Airtable -- a whole different way to display and manipulate data; it's kinda magic!
March 12, 2018
Airtable -- a whole different way to display and manipulate data; it's kinda magic!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Airtable
I'm an instructor in the Animal Health Technologies program at a community college. We are a SharePoint shop, but uploading and downloading files is tedious, so frequently use Google Docs for file sharing applications, which also often involves pushing files and forms out to students. Using a spreadsheet for this allows the information to be presented, but it's certainly not pretty or inspiring. As an example, we have a list of 350+ things that our accrediting agency requires that our students accomplish while in school. So we have a spreadsheet that lists the task name, the task description, the assessment criteria, the success criteria, the course in which the task is expected to be addressed, who teaches that course, and a link to the video that shows how the task is to be done. Whew! So visualize that information -- a line in a spreadsheet, with lots of wrapping that makes it hard to see the whole line at once, every line looks alike, it's just... blah!
With a simple import into Airtable (via a Sheets export to a .csv document), and a few clicks, this spreadsheet is filled with color -- fields are easily changed to color-coded pull-down lists (courses, instructors, success criteria). Then, with a view change, this becomes a colorful, easy-to-read set of cards on a table, cards that students can easily filter and sort. The success criteria form (also in Airtable) can be linked right in the task data, so students see the actual form their instructors will be using to determine their success.
So far, I'm the only one that I know of using Airtable here, but I'm absolutely enchanted with it and will be presenting it to others, who I expect to be assimilated.
- Color-code and standardize fields -- if I switch a field from short or long text to single selection, Airtable will automatically provide me with a list of entries and color suggestions for them, making them much easier to sort and filter.
- View data -- by being able to very easily pop a spreadsheet line out into an expanded form, I can easily manipulate the information for that item -- without a bunch of scrolling back and forth.
- Form creation -- Airtable data headers can easily be made into a form (sort of the opposite approach from Google Forms) so I can easily embed those into other data fields in my Base. So no swapping back and forth between form creation and spreadsheets -- it's all right there.
- I'm struggling a bit with the "link to another record" data type. I'd like to use the second set of records as a single select lookup, effectively, creating a table with, for example, student names and then referencing that table throughout all my sheets rather than having to change the single select possibilities in each sheet every year. However, the link assumes you're doing a real lookup, i.e. if field x is "blue" then the field will be filled in with "first letter is a b."
- I wish the display for a URL could be hyperlink text rather than the URL, itself.
- I wish there was an opportunity for secure data entry on forms, i.e. password/account management for form submission.
- As an educational institution, we look at things a bit differently. I believe that using Airtable to present data and forms to students will have a positive impact on learner success, which is my primary concern.
I don't know of any other product that does what Airtable does, making previously static collections of data fields into a relational database without requiring any database training or significant conversion. It's kinda magic!