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.

[Donald_Newlands]

I am incredibly disappointed that after years of waiting (4) for this feature to find out that it is crippled to the point of uselessness for our (expensive) plan level (Pro). The one table per base limit means that without hacking around a lot, there’s very little we can do with it. The greatest thing about Airtable is that it makes developing relational databases something anybody can do. By limiting customers to 1 synced table per base you’re also hurting your customers ability to use Airtable to do what it does best.

[kuovonne]

As a pro subscriber, you should be able to have 20 synced tables per base.

[Mims_Talsi]

Airtable will dies pretty soon if you do not listen to your customer’s needs. This is the most wanted feature and no, it’s really not that hard. Set a hierarchy where dbase if the upper level for lockup. It’s not brain surgery. Also, you will not survive unless you bring down your pricing. It’s currently ridiculously expensive compared to other tools. For NGOs for example, we get 10 full users on salesforce. but expected to be hundreds per month with airtable for way less features.

[Bill_French]

Hi Mims, and welcome [back] to the community!

Mims_Talsi:

Airtable will dies pretty soon if you do not listen to your customer’s needs.

Indeed! And since you haven’t posted for a whole year, you must have either been REALLY thrilled with Airtable’s development progress over the past 52 weeks, or you really don’t care that much. Please share with the community which it is.

I use ElasticSearch to monitor almost every detail and nuance in this community. My approach has some elements of data science and even AI to help me understand what’s resonating and what’s being missed. I use this approach to monitor many communities where I invest my time and skills for profit. Harvesting sentiment from communities helps me get a sense of the pulse of customers.

Mims_Talsi:

This is the most wanted feature and no, it’s really not that hard.

Whether you perceive this feature is easy or difficult to implement is wholly irrelevant. However, I can assure you that linking or synching data between bases is not the number one feature that customers are demanding.

Mims_Talsi:

It’s currently ridiculously expensive compared to other tools

I agree; it’s a bit pricey. But, it’s also a bit easier to use (than Salesforce, Coda, Lists, Honeycode, Tables, and many others). Airtable is priced as a premium product because it has premium strengths in the eyes of no-code solution creators - specifically the UI/UX which is considered by almost every analyst and tech-journalists among the best in the industry.

Mims_Talsi:

For NGOs for example, we get 10 full users on salesforce. but expected to be hundreds per month with airtable for way less features.

If that’s true, why are you concerned with using Airtable in its place or comparing it to Salesforce at all? Please share with the community why you believe these are comparable tools that should be rated side-by-side.

[Mims_Talsi]

hi
your reply is appreciated. We do use salesforce FYI and for that very reason. This feature has to be high up on the list, maybe not number one…apologies if I got the hierarchy wrong. I don’t have AI here. Pricing wise, you know you are expensive. It’s a fab solution, don’t get me wrong. I was making a comment about a specific VERY IMPORTANT feature to many people (clearly). Thank you for your feedback. It give me (even without all the community tools you have) and insight into how airtable really cherishes it’s users.

[Bill_French]

Mims_Talsi:

Pricing wise, you know you are expensive

To be clear, I am not an Airtable employee and I do not speak for Airtable. As to the relative price, I think you are correct; it is expensive. But so are Lexus automobiles.

Google Tables is less than half the price of a pro Airtable account. But Kia’s are less than half the price of a Lexus. Should Lexus price its luxury automobiles the same as Kia just because Kia’s are cheaper? I don’t think that’s how free-markets work.

[kuovonne]

Bill.French:

However, I can assure you that linking or synching data between bases is not the number one feature that customers are demanding.

I’m curious. According to your statistics, what is the number one feature that customers are demanding?

[Bill_French]

kuovonne:

what is the number one feature that customers are demanding?

Reading customer sentiment and needs is dicey at best, and you have to be careful because people sometimes don’t actually craft specific sentences that stipulate features. Rather, they reflect on problems.

But if you are asking what is the number one class of questions that people ask about and for which this is presently no feature? That would be the lack of a way to easily parse strings and/or extract values, entities, etc.

If you’re asking for the number one topic that seems to be missing or lacks adequate work-arounds to satisfy customer requirements, it would be a granular and comprehensive security/sharing model that supports field-level accessibility.

The number one issue that new users (i.e., those posting comments for the first time) is the lack of fields that also support integrated formulas. This one catches almost every new user by surprise. They expect that a given field should also be able to be set with a formula like Excel and Google Sheets,

[kuovonne]

Thanks for posting your list. I find it interesting that only your middle item (better security/sharing) has no native workarounds.

[Brian_Zawislak]

Hello All,

After 5 years of waiting for the ability to link to multiple databases, Airtable now allows users to to link to one table from another base! Wait. What…One table from another base? Seriously? It’s very disappointing.

I agree with MIMs that the pro-plan cost wise does not scale well and becomes cost prohibitive after a few users are added compared to other solutions. While I love the simplicity of Airtable, trying to maintain a normalized database becomes very challenging once more than a handful of tables are added. For this reason, I’ve been slowing moving everything over to Notion since they allow linking between databases and because they offer a very customizable “front end” and organizational system.

Then there’s the elephant in the room, Microsoft. With the release of Lists for Teams, Airtable will lose a bunch of enterprise users.

You can tell a lot about a companies culture and leadership when they makes excuses for not doing something because it is hard. I have no ill will towards Airtable and wish them all the best but after 5 years of waiting, its time to move on to a better solution.