Ability to *create* entity relationship diagrams

[Ryan_Watters]

There is already this feature request (forum URL plus “/t/request-entity-relationship-diagram/2490”) that asks for a visual representation of the different elements in a base, which would be great BUT also…

I’m trying to ditch my LucidChart subscription so that I can use Airtable for everything, but right now the ability to create ERDs (for content models for content strategy) is the one thing I still need LucidChart (or Visio) for. My job requires very large (e.g. 500k+ pages) site migrations, so not having visual representation of relationships between content types can make projects very difficult for everyone across our team to reason about.

I could see having something like “cardinality” or the more colloquial “crow’s foot notation” in column B to show the relationships between the content types listed in columns A and C. The visual presentation could come up in a block on the right-side panel. This is different from the above request, which shows the actual relationships between rows/items added to AirTable, whereas I want to be able to arbitrarily create this visualization and house it within a base with all my other project assets.

[John_Morgan2]

Hi Ryan

Did you get anywhere with this request? I would also like this function as I’m a visual person and I’m also using Lucichart for my ERD requirements.

[Ryan_Watters]

I did not yet. There is a way to show relationships within one of the apps, but it’s automatically generated. I’m guessing that you’re like me in that you want to show proper ERDs with cardinality/crow’s foot notation, etc. To my knowledge, this isn’t yet a feature. But seriously, how awesome would this be?

(FTR, I’m using Lucidchart for this feature as well. It’s one of only a few remaining use cases for what I do as a Content Strategist that I haven’t already moved to AirTable.)

[Ryan_Watters]

Oh, and @John_Morgan2, the “way to show relationships within one of the apps” I mention above is actually the schema app, which you can find here:

Airtable - Support

Base schema app

The base schema app visualizes your base by showing active relationships between its tables and their fields.  You can adjust which relationships you want to show in the settings.  Hovering over an...

[John_Morgan2]

Thanks for the reply Ryan. It’s very timely as I’m going live with my Etsy shop this weekend and I’m doing lots of work in Airtable to manually support the Etsy front end. I’m trying to get my head around Airtable sync as well at the moment and that’s where the ERD will help. I’ll continue with Lucidchart for now and have a look at the schema app. That may be enough for my purposes at this point.

Cheers

John