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.

[Zac]

@Airtable_Team @Katherine_Duh @Howie @Howie_Liu Please clue us in

[kirsten_larson]

+1 YES to all the comments above. This is a critical feature for airtable to really work for businesses. It is crazy to have to copy contact lists over to new bases for new projects/clients (particularly because we can not hide tabs within bases from editors, ie clients).

Also, we need this functionality from a timeline production standpoint. If you have several bases for several separate projects the calendar function is not nearly as powerful or helpful as it could be because a company can never visualize everything on their multiple calendars at once (without a lot of copying and pasting).

PLEASE give us an update @Patricia_Li @Douglas_Forster

[Reply_Media]

Another +1 for linking bases. I scrolled through the whole post here and dont see a response from Airtable which I find very odd.

[Donald_Newlands]

I just did the same thing: I read through every post for something from Airtable. It’s very frustrating: I can’t decide if I should dump Airtable for my company.

[Jeannie_Ruesch]

Adding my +1 for this feature – right now, the lack of this feature is making it tough to champion Airtable for our company. While I’m seeing teams adopting it for their own tables, what would make it SO powerful for us is the ability to link between our bases. Bases are owned by different teams within our company, and the ability to link and connect to each other’s bases would save SO much on work, duplication of efforts and allow each team to maintain their ownership while still getting the connections needed to work cross-functionally.

This is a must have for teams IMO. Everything cannot remain in one base to be effective when cross-functional teams are working together.

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

@Katherine_Duh @Andrew @Airtable_Team I’m adding my +1 as well - and the main thing really pushing me towards the need for discrete, but linked bases is your new blocks feature (which is amazing… amazing!).

Here’s a quick rundown of my use-case:

• My company performs over 200 different test methods for the construction industry, and we participate in about 30 different proficiency sample testing programs covering some number of those test methods

• I use Airtable to track our results on those proficiency samples, and used to keep them all in a single base, with a table holding all our test methods which were linked to the appropriate proficiency sample tables

• Blocks made visual reporting of our historical ratings on proficiency sample tests an absolute joy; however, I had to create 3 bar graphs per proficiency sample table - one for each of our labs - to see each lab’s historical data for that sample type - that’s over 90 graphs, resulting in a Blocks dashboard that was entirely unwieldy

• My solution - split each proficiency sample type into its own base - now I have a Blocks dashboard with only 3 graphs in each base; this is great, but now I have to copy my table of test methods into each of my 30+ bases, and update each one if we add a new test method to our repertoire, remove a method, or if a designation changes, or the method’s documentation changes, etc

Linked bases would allow me to have a single test methods base linked out to all my different proficiency sample bases to keep them all updated if one of our test methods changes. I would be entirely in favor of this being a “Pro” only feature.

And I agree with everyone else in the desire to at least hear something by way of an update from the Airtable team on their current thinking regarding this feature request.

Thank you, Airtable - much love, and blessings! :vulcan_salute:t2:

[Biggles_Bristol]

Another +1 for linking bases as a premium plan only option.

Ideally including look-up functionality if not roll-up.

[Andre_Zijlstra]

It finally dawned on me:
To Airtable this topic is not about being challenged on the software side. This is about finances.

If your base reaches 1200 records, you need to upgrade to a paid membership.
By linking bases you can avoid this.
Also for pro users, when your base reaches 50k records.

Linking bases means: less income.

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

That would be true if the linking of bases were available to “Free” workspaces.

This is why so many of us commenting above have suggested, or else expressed consent with the idea that this should be a feature only available to “Pro” or “Enterprise” workspaces. This would preclude the possibility that Airtable would lose revenue due to this feature.

They have a team of developers who work hard to produce this software as a means of making a living to provide for their families, so I absolutely think they deserve the revenue from implementing a feature like this. I really do think it’s a software challenge for them, not a reluctance to lose revenue.

[Andre_Zijlstra]

And I fully agree on that.

I do think that Airtable would be reluctant to make this available to pro users. It probably will be premium users only.