Allow Interface Share permissions to be set independently of Base permissions

[AlyWEV]

I created an interface that pulls from one table in my Base. With some of the demos I've seen on how interfaces can be used, I thought this would be a great way to display non-sensitive data via a public share link. Other tables in this base, however, do contain PII and cannot be shared with the public. So, after creating a lovely interface that seemed it would do exactly what was desired, I tried to share and found that I can only share with individuals who are signed in and have access to the base. Chat support let me know that the Base's permissions determine the interface's share permissions.

In my specific use case, I have a base that shows all the volunteers that work with my organization, including a table for their basic contact info, a table for their engagements with us, a table for touchpoints we have with them, and another table that holds all the categories of expertise for our volunteers. The interface is based on this last table, and is a record review that tallies the number of available volunteers with each area of expertise. The data on that table is fine to share publicly, but not data from the others.

Ideally, when building an interface you could choose how to share the individual interface without the whole base being set to public. Anyone with ideas of workarounds, I'm all ears!

[ScottWorld]

You have been given incorrect information, and it’s because Airtable has made this process highly confusing for everyone.

The truth of the matter is that you can absolutely share your interfaces with users WITHOUT giving them full base access.

But the reason this has been so confusing for everybody is because Airtable doesn’t explain to people that every single “Share” button in Airtable acts completely differently than all the other share buttons in Airtable.

There are dozens of different share buttons in Airtable, and they all do radically different things.

In your case, what you need to do is REMOVE your users from base access and workspace access first.

Then, after you are certain that your users have been removed from both base access and workspace access, then & only then can you go into your interface and use the “share” button on the interface itself.

The “share” button on the interface is what you need to use, but that will only give you the results you’re looking for if you use it AFTER you have removed your users from base access and workspace access.

And it’s so confusing because Airtable hasn’t made it clear that every share button in Airtable acts differently than all the other share buttons.

So the share button you want is the one on the interface itself, but it will only work the way you want it to work if your users have been removed from base access and workspace access first. 

p.s. If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld 

[TheTimeSavingCo]

Are you on a free plan?  If you're on a paid plan you can set base permissions and interface permissions independently.  Here's Airtable's guide on Interface permissions: https://support.airtable.com/docs/managing-and-sharing-interfaces

As a workaround, you could created a shared view of that last table?: https://support.airtable.com/docs/using-the-view-share-menu-in-airtable

That way they'd only be able to see the fields in that view and none of the other tables / fields

[AlyWEV]

Thanks all and my apologies, I think I was not explaining clearly. My goal here is not to share with Users, but to share publicly so anyone with the link can access without signing in. I have a beautifully designed Record Review type interface that I hoped to share, so it's not quite the same user experience as any of the Shared Views can deliver. Watching the demos, I was honestly under the impression that this was kind of the point of interfaces.

Update - the chat bot steered me wrong. I found out after trying its suggestion to create a base that has public share permissions that this also did not work. Digging deeper into the interfaces documentation, i found this note: Unlike share views, interfaces can only be shared with users who have a verified Airtable account.

And this is where I think a new feature is needed. Sharing interfaces via a link that is accessible publicly and without logging into Airtable would be ideal.

[ScottWorld]

Yeah, that is not currently possible with Airtable. You may want to look into Softr to create a public website that has Airtable as its backend.