Flexible application for a non-profit
May 04, 2018
Flexible application for a non-profit
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Airtable
Like many organizations, we badly abuse Excel as a tabular data entry and storage system for so much of the administration work that falls outside the core systems we can afford to support. Airtable is helping us manage the work pipeline of various teams, online and backed up in ways we could not have previously hoped for. Importantly while addressing these things at a relatively low cost we have a flexible solution to other opportunities and problems we hope to address with Airtable in the future.
- All the hard work of trying to build a solution in Excel is done for you. You can create links to simple mobile-friendly forms and datasheets and it builds input forms automatically that can then be easily customized.
- The relationships across tables are robust and deal with changes to fields and tables without the need for intervention or maintenance (like a proper database).
- Initial set up and use require a minimal set of IT skills. Coming with an array of pre-built templates and the ability to import your existing spreadsheet and customize and fine tune it from there into a database
- They don't contact me every day trying to sell their product (probably because they don't have to).
- A little more customisation of the forms would be fantastic. The interface is simple and helps avoid making problems for yourself, but being able to take out some of the white space and select different fonts or show basic formatting would be a good addition. But such is Airtable I am likely to find out with the right knowledge you can.
- Not being able to connect "Bases" together. This can be addressed by building all tables you need in to one base and remembering you can always export the data out somewhere else if you need this level of integration.
- If you are a larger or growing organisation, Airtables flexibility and ease at replacing spreadsheets needs to be managed (or you could replace your uncontrolled Excel addiction with an Airtable one).
- I would estimate it has personally saved me 2 hours a week of administration better invested in other things. These are the most valuable cost savings I have on a personal level.
- I was able to explore, populate, configure and prepare Airtable for what I needed for free. Only when we reached the point of being ready to make full use of the system did we need to spend a penny.
- Replacing Excel for administrative tasks with Airtable will eventually save us hundreds of lost hours a year.