![[S09-E05] Full Podcast Summary for 10-12-2021](https://server.on2air.com/wp/../uploads/segment_image_1-39.png)
10/12/2021 – BuiltOnAir Live Podcast Full Show – S09-E05
Duration: 57 minutes
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FULL EPISODE VIDEO
Watch the full video of the show. See below for segment details.
The BuiltOnAir Podcast is Sponsored by On2Air – Integrations and App extensions to run your business operations in Airtable.
In This Episode
Welcome to the BuiltOnAir Podcast, the live show. The BuiltOnAir Podcast is a live weekly show highlighting everything happening in the Airtable world.
Check us out at BuiltOnAir.com. Join our community, join our Slack Channel, and meet your fellow Airtable fans.
Todays Hosts
Alli Alosa – Hi there! I’m Alli 🙂 I’m a fine artist turned “techie” with a passion for organization and automation. I’m also proud to be a Community Leader in the Airtable forum, and a co-host of the BuiltOnAir podcast. My favorite part about being an Airtable consultant and developer is that I get to talk with people from all sorts of industries, and each project is an opportunity to learn how a business works.
Dan Fellars – I am the Founder of Openside, On2Air, and BuiltOnAir. I love automation and software. When not coding the next feature of On2Air, I love spending time with my wife and kids and golfing.
Show Segments
Round The Bases – 00:03:16 –
Following Articles Used in this Segment:
[Web] Rowy: Open-source Airtable alternative on Google Cloud | Hacker News
[Web] Inside Airtable's Plan to Double Its Workforce to Over 1,000 Employees
[Airtable Community] New Feature: Advanced Filtering – Announcements – Airtable Community Forum
[Reddit] Can anyone help with this formula, please? Why am I getting this error? : Airtable
[BuiltOnAir Community] Slack | airtable-help | BuiltOnAir
An App a Day – 00:36:55 –
Watch as we install, explore, and showcase the Embed App from the Airtable Marketplace. The app is described as “Look at content from all over the internet without leaving your base. Just enter a URL and the page, video, livestream, feed, post, or widget will appear in a frame on your dashboard. You can even embed other Airtable view or base share links in an embed app!”.
Field Focus – 00:40:36 –
A deep dive into the Field Filters View Filters – We cover the recently released Field Filters for Views and how you can take advantage of them
Automate Create – 00:47:14 –
Watch as we review and work through automations. The final installment to bring our Customer Feedback loop together and create a UI for the customer to interact with the feature requests, all built entirely in Airtable with no 3rd party tools.
Full Segment Details
Segment: Round The Bases
Start Time: 00:03:16
Roundup of what’s happening in the Airtable communities – Airtable, BuiltOnAir, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
Following Articles Used in this Segment:
[Web] Rowy: Open-source Airtable alternative on Google Cloud | Hacker News
[Web] Inside Airtable's Plan to Double Its Workforce to Over 1,000 Employees
[Airtable Community] New Feature: Advanced Filtering – Announcements – Airtable Community Forum
[Reddit] Can anyone help with this formula, please? Why am I getting this error? : Airtable
[BuiltOnAir Community] Slack | airtable-help | BuiltOnAir
Segment: An App a Day
Start Time: 00:36:55
Airtable App Showcase – Embed – Look at content from all over the internet without leaving your base. Just enter a URL and the page, video, livestream, feed, post, or widget will appear in a frame on your dashboard. You can even embed other Airtable view or base share links in an embed app!
Watch as we install, explore, and showcase the Embed App from the Airtable Marketplace. The app is described as “Look at content from all over the internet without leaving your base. Just enter a URL and the page, video, livestream, feed, post, or widget will appear in a frame on your dashboard. You can even embed other Airtable view or base share links in an embed app!”.
Segment: Field Focus
Start Time: 00:40:36
Learn about the Field Filters – We cover the recently released Field Filters for Views and how you can take advantage of them
A deep dive into the Field Filters View Filters – We cover the recently released Field Filters for Views and how you can take advantage of them
Segment: Automate Create
Start Time: 00:47:14
Airtable Automations – Customer Feedback Loop – Part 3
Watch as we review and work through automations. The final installment to bring our Customer Feedback loop together and create a UI for the customer to interact with the feature requests, all built entirely in Airtable with no 3rd party tools.
