts in Airtable that enable teams to simultaneously have 1) a single source of truth to track and manage information, and 2) be able to view that information in ways that are specific to them and their needs. The foundational concepts to understand within Airtable are how to group, filter, hide, sort, and link records to create custom views of your tables. By doing so, you can create your single source of truth. When getting started, it is also important to understand where to create new views vs. where to create new tables. In general, you want to create a new table for every unique type of information you track (projects, tasks, teammates, etc). You want to create new views when you want to see one of your tables organized in a different way. You can use the fields you create to apply different filters, groupings, coloring, etc. for your views.
Additional resources:
I know that's a lot of information, and I hope it's helpful for you as you get started with Airtable.
