Beautiful spreadsheets meet code-free databases
August 12, 2019
Beautiful spreadsheets meet code-free databases
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Airtable
Our small team (Product Content Strategy, four team members) uses Airtable for our internal projects and notes. Personally, I love to use Airtable to document and organize research. For example, researching different CMS options -- Airtable helps me keep track of the features and costs associated with each potential option -- or auditing -- Airtable helps me keep track of usability issues while documenting their locations. I've also used Airtable to help myself accomplish individual tasks, like keeping track of which Help Center articles I have updated.
- Airtable looks beautiful. I think it's hands-down the cleanest, most attractive spreadsheet software I've used. It's a joy to scroll through and create content. This also makes it impressive to share with other teams.
- I love the Kanban view, which lets you move items from the leftmost column to the rightmost column. This view is especially great for keeping track of in-progress and completed tasks.
- I like the Airtable calendar views, which make it easier to see when tasks are due and stay on top of deadlines.
- Airtable offers some great templates that make it easier to get started. The block/base structure was easy for me to pick up.
- Airtable isn't the absolute best tool for internal team communication. For example, it would be nice if there was a comment section where team members could collaborate and leave comments. It's not that this functionality is totally missing, but it could be much stronger.
- Airtable may have a bit of a learning curve for some people. When I was learning how to use Airtable, I ended up clicking around a lot because I wasn't always sure what a button/field would do. People coming from more "standard" spreadsheet software might feel like functionality is lacking in some places, although this wasn't an issue for me as a non-expert spreadsheet user.
- User permissions in Airtable could be more granular. It would be great if you could give someone "Edit" access for only one column, for example, allowing them to make updates without changing the rest of the spreadsheet.
- Airtable increases my productivity and efficiency -- it's easier to see which tasks I need to work on, and when.
- Airtable makes it easier to communicate my progress -- it simplifies sharing my work with others.
- Airtable empowers me to do more by myself -- no coding knowledge necessary to work on a database.
I have used Excel and Google Sheets in the past. Both are great spreadsheet software, but Airtable is unique in that it is both a spreadsheet app and a database. As a result, Airtable doesn't have all of the spreadsheet functionality of Excel, but in many other ways offers more flexibility and capabilities. I use pretty basic spreadsheets, so Airtable is great for me. I love the way Airtable looks, so it's become my go-to.