Full Transcription
The full transcription for the show can be found here:
[00:01:42] Welcome everyone to the [00:01:44] BuiltOnAir podcast. This is season nine, [00:01:46] episode 5. Glad to be with you. [00:01:50] Today, we've got myself [00:01:52] and Alli on with us. Welcome Alli [00:01:54] Hello, [00:01:56] Good to see you again [00:01:58] and Kamille is out sick I believe today. [00:02:01] So hopefully she recovers quickly [00:02:04] and so she's not here [00:02:05] to defend herself [00:02:07] but it's her birthday this week. [00:02:09] So if you see her in the community [00:02:11] wish her happy birthday hopefully she gets [00:02:13] better. [00:02:14] So as always we do four [00:02:17] segments on this podcast. [00:02:20] I'll walk through it [00:02:21] what we're going to highlight today [00:02:22] to give you a sense. [00:02:23] We always start off with [00:02:25] Round the Bases [00:02:26] where we go around talking about what's [00:02:27] going on in the Airtable communities [00:02:30] around the internet. Then we will do a [00:02:32] spotlight on our primary sponsor On2Air. [00:02:35] Then I will do a highlight [00:02:38] on one of the apps, [00:02:39] the Embed app and also compare [00:02:41] that to the URL preview app [00:02:45] and how to use those. [00:02:47] Then Alli will dive into [00:02:48] the new field feature filters that [00:02:51] just got released [00:02:53] and learn about those. [00:02:54] And then I'll talk about [00:02:55] how you can join the BuiltOnAir community. [00:02:58] And then finally I'll finish up [00:03:00] with our Automate Create series [00:03:02] the part three, [00:03:03] talking about our customer [00:03:05] feedback loop application and finish [00:03:07] that off. [00:03:08] So let's begin with our [00:03:11] Round the Bases. [00:03:12] We typically like to start off [00:03:15] in the Airtable community, [00:03:16] see what's going on there [00:03:18] and like we mentioned, [00:03:20] there's the new filtering [00:03:22] that they just released a [00:03:23] week ago [00:03:24] and we'll be diving into this [00:03:26] but I just want to highlight this and see [00:03:31] make sure everybody is aware of this. [00:03:33] Go check out the announcement from [00:03:36] Airtable in their community [00:03:38] and see what people are saying about it. [00:03:40] The one thing I was going to bring up [00:03:43] is it's not yet in automations [00:03:44] so hopefully that will come [00:03:47] with the filtering trigger [00:03:50] on matching criteria in there. [00:03:52] So that would be nice. [00:03:54] Absolutely. [00:03:56] Yeah. But anyways [00:03:57] we'll dive deep in this [00:03:59] Alli is gonna get you all caught up [00:04:01] on how you can use that [00:04:03] in the view filters. [00:04:05] All right, next one that I found, [00:04:09] I thought this was interesting. [00:04:11] So the question was [00:04:13] setting up an automation to [00:04:14] only trigger during working days. [00:04:17] So if you've done automations [00:04:19] and you've used [00:04:20] the scheduled time trigger [00:04:23] you can set it up on certain [00:04:27] days, but this person [00:04:30] is trying to get it to where [00:04:34] it only it runs on certain criteria [00:04:38] but only during certain times [00:04:41] of the day and [00:04:43] only during the weekdays. So [00:04:46] so you can schedule something [00:04:48] if you're using the schedule [00:04:50] trigger to only work [00:04:51] on weekdays [00:04:52] but this person wants it [00:04:55] not to be scheduled but based off of [00:04:58] criteria within the records [00:05:00] to trigger it [00:05:01] but they only wanted to run within [00:05:03] a certain windows. [00:05:06] So I thought Justin [00:05:08] our friend Justin had a good [00:05:11] solution for this on how [00:05:14] you can do that using filters [00:05:17] within a formula based off of [00:05:22] you know this one's used [00:05:24] using the creative time [00:05:25] but you could use a date or something [00:05:27] within the record. [00:05:29] So I thought that was a pretty [00:05:30] cool work around, [00:05:31] I hadn't thought through that [00:05:32] worst work scenario but [00:05:36] props to Justin for that solution. [00:05:38] Have you ever tried doing that? [00:05:40] Yeah, I have actually [00:05:43] and it works pretty well. [00:05:45] I find myself still getting confused [00:05:48] sometimes about date times and like [00:05:50] just [00:05:51] I sometimes I'll have a client [00:05:53] that is in a different time [00:05:55] zone and like if they [00:05:56] go in and they open up [00:05:57] the base then the dates changed, [00:06:00] the times and like it's like [00:06:01] all depends on whether [00:06:03] you have that toggle, [00:06:04] you know, [00:06:05] use same time zone for all users. [00:06:07] But I still for whatever reason [00:06:09] after