Disposable Views

[dk82734]

Many times, I need to create a view for someone else to consume.  It's usually a short-term request.  Over weeks or months or years, we end up with a ton of "stale" views -- views that are never used by anyone ever again.  It's a pain to go through a manually purge those views.  Instead, what if...

* When you create a view, you're given the option to set an EXPIRATION TIMESTAMP (sort of like a time-to-live TTL) on a view?

* Then, when the TTL expires, Airtable automatically *deletes/purges* the view?

* As a bonus, maybe perhaps 1 week before the TTL expires, send a REMINDER EMAIL to anyone who has accessed the view in the past?

* If some DOES access the view within that 1 week, then Airtable automatically EXTENDS the TTL out like another 30 days?

* Of course, provide creators with an option to turn OFF the TTL if need be, but allow them to keep it in place for views that are rarely accessed (if ever).

* Lastly, if a view gets accessed via an API call, then by default the TTL should be cleared (if set accidentally).

[kuovonne]

This is an interesting idea. You've mentioned some of the issues that would need to be worked out, and there may be other issues to thing through. One of my issues is that I am very, very bad at deciding on how long a thing should be kept before automatic deletion. I believe that Airtable has implemented maximum lifespans for other things like webhooks that expire after 7 days.

In the meantime, here's a few things I do to workaround the situation.

- If I'm the only one who will use the view, I use a generic "sandbox view" and just recycle the same three sandbox views.
- If someone else needs to use the view, I put the view in a section dedicated to the project. When the project is over, I know I can delete all views in that project section as part of closing out the project.
- If the view is only for someone else, I reassign the view as a personal view of the other person.

[Alexey_Gusev]

A kind of described feature implemented as Insights existing at Business and Enterprise plan. Views to remove sorted by idle time, so it's easy to bulk-checkbox and delete desired part.

[dk82734]

@Alexey_Gusev , the problem is that you're still requiring some sort of Airtable administrator to have to manage all the stale views. To solve this problem at scale, Airtable needs an automated mechanism to make it *easy* for view authors to auto expire their own content. Forcing manual work on (likely) a single user is just asking for the stale data to pile up. This is just one of many "tech debt" issues that needs to be easier to manage.

> One of my issues is that I am very, very bad at deciding on how long a thing should be kept before automatic deletion.

^ @kuovonne , agreed.  The default time limits need to be configurable -- either at the workspace or base level.

[kuovonne]

@Alexey_Gusev I personally don't like the fine print on the enterprise insights idea of an unused view. It appear to consider a view to be unused if a human had not opened it in the user interface.

But there are many other views that need to stay in existence, even if a human never looks at it directly. In addition to the list in your screen capture, I suspect that views used to limit records in linked record views are not considered “used”. 

Plus, clicking into a view to see what the heck it is, counts as “using” the view.

I think that the enterprise unused views insights could be useful in and is a step in the right direction, but is not yet at a point where I would fully trust it without examining each view individually.