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Link to other base

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John_Bacino
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

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.

494 Comments
Mark_Miller
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

How are we coming on this, @Andrew? This would be a game changer!

Mark_Miller
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

@Katherine_Duh I’m not sure if I’m too late to the game here, but since we don’t have any changes reflecting those 3 questions I’m assuming it’s still in the works?

  1. Permissions are a big deal for me. I use airtable as the master brains/organizer for my artist agency, and I would like for each artist to only see records relevant to them and to be notified when changes are made to their records. Hidden/redacted tables, views, etc would make it much more functional for us, thought linking multiple bases would be a more complete solution.

  2. It makes sense for us to have a master base where we can work out of that can populate the other bases. Of course that master base could also be updated from the other bases depending on what is linked between the two.

  3. Absolutely! My base feels bloated and unorganized (ironically). I have about a dozen tables that relate to each other - My artists (pricing info, availability, booking information, logistics), Schools and Venues who I book for (over 1,000 with information about their institution which is linked to Contacts and their information, Projects that I am managing for each of the artists, Promotion for each, Bookings, and Accounting, just to mention the primary linked tables. I could do with far less columns as well in each table if I didn’t have to cram every possible scenario of data that I need into one base.

Other considerations: I would allow for various options in the setting. Personally, I would allow for any Base B data that’s linked to be viewable but not editable if they don’t have permissions for it. Another alternative would be to give editing power to data that is linked, but allow for giving contributors only permissions to view or edit certain Views and not the entire base. Part of it is just going to come down to people being smart setting up their bases.

I LOVE airtable, but I’ve been beating my head against the wall, search for 3rd party integrations, and everything else for hours and hours over the past several months trying to solve some crucial problems in our work flow. @Airtable if there is a work task force on this, sign me up! And definitely for the beta as well. Thank you for your hard work!

ripwit
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

That’s almost exactly what I’m seeing altho my environment is quite different (healthcare). I’m tracking documents across multiple companies, hospitals, doctors, and state agencies with the normal contact information, etc. My base is now around 40 tables and since there is quite a bit of linking, each table carries the additional linkage fields. I know I can cut back using views but it would be far better to segregate the different areas-of-concern into their own bases and provide cross-base linking.

Of course having a well-honed set of permissions would also be critical.

Jose_Alberto_Fu
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

This would be a great feature! I’m novice with Airtable and really in love with it.

Sara_Minerd
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

SUB-BASES & Linking to reports in a Main Base…please! Otherwise I don’t think Airtable will work for our company :frowning: I am trying to figure out a way to utilize it, because I think it is amazing, but we have over 500 unique events a year, pulling from the same inventory record/table, each having multiple tables of their own inside their base. If they could all live in a Master base… Perhaps this can be done and I am just too new to figure it out? Seems like if people have been asking for this for two years, welll… 🙂 :slightly_smiling_face: :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

Zac
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

This is really a necessity for us in order to continue using airtable

Pierce_Baugh1
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

Yes to #1 and #2. The first reason to link across databases is for more granular security control. I like your other approach with table and even field level access control. That would be preferable. The second reason would be for reporting sometimes you want to keep bases separate but integrate for a more holistic view.

egordin
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

+1 vote for this feature! @Airtable_Team @Katherine_Duh @Airtable_Support can you please provide an update on this?

minorit
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

absolutely +1 on this. currently using asana and google drive for the majority of our workflow and i’m experimenting to see if airtable can become the new happy medium for my team.

we have so much data between the number of freelancers and clients and short-term jobs that we do that it’s just unrealistic to simply keep EVERYTHING in one base – even with copy and pasting capabilities. if i wanted to simply copy and paste some data from one table to another i would just continue to use google drive!

Zac
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

+1 vote for this feature! @Airtable_Team @Katherine_Duh @Airtable_Support
:scream: We need this!