like four years [00:06:11] cannot wrap my head around [00:06:12] it. [00:06:15] Yeah. And then especially [00:06:17] if you start using the set time [00:06:20] zone formula that adds [00:06:21] another layer although it [00:06:23] actually simplifies it [00:06:24] but it is kind of complex to [00:06:26] grasp what you're doing there. [00:06:30] Yeah. It can be. [00:06:33] Actually the now function, [00:06:35] something interesting. [00:06:37] I have had a huge base that I [00:06:39] work in all the time [00:06:40] for one of my clients [00:06:42] and it is just like the most unruly [00:06:44] largest base that I've ever witnessed [00:06:47] and we're really trying hard [00:06:49] to wrangle it in [00:06:50] and so we got in touch with Airtable [00:06:51] and we asked them if they could [00:06:53] give us a list of our most like [00:06:56] like what formulas are like [00:06:58] heaviest in terms of functionality? [00:07:00] Like are they like what's [00:07:01] bogging down the system? [00:07:02] And they came back [00:07:04] and said that the now formula [00:07:06] was the culprit for a good [00:07:08] amount of the slowness in this space. [00:07:11] And so now every time I keep finding [00:07:13] myself needing to use it [00:07:15] and I'm trying to come up [00:07:16] with other solutions that I [00:07:17] don't need to use that formula. [00:07:19] But I think if you don't have, [00:07:20] you know, [00:07:21] 70,000 records in a base [00:07:22] you don't have to really worry about it. [00:07:25] Yeah, I thought that was interesting. [00:07:27] Yeah, which makes sense because it's [00:07:29] continually checking [00:07:31] every five minutes or so [00:07:33] it's updating to see and so [00:07:35] that has to go back and [00:07:37] refresh all the values behind the scenes. [00:07:41] Yeah, we've talked a lot [00:07:42] about the now [00:07:44] and how it works and it's [00:07:46] definitely something [00:07:47] you got to be careful with it. [00:07:49] It doesn't work the way that [00:07:51] you would hope it would, [00:07:52] but there's kind of [00:07:53] technical limitations as to why [00:07:55] that is. Absolutely. [00:07:57] Yeah. So yeah, that's good to know. [00:08:00] So if your base is very slow, see [00:08:03] if you're using now [00:08:05] in formulas [00:08:06] could be the culprit. Absolutely. [00:08:09] Yeah. So anyway, so check out [00:08:12] this one if you're trying [00:08:14] to do a trigger that is [00:08:16] based on criteria [00:08:17] that you only want to [00:08:19] run during work hours. [00:08:20] Check that one out [00:08:21] Next one, [00:08:24] this one was actually an old one. [00:08:26] I always enjoy seeing when people bring up [00:08:28] really old threads [00:08:31] but actually learned something. Actually. [00:08:34] So the original question was [00:08:36] being able to filter a view [00:08:38] based off of URL parameters like this [00:08:42] where you've got the view I. D. [00:08:45] And you want to filter it. [00:08:46] Well that is not [00:08:47] possible. [00:08:50] But what is possible, [00:08:52] and they talk about this [00:08:54] is in a shared view if you click [00:08:57] on this link [00:08:58] you can filter a shared view [00:09:01] with a URL filter [00:09:02] and I maybe saw this [00:09:04] but I don't know that I [00:09:06] ever implemented it [00:09:08] but this is actually pretty [00:09:10] powerful with shared views. [00:09:12] Have you used this much? [00:09:14] I do, yeah [00:09:16] I wish that it had more [00:09:19] like security involved [00:09:21] because they do say right [00:09:22] on this like do not use this [00:09:24] feature if you still have private data [00:09:26] in a view like it's not going to be a [00:09:28] permanent filter. [00:09:29] Like people can still get [00:09:30] to the data if they need to. [00:09:31] But one thing I do use it a lot [00:09:34] is like in the URL preview app I'll put in [00:09:38] you know I'll make [00:09:39] a formula field that has [00:09:41] that filter is a shared view [00:09:43] based on a linked record that I have. [00:09:45] So that way when I'm going through [00:09:47] I can have that up on the side [00:09:48] and I can see [00:09:48] the related records [00:09:50] or that record that I'm looking [00:09:52] at on that table. [00:09:53] That's a great idea, [00:09:55] I like that. [00:09:56] Yeah, it's a nice way to be a filtered. [00:09:59] So you have shared and then filter it [00:10:01] there. Cool. [00:10:02] Yeah, we'll be talking about [00:10:04] that app, so maybe I can [00:10:06] show that use case [00:10:06] that you're talking about. [00:10:09] All right. So yeah, [00:10:10] so I thought that was cool [00:10:11] that definitely could come [00:10:12] in handy. [00:10:13] You know and this is you know [00:10:16] and then he pointed out [00:10:17] that's not exactly [00:10:18] what