Staging environment for bases/interfaces/data

[SamF]

What is the proposed idea/solution?

Enable a staging/pre-prod environment for bases, and their associated interfaces and data. The solution should allow each base to be logically linked to a pre-prod base, with two-way syncing that is fired manually. Changes made in pre-prod should be easily pushed to prod, which would include adding/removing/editing:

• fields & attributes (e.g. name, formula, links, etc.)
• tables & attributes
• interfaces
• data (to allow for data staging and cleaning, especially for ETL/ELT purposes)
  • data syncs should be optional, and provide the option to either completely overwrite or merge with existing data

How does is solve the user problems?

This allows users to make changes to either base structures, logic, or interfaces without affecting live / production data and interfaces.

How was this validated?

Staging and Prod environments are best practice in any development process.

Who is the target audience?

Everyone who values data integrity.

[creminology]

I’m considering using NocoDB locally for testing my code that interacts with Airtable. I could use a copy of my base in Airtable. But if I was using something local, there would be much less latency since it would all be offline. Of course, I have to abstract the code I use to communicate wirh Airtable to instead talk to NocoDB when not in production mode.

[salah_osman]

The crux of your issue is the need for a safe, isolated space where changes can be made and tested without affecting the live data and operations

Similar discussions here? Sort of

https://community.airtable.com/t5/automations/copy-automation-to-another-baser/td-p/163142

[BenFortunato]

This is  a must. Its a huge painpoint and I'm surprised that this was not thought out when interfaces were rolled out.  If you have something that is being used internally or worse yet you have a page being shared with clients, how do you work on upgrades and changes to your base? Anytime you are working on something it means that your airtable base is down. The only workaround I know is to copy the base and create your own "staging" environment, but this means that all the record id's any api's integrations etc all need to be remapped. Once you "publish" this new base any links you sent people will reference the old base unless you delete it, if you delete it it will be a dead link. 

This is basic web functionality having a staging environment.