Link to other base

[John_Bacino]

So happy that someone finally filled the void left by Dabble DB.

One of the features I found most useful there, but can’t seem to do in Airtable, is linking to entries in another Base. Often, one will have multiple bases which handle distinct aspects of a business or project, but in which one piece of data overlaps.

Example: A political campaign may want Bases for contacting voters, managing events, and recording donations. Those are distinct domains which need their own Bases, but which could benefit from linking parts of them together. For example, it would be great to link donations to the event they occurred at, or voters to donations, or record who attended each event.

In Airtable at present one has to either cram all of those bases into one, or foregoe the linkage which makes this software so great. It may seem like a small thing, but once you can link bases, the sky is really the limit.

[Tuur]

I’ve used the second option in multiple cases.

Until there’s a native solution it works fine. :slightly_smiling_face:

[Vernon_Fowler]

Is the second option, duplicating a base, just taking a snapshot though and the data is out of date as soon as the original base is worked on? Or have I missed something?

I’d like to be able to link to a source base as part of a redaction workflow to update my Airtable Universe base on demand. Anybody have a semi- or fully automated way to repeat the redaction process?

[Tuur]

You’re right. I’ve automated replication for AT clients.

Drop me a PM in case you’re interested. :slightly_smiling_face:

Best,

Arthur.

[HammerOz]

But you can’t have used option 2. Well not as I meant it as I was proposing a native solution / feature. It involves the duplicated base not replicating data. Rather it would be an instance of that base or view of that same base.

Can you explain your use cases? Cheers

[Tuur]

It is a web service that (among other things) replicates data. I’ve been using it for clients in multiple scenarios. Like:

• Moving historical data to a safe read-only base (1-way)
• Communication between a centralized base and individual sales rep bases (2-way)
• Communication between a centralized base and project bases (2-way)

The first scenario makes sure no one accidentally changes e.g. invoice data. The second option is primarily for data separation per-user. The last one enables different user groups and data separation per-project.

The 2-way communication ranges from updating simple things (leads, appointments, sales, notes, etc.) back and forth to complete project management (possibility to create new products in every base with centralized validation, inventory, purchase orders, etc.).

Does this help? :slightly_smiling_face:

Best, Arthur.

[HammerOz]

Yes thanks, good to know

[Elliot_Ley]

+1 for being able to link tables in different bases!

[Avi_Doe]

Dear Airtable Team,
can you tell if this feature is generally planed as a future feature for Airtable? This would be very useful for us Handeling write and view Permissions to our bases and we need to you know if we can expect that in the future.

[Stephanie_Perri]

Extremely impressed and 100% on board with Airtable so far. This is my first foray into relational databases, so I’m learning as I go along. The videos and help articles have been stellar. The only snag I have run into in converting our spreadsheets into AT bases is the lack of ability to either link bases (or subdivide a base into groups of tables as others have suggested).

My job is managing information relating to individual aid projects undertaken by a humanitarian aid org. Each aid project has its own location, implementation partner; donor(s); reports, contracts, beneficiary lists, and other documents; photos; budget, disbursements, and other financial tracking; timeline; and outcomes. Currently it’s all in one giant base (except for the financial accounting), and it’s amazing–for me and my team.

However, the rest of the org is using their own systems to manage information that overlaps and interacts with this information–there’s a lot of time wasted finding and sharing info (and occasionally crucial information is not known due to lack of coordination).

In dealing with emergency aid, projects can change focus mid-stream. New numbers of refugees can mean a change in budgets. Infrastructure problems can change timelines. A large fundraising campaign in response to a crisis would involve all of these teams. Communication is often fragmented, delayed and/or tedious due to separate databases managed by each team.

We are planning to migrate everyone over to AT from various other apps, so each team can maximize their efficiency. But we really need to be able to link records between bases and/or group tables for the entire org to really function smoothly.

Here is our setup, for context:

Programs manages all the planning, execution, and information for all aid projects. Comms team needs photos and up-to-date information on outcomes, but also needs to plan and track email blasts, blog posts, social media updates, etc–which not everyone needs access to. Finance needs the budgets, disbursements, start and end dates, contracts, but cannot have the whole team mucking around in their accounting. Devs coordinates donors for each project and needs budgets and outcomes, but access to donor information needs to be limited. The empowerment team manages refugee-run businesses that sometimes provide products for aid projects. The refugee-run businesses also provide some, but not all, items for sale in their online store.

Tables for every one of these teams in a single base is just not feasible. Setting up different views and filters for each person who needs each group of info is pretty tedious, and we haven’t even added the other teams’ tables.

We will figure out workarounds for this with Zapier and slack notifications and whatnot in the meantime, but any solution to address these issues would be worth all the marbles.

[elantrian]

I think it’s unlikely that we’ll see this feature implemented.

Why? Probably because they would have far fewer paying customers if the free tier included unlimited linked bases 😕

Unfortunately, that might also make Airtable harder for everyone to use - paying and otherwise. I probably won’t be able to use it for what I had planned. (and I was going to get the lower paid tier!)