he was looking for. [00:10:19] He actually wanted to filter it [00:10:21] inside the app [00:10:22] where you can actually edit it [00:10:24] and not just a shared view. So [00:10:29] and [00:10:34] yeah and so he was saying [00:10:36] you can do it through [00:10:37] the view filters and setting [00:10:39] up some dynamic [00:10:41] stuff but not quite exactly [00:10:44] what he was looking for. So still some [00:10:47] improvements there to be made. [00:10:51] Alright, last one [00:10:52] this one got my attention [00:10:53] last one from the Airtable [00:10:55] community. [00:10:56] So [00:10:58] although I believe they were mistaken. [00:11:00] So this was Saturday when this was posted [00:11:03] and the big update [00:11:04] to the database is this Friday, [00:11:06] it wasn't last Friday. [00:11:07] So he was maybe assuming [00:11:09] that it happened last Friday [00:11:12] And he was hoping that it [00:11:14] actually allowed for more [00:11:16] than 500 fields per table [00:11:18] and you can actually see [00:11:20] he does have more than 500 [00:11:22] fields in this table. [00:11:24] But then it crashed [00:11:27] and so, [00:11:28] and then it looks like it had some weird [00:11:34] issues where it like [00:11:35] deleted the [00:11:37] The 501st field [00:11:39] when he added the 502nd or something. [00:11:43] So I didn't want to take the time [00:11:45] to create 500 fields [00:11:47] in a base to test this. [00:11:49] But I'm curious. [00:11:50] I didn't, I was hoping there [00:11:52] would be more commentary on this [00:11:53] thread by time we looked at it today. But [00:11:56] I wonder if that's part of the [00:11:59] database upgrade that [00:12:00] they're working on if [00:12:02] it will allow more than 500 fields. [00:12:05] Yeah. I really wonder [00:12:08] I would be more excited about [00:12:11] a higher record limit. [00:12:13] But that is interesting. [00:12:15] I wonder if that happened. [00:12:18] Like [00:12:19] I actually, and I might have [00:12:20] talked about this on the show [00:12:22] before but I was [00:12:23] doing some cleanup the other day [00:12:24] and I noticed I had two fields, [00:12:26] two linked record [00:12:27] fields named exactly the same thing [00:12:30] and I was like how did that happen? [00:12:32] I don't understand. And I emailed Airtable [00:12:34] was like, am I crazy? Like [00:12:35] how is this actually happening? [00:12:37] Like there's a [00:12:38] there's two fields, [00:12:39] they're named the same thing [00:12:41] and they were like, [00:12:42] yeah, that can happen [00:12:43] if like you had deleted a field and [00:12:45] you went back and restored it [00:12:47] from the trash. [00:12:49] It could like say you added the [00:12:51] record field back [00:12:52] and then restore the other one. [00:12:54] There's a chance that it could [00:12:56] End up with the same name. [00:12:57] So I'm just wondering [00:12:58] if maybe that's how we ended up [00:12:59] with over 500 [00:13:00] because maybe he restored [00:13:01] something from the trash that just [00:13:03] got put back. [00:13:04] Got you. Yeah, I could see that. [00:13:07] Yes. If you hit it [00:13:09] and then restored then it [00:13:10] allowed more interesting. [00:13:13] Yeah. So something to watch, [00:13:15] you know, [00:13:16] if you're using that many fields, [00:13:18] that might be an indicator [00:13:20] that there might be [00:13:21] room for improvement on [00:13:25] consolidating fields in some way. [00:13:28] So that's a lot of fields. [00:13:31] Sure. [00:13:33] Yeah. So anyways [00:13:34] we'll keep an eye on this. [00:13:36] If there's any update, [00:13:37] we'll bring that up next week [00:13:39] and it will be interesting. [00:13:41] We'll probably talk about [00:13:43] next week what changed [00:13:44] with the database [00:13:45] if there's anything noticeable [00:13:47] with the upgrade this Friday. [00:13:49] I hope so. [00:13:49] I've been getting that error [00:13:51] message that he shared in that [00:13:53] screenshot like many, [00:13:54] many times a day. [00:13:56] And I wonder if it's got something to do [00:13:58] with everything they've [00:14:00] been pushing recently, [00:14:01] interesting. [00:14:02] Yeah. So that does seem [00:14:04] to be happening more frequently. [00:14:07] So and it's before we [00:14:09] move on from the Airtable. [00:14:10] Just a final PSA the database. [00:14:12] They'll be doing upgrades this Friday. [00:14:15] 10 am Pacific. I think it was the time [00:14:17] they set [00:14:18] Eastern [00:14:20] I think PM [00:14:21] Yeah, sorry 10 PM pacific. [00:14:24] Right? Yeah, I am pacific. [00:14:27] So be aware and things [00:14:30] may not work during that time period. [00:14:33] All right, let's move on. [00:14:36] We're gonna go to the [00:14:37] BuiltOnAir community [00:14:41] and this one I thought was