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Two-Way Sync editing not working on fields/tables with "Specific Users" permissions


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I am trying to get smarter with base designs and newer feature offerings, however im having trouble balancing risk vs reward.

Moving a teams workflow to another base makes great strides in decluttering and simplifying bases for teams. However i am seeing that if i want Source and Target editing in two-way synced tables, i can only do so if the permissions are a generic "editors and above" or "creators and above". 

For example ... i have a field in source table where i am a creator, and i have set this field to allow edits from specific users and i am selected. I then jump over to the target table and try to edit field, and it will not let me. But if i change the source field permissions to all creators or all editors, then the editing works. I am the admin and builder/creator of this workspace, both bases are within this workspace, and i am logged in.

Similarly if i choose table permissions to only allow myself to create records and/or delete records. i want this to carry over to target table so that any adds/deletes can happen by myself in the new base as well. But instead, it wont allow me to do so unless i change permissions to generic level.

What am i missing here?

4 replies

ScottWorld
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  • Brainy
  • 8829 replies
  • April 11, 2024

Unfortunately, this is one of the many limitations of two-way syncing.

There is a very short sentence about this limitation in this support article: https://support.airtable.com/docs/two-way-syncing-in-airtable#understanding-twoway-sync

In general, splitting up a base into multiple bases dramatically reduces the full capabilities of what you can do in Airtable. For full Airtable functionality, everything needs to be in one base.

Is there a specific reason that you want separate bases? You might be able to achieve the same effect in different ways, such as using Airtable’s interfaces or using external tools like Noloco and Fillout.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld 


o_elsiefy
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  • Participating Frequently
  • 10 replies
  • April 11, 2024

Personally, I only split things across bases if they are siloed or have very limited interactions. Instead, to keep things looking clean, I actually only share interfaces with my team. To give you an example, I work at a media company, so my media department has writers, editors and designers. I am the only one with base access, designers have access to the design interface only and so on.

That way, their interface only shows them the info relevant to them and is always clean and organised. I find that more effective than splitting across bases.


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  • Participating Frequently
  • 13 replies
  • April 11, 2024

You can use an external data sync solution such as Byteline. As long as you possess edit permissions on the table records, the creates, updates, and deletes will work.

Below are some of the features:

  • Easily set up 2-Way and 1-Way sync.
  • Historical sync to update your existing data.
  • Custom filters to fine-tune the data to sync.

Learn more.


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  • Participating Frequently
  • 12 replies
  • July 23, 2024

Having this same issue. I have submitted a feature request to add a button like it has to allow edits from automations, to allow from syncing, or to add a user called "sync" and allow us to select that as a user to allow edits through. The reason is that in the original base we only want specific user to modify the information in specific interfaces, but in other bases we want other users to have permission to change it.

Until then the only option I have is to create another field, allow that one to be edited but not visible on the interfaces and then have an automation update the original fields.


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