Enter and Edit Data Across Joined Tables?

Bump.

(Shared Need/Desire/App Wish List)

@Samir_Ghosh 

Yep, it's a very sad state of affairs that has been going on for almost a decade.

I would highly recommend Fillout for these purposes -- this seems to be the #1 best solution right now, and it's very inexpensive. They even have a very generous free plan, so most of my Airtable consulting clients aren't even paying for it.

p.s. If you'd like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld

May I know what issues you're facing using Airtable's guide on how to update records via form submissions? 

Thanks @TheTimeSavingCo for that guide.  a) It seems very klugey and complex for a simple use case, and b) I don't think it addresses the more common use cases. 

It is very common to use joined (linked) tables, right?  In fact, it's probably safe to say that only the most simple use cases do not have a join.  Currently, if you want to simply enter a new contact into a basic address/CRM application, I believe you have to enter in the person info into a person table, then create a new record in the address table and link it, then create new records in phone and email tables and those and link them all back.  This is such a common use case, I figure most AirTable users are doing this.  But how?  The native way is too painful.

@Samir_Ghosh

Your chart is 100% on point, except for the $$$ part with 3rd-party apps. It might not cost you that much money (if any) for the 3rd-party solutions. Fillout has a generous free plan, and Make has a generous free plan as well. Many of my Airtable consulting clients are not paying for these tools, even though they use them everyday.

However, your overall point is correct, which is that 3rd-party solutions are often necessary with Airtable. I know that using 3rd-party solutions isn't ideal, but sadly, that's what most of my clients have do to get the full power out of Airtable.

I came from 30 years of FileMaker development, which is the REAL ANSWER for people who want infinite power in a database program with no limitations. FileMaker also does EVERYTHING within one app, so you don't normally need to use 3rd-party tools with FileMaker. But -- FileMaker is a full blown programming language, so people typically need to hire a certified developer to create their FileMaker app for them.

Thanks @ScottWorld!  I was wondering how folks are solving for this.  I'll check those out.  But I am baffled why AT wouldn't include this basic and common capabilities natively or in Interfaces.

Ha, it is a much deeper conversation about why Airtable continues to ignore its customers' needs for almost 10 years now. They are, by far, the most frustrating technology company that I have ever worked with in my entire life.

In Fillout, are you sure you can push values from one form to different tables in AirTable?

When I click on Integrations for the form, it forces me to pick a table for that form (not per field in the form).

Yes, you do it through linked record fields.

By the way, another good app for Airtable that provides this functionality is Noloco, but it can be a little confusing to setup. Luckily, they have great tech support to help people out.

Also, I give a step-by-step tutorial of Noloco on this episode of the BuiltOnAir podcast.

p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld 

I wrote a piece for the former, CIO magazine blog, titled, "Airtable: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - and I mean, really ugly.

Scott, like you, I come from a full-featured, software development, background. I keep finding opportunities (clients) using Airtable. 

My issues listed in the blog centered on:

• Insecure/lack of monitoring/logging for API access
• Horrible reporting (I port data to BigQuery for more robust dashboards)
• Interface design limitations
  -No front-end javascript or built-in, interactivity
  -Filter/limit related table list based on another field
• No retrieving table through relationships:
  I can't reference data from an adjoining or table one or more joins away, without lookup fields being added to every intermediary table. That's one of the reasons I like pulling client data into BigQuery. Joins and subqueries are a good things.

And then this... I posted a question earlier today and couldn't find it.. I went through my account profile-> subscriptions and it indicates it was marked as spam. It is clearly NOT spam... 

I'll keep plugging along because I just picked up two new clients using Airtable - horrific schema design - so... like I said, opportunity.

You've highlighted some of the top drawbacks to Airtable... and you're just scratching the tip of the iceberg here! And yes, all of these reasons are incredibly frustrating for people like you & me who have come from a REAL database background!

Unfortunately, most of Airtable's customers come from Excel spreadsheets (or worse), so they don't know how a real database program is supposed to function.

However, as you said, there is tremendous opportunity as an Airtable consultant. You'll enjoy this presentation that I gave to 300 of the top FileMaker developers in the country. I explained to them how Airtable can only do 1% of what FileMaker can do, but yet I receive 40x more inquiries for Airtable consulting than I receive for FileMaker development. The link will take you right to the part of the video where I start speaking.

My first take on the article was that the Good of Airtable was that it felt/looked like a spreadsheet.. That was also the first Bad of Airtable. If it looks and feels like a spreadsheet, the every day user will treat it as such. There will be columns stretched to the right to capture data that should be in a related table.

I'm also creating a lot of Power Automate flows. This, in part, because I have a couple clients with Windows based SQL (and Pervasive SQL) databases. There is a lot of VBA automation but it is a horrible tool for API connectivity... hence Power Automate. Similar issue of limitations of reusable code and writing functions.

But.. I'm utilitarian in that regard. The solution is pre-eminent. I'm agnostic about the "best" technology.

Thanks for the link to the video. I'll check it out.