cool. [00:14:43] So somebody asked a question about [00:14:46] if you know a way to see [00:14:49] when a base was created [00:14:54] and so trying to figure out [00:14:56] when it was created. And Cherry, [00:14:58] our friend Cherry had a [00:15:00] really good suggestion [00:15:02] is to look in the snapshots [00:15:04] and and see the history [00:15:06] of maybe the day you at [00:15:07] least see the first snapshot [00:15:09] that could kind of give you [00:15:11] a sense of it looks [00:15:13] like it has to be within [00:15:15] the last year [00:15:16] because that's when the snapshots cut off [00:15:20] and thus depending on what plan you're on. [00:15:23] So I thought that was an [00:15:24] interesting way to figure out [00:15:26] because it doesn't [00:15:26] have like a base created date [00:15:29] or anything on the base configuration. [00:15:33] So that was an interesting work around. [00:15:36] Yeah, that is interesting. [00:15:38] I'd like to see, [00:15:39] I like how you can now see who [00:15:41] created a view. [00:15:42] And does it, [00:15:43] does it give you the date [00:15:45] that the view was created [00:15:46] when you mouse over it too? [00:15:48] I'm sorry. I'm not sure. [00:15:51] But it would be really cool [00:15:53] if they could apply that same thing. [00:15:54] No date. But it does show [00:15:56] created. Yeah. [00:15:57] Yeah. I would love to be able [00:15:59] to see like when fields were added, [00:16:01] who was added by [00:16:03] like all that metadata would be wonderful. [00:16:07] Yeah, [00:16:08] Yeah, there's nothing in here [00:16:11] about dates or who created it. [00:16:13] So [00:16:16] yeah, so anyway, [00:16:18] is that good work around [00:16:19] if you're looking to figure out when, [00:16:21] when a base was created, [00:16:23] you can check that out. [00:16:26] All right, moving on. [00:16:28] I thought this would be interesting. [00:16:31] So this is we're [00:16:32] now in the Reddit community [00:16:34] for Airtable [00:16:35] and somebody asked kind of a simple [00:16:37] question like what's going on [00:16:39] with my formula getting an error? [00:16:41] first comment is man, [00:16:43] I wish their errors would be [00:16:46] a bit more insightful [00:16:47] for formulas. [00:16:49] You know, they just say [00:16:51] sorry there's a problem, invalid formula. [00:16:53] Good luck trying to figure it out. [00:16:55] Yeah, this one's a pretty simple formula. [00:16:59] I'm sure you've got formulas [00:17:01] that are 20 lines long and [00:17:04] yeah, it's tough to troubleshoot formulas. [00:17:09] I can see what's wrong [00:17:11] with this one though. [00:17:12] All right. What is it? It's the [00:17:14] apostrophe is a single quotes. [00:17:16] They're smart, they're tilted. [00:17:19] It's the worst thing. [00:17:21] It's like I hate when I'm [00:17:23] looking at it for so long and [00:17:26] then I'm like [00:17:27] oh it's just that [00:17:29] like and this can happen [00:17:30] when you're copying and pasting from [00:17:33] somewhere like [00:17:34] maybe somebody gave you [00:17:35] this formula and like the [00:17:37] Airtable Facebook community [00:17:38] or whatever and they're not using [00:17:40] like it as a code block marked down. [00:17:41] So when they [00:17:43] quotes in, they're smart quotes, [00:17:45] they automatically get tilted [00:17:47] and just gotta [00:17:47] delete them, replace them, [00:17:49] You should be good to go. [00:17:51] Yeah so that so this formula [00:17:53] is just a basic if this is [00:17:56] greater than one then [00:17:57] put a y otherwise put a no [00:18:00] very simple giving a form, [00:18:03] an error and yeah the quotes [00:18:05] that they're using are the smart quotes [00:18:07] that likely got copied over from [00:18:09] some other editor. [00:18:11] And so this could you [00:18:12] could just if you're not familiar [00:18:15] if you haven't run into [00:18:16] this bug before or feature [00:18:18] you'd be hitting your head [00:18:20] against the wall trying [00:18:22] to figure out what's [00:18:23] going on here. Seriously. [00:18:25] It can be so frustrating. And how is there [00:18:27] Airtable, is that screenshot just [00:18:30] how is it black? [00:18:31] Yeah I wonder if they have [00:18:33] they might have like an extension or [00:18:36] something. Maybe that can do that. [00:18:40] Yeah because I'm not aware [00:18:42] of a dark mode by default in Airtable. [00:18:45] Or maybe the app [00:18:48] I'm not, yeah I don't know [00:18:49] interesting. [00:18:51] Yeah that is kind of interesting. [00:18:53] Yeah if anybody knows [00:18:55] how to get dark mode [00:18:56] in Airtable let us know. [00:18:59] And yeah it looks like it [00:19:01] looks like they did figure that out. [00:19:08] So it looks like it was [00:19:12] actually it's the same person? [00:19:15] Okay so they actually [00:19:22] see if this is in their image. [00:19:26] So this is a new comment [00:19:28] after I saw this thread [00:19:31] it looks like [00:19:34] all right well they changed it [00:19:37] they did figure it out. [00:19:44] Interesting. [00:19:45] So maybe they're doing [00:19:52] the I think this is actually [00:19:53] a separate question [00:19:54] trying to figure out using the [00:19:56] value function [00:19:57] to convert it to a number. [00:20:00] Yeah so that might have been it. [00:20:03] So it could have been two issues [00:20:06] where this day numb was a string [00:20:08] And then trying to compare it to one. [00:20:11] And so they had to convert it [00:20:13] to a number. [00:20:14] So you could do that number [00:20:15] comparison so maybe yeah. [00:20:17] Yeah but I think these would be an issue. [00:20:21] It's like though the y is normal [00:20:24] and the n is the smart ones but [00:20:27] so either of those issues [00:20:29] could be what's going on there. [00:20:31] But yeah that is very [00:20:32] common if you're getting that [00:20:34] make sure if you copied it [00:20:35] over from somewhere. [00:20:36] I know Google docs, [00:20:38] I copy stuff over from Google docs [00:20:40] and it keeps the smart [00:20:41] ones in there [00:20:42] place them [00:20:43] so that's for both single [00:20:45] quotes and double quotes. [00:20:46] Can [00:20:48] can be messed up there. [00:20:49] Absolutely. [00:20:51] Yeah we actually with our On2Air product, [00:20:54] I know I actually debugged that [00:20:57] where we were seeing a weird [00:21:00] behavior [00:21:01] because if you do quotes in Google docs [00:21:04] which we use for our templating [00:21:07] and used the smart quotes [00:21:09] that didn't know how to translate those. [00:21:10] So I had to do a search [00:21:12] and replace [00:21:12] in the code level [00:21:13] so that we didn't [00:21:14] require people so we could support [00:21:17] the smart quotes. [00:21:18] Which is what Airtable [00:21:19] should do, they should convert [00:21:21] those for you automatically. [00:21:22] They should. Absolutely. [00:21:24] Yeah. [00:21:26] All right moving on [00:21:28] let's go to Facebook. [00:21:30] This one I think is pretty common, [00:21:33] you know you've got [00:21:34] a text field and it's a [00:21:36] full name John Smith or something [00:21:38] and you want to pull out [00:21:40] just the first name [00:21:42] and this comes up often. [00:21:44] So if you ever need to split [00:21:47] a name, [00:21:48] you know usually [00:21:50] so this formula right here [00:21:53] is pretty, you know easy to use. [00:21:56] So you use the left function [00:21:58] with the full name [00:21:59] and then you search for space, [00:22:02] you subtract one [00:22:03] so it gets so it doesn't get [00:22:05] that space element in there. [00:22:07] So that should give you [00:22:08] everything up until the [00:22:09] first space. [00:22:13] but some things to think about is [00:22:16] if they've got a middle name in there, [00:22:19] or two first names [00:22:21] it can get tricky [00:22:22] so names are tough to parse perfectly. [00:22:27] They really are. [00:22:28] Absolutely. That's generally [00:22:30] what I do too. If I'm [00:22:32] I mean I try and start from [00:22:34] having the two different fields [00:22:35] but if I'm if I need [00:22:36] to massage the data then that's [00:22:38] exactly what I'll do [00:22:40] is I'll search for the first space [00:22:42] and then I'll do a [00:22:43] substitute formula to get the last [00:22:45] name in a separate field [00:22:48] once I have both of those. [00:22:51] Yeah. Yeah. [00:22:52] Cool. [00:22:53] So yeah so that's a pretty common use case [00:22:57] if you run into there [00:22:59] are formulas for that. There's also [00:23:04] isn't there's a mid [00:23:05] is there mid function? Yep. [00:23:07] You can get the middle? [00:23:08] Yeah so you could also if you're trying to [00:23:11] if you really try and do it [00:23:14] with middle names and whatnot, [00:23:16] there's more fun functions [00:23:18] that you can use, so. [00:23:21] All right, let's move on to Twitter. [00:23:24] See what's talking about in Twitter. [00:23:26] So this this is what I thought [00:23:28] was interesting, [00:23:30] this Ross Simons, [00:23:31] I think I've seen him before, [00:23:34] he does kind of some series [00:23:36] analyzing companies [00:23:38] and their marketing strategies. [00:23:40] And so this was pretty cool. [00:23:42] He kind of does a thread [00:23:44] talking about Airtables [00:23:45] marketing efforts [00:23:46] and there SCO efforts and [00:23:48] and how it works for them [00:23:50] and kind of dissecting their [00:23:53] marketing strategies [00:23:55] and talking about some numbers. [00:23:58] So they get 10-15 [00:23:59] million visitors a month [00:24:02] to their Airtables websites. [00:24:04] looks like organically, [00:24:08] it's about 250,000 [00:24:11] I guess. It's more than that. [00:24:14] Well I guess that's [00:24:15] unique people versus visits. [00:24:18] And so it talks about the [00:24:20] templates and how, you know, [00:24:22] those templates and [00:24:24] their universe are great. [00:24:26] You know, SEO tools [00:24:28] where you can generate a lot [00:24:30] of [00:24:31] contact pretty quickly [00:24:33] with their examples and [00:24:36] and then he compares it [00:24:37] to what their traffic would [00:24:39] cost if you paid for it [00:24:41] versus their organic traffic [00:24:43] and you know just kind of the [00:24:46] the power of using [00:24:47] SEO driven templates [00:24:49] is kind of the theme there. [00:24:52] So if you have a product and [00:24:54] you're looking for ways to [00:24:56] enhance your SEO [00:24:58] efforts and footprint then [00:25:01] using templates could be [00:25:03] a good way to do that. [00:25:07] And they also analyze kind of [00:25:10] their speaking behavior and who they're [00:25:14] talking to [00:25:15] and how they speak specifically [00:25:18] to the industries that they [00:25:20] can service. And then also their video [00:25:24] functionality. So they have [00:25:26] a pretty robust Youtube channel [00:25:28] talking about all the stuff [00:25:30] and they actually do have [00:25:31] really good articles, [00:25:32] case studies and whatnot [00:25:34] of companies using their product [00:25:37] and how they use it [00:25:38] in their business. So [00:25:40] some really good case studies [00:25:42] on the Airtable website. [00:25:45] Absolutely. [00:25:48] Yeah. And let's see next one on Twitter. [00:25:55] This I thought was interesting. [00:25:57] So this is a comment this actually is from [00:26:00] Airtable. Talking about [00:26:02] a new blog post that they wrote [00:26:06] about getting your data [00:26:08] into data visualization tools [00:26:11] like Tableau, Google, Data [00:26:13] Studio or Power bi. [00:26:15] I and I didn't realize [00:26:17] that they, I think I've seen that [00:26:19] they've had connectors but [00:26:23] I have also seen lots of people [00:26:25] in the communities [00:26:26] trying to figure out how to [00:26:27] get data into these different systems [00:26:31] and so they actually have some [00:26:35] libraries that you can use to build, [00:26:40] ways to get your data [00:26:42] into other data visualization [00:26:44] tools which I know for [00:26:45] bigger companies is a must have [00:26:49] for using this. So [00:26:51] have you done anything [00:26:53] with any of these tools? [00:26:55] I haven't but I have [00:26:58] started looking at them honestly. [00:27:02] I mean I've been pretty satisfied [00:27:04] with Airtable's dashboard functionality, [00:27:07] like with the visualization [00:27:09] that they have [00:27:09] just for what I've needed so far. [00:27:11] But I have started [00:27:12] to come across things [00:27:13] where I'm like, oh I really wish that [00:27:14] this chart had better [00:27:16] options or could display [00:27:18] a couple other things. [00:27:21] so I'm super interested [00:27:22] in taking a look at this. Yeah, [00:27:25] it does look pretty technical, [00:27:26] some of these are, [00:27:27] you know, code libraries that [00:27:29] you have to install or run [00:27:31] to connect and so [00:27:33] a little bit higher skill [00:27:35] level technical level [00:27:37] to get these working. [00:27:39] But [00:27:41] hopefully it does work [00:27:43] and satisfies the needs for [00:27:46] larger enterprises to get [00:27:48] their data into there [00:27:49] the other thing that I've seen [00:27:52] is a sync sync inc [00:27:54] is a company out there that [00:27:56] will sync your data [00:27:58] from Airtable into a Postgres database, [00:28:01] and then any of these would be able to [00:28:03] tap into a Postgres database. [00:28:05] So that's another approach that [00:28:08] that I've seen people take as well. [00:28:13] So that works. [00:28:14] So there, okay, [00:28:15] so a couple others, these are a little bit [00:28:17] outside the norm [00:28:19] of finding people talk about it, [00:28:21] but I regularly visit hacker [00:28:23] news if you're in the tech world, [00:28:25] you're familiar with hacker news, [00:28:27] it's kind of [00:28:28] where, you know, technical people [00:28:31] talk about stuff going on [00:28:33] across the board [00:28:35] and a lot of times people will [00:28:37] share new products that they're [00:28:39] building or using. [00:28:41] And so there is a new competitor [00:28:43] to Airtable, an open source Airtable lack [00:28:46] experience. [00:28:48] And there's a lot of these out there [00:28:50] at some point we should do kind of a deep [00:28:52] dive comparison of all of these [00:28:55] Airtable alternatives and see how they, [00:28:58] how they work. [00:28:59] But yeah, here's one more [00:29:04] you kind of see kind of looks [00:29:06] similar to Airtable. [00:29:08] It's got the spreadsheet [00:29:09] functionality and, [00:29:11] but this one you can actually [00:29:14] install on your own servers [00:29:16] and so for some people [00:29:18] that's important, [00:29:20] as far as having control [00:29:22] over the data. So [00:29:24] yeah, so there are options [00:29:26] that's kind of a sign of success. [00:29:28] I think when you get lots of knockoffs [00:29:31] and clones and this one actually [00:29:33] is not the most similar looking [00:29:35] to Airtable out there, [00:29:36] there's some that are [00:29:37] pretty much exact copies of Airtable. [00:29:42] Yeah, so it'll be interesting [00:29:45] to see if any of these [00:29:46] like have staying power to [00:29:48] to stick around and [00:29:50] and compete on that front [00:29:52] and how important that might be [00:29:55] for companies to, [00:29:56] because the interface is important, [00:29:58] but there's a lot more to Airtable [00:30:01] than just the UI. [00:30:04] Although that is a big selling point [00:30:06] of what people like about it because it [00:30:08] is very easy to use. [00:30:11] I think so too. [00:30:13] Yeah. So it'll be interesting [00:30:15] to see where Airtable shakes out [00:30:19] and how these competitors, [00:30:21] you know, I can maybe take [00:30:23] some of their market [00:30:24] share if, [00:30:25] if they can stick around, [00:30:27] but to compete with Airtable, [00:30:29] it's going to take a [00:30:30] lot of money. Shoot. [00:30:33] I got locked out of this one. [00:30:35] I've already seen it. So anyways, [00:30:37] there's an article, [00:30:39] we'll see you for a second here [00:30:40] before the pop up comes up. [00:30:41] But talking about [00:30:43] Airtable is planning to double [00:30:46] its workforce in the [00:30:48] next year and grow to over [00:30:50] 1000 there somewhere 500-600 [00:30:52] employees right now. [00:30:54] And so like I was mentioning, to [00:30:58] to compete with Airtable, [00:31:00] it's going to take a lot of money [00:31:02] because Airtable [00:31:03] has raised a ton of money [00:31:05] and growing quickly and adding a lot of [00:31:09] headcount to their [00:31:11] teams. So it'll be interesting [00:31:13] to see that's a good thing or a bad thing. [00:31:15] I know in our slack community, [00:31:18] there's been some discussion about [00:31:21] whether that's good or bad for Airtable [00:31:24] to grow that fast that quickly and [00:31:26] what the company looks like after [00:31:28] that kind of growth and personnel. [00:31:31] So we'll see that could [00:31:33] be great for us, or it could [00:31:36] make things more difficult, [00:31:37] we'll find out. [00:31:38] Yeah. Are we sure will. [00:31:41] That's crazy. I remember, [00:31:43] I think when I first [00:31:44] started using Airtable, [00:31:45] there were like 50 employees. [00:31:47] Yeah. Yeah, they were sub [00:31:50] a hundred, sub two-hundred [00:31:53] for a long time. [00:31:54] And then this last year [00:31:56] they went from two to five hundred and [00:31:58] it looks like they'll be [00:32:01] ramping up again this next year. So [00:32:04] yeah, if you're out looking for work [00:32:07] and want to work for at a great [00:32:09] company, then definitely [00:32:10] check out Airtable. [00:32:12] Absolutely. They just opened [00:32:14] their office in Austin too, I think. [00:32:17] Yeah. Yeah, I think they [00:32:18] mentioned that's where [00:32:20] they expect to see a lot of [00:32:21] growth. [00:32:23] Alright. That concludes [00:32:25] our Round the Bases. [00:32:26] Let's move on to an On2Air spotlight [00:32:28] On2Air, the all in one tool kit [00:32:30] to run your business on Airtable. [00:32:32] It's a suite of apps [00:32:34] that help you extend your Airtable [00:32:37] workflows and if you're running [00:32:40] your business on Airtable, [00:32:41] you need to check out On2Air [00:32:43] to get their suite of tools [00:32:45] and do that. [00:32:46] So what I thought I'd do [00:32:48] for this spotlight [00:32:50] is give a sneak peek into [00:32:52] some coming features [00:32:54] that are not yet live in our Amplify app. [00:32:56] So we're in final stages of [00:33:01] finalizing this [00:33:03] and we're moving to a grid laid out. [00:33:07] let me find a better one [00:33:10] to where you'll be able to [00:33:13] organize your columns or what we now call [00:33:17] block views [00:33:17] and they can be on top [00:33:19] of each other or left and right. [00:33:21] So in the past our layouts [00:33:23] were left, right, [00:33:25] and we're moving to where [00:33:27] they can be if I can get this [00:33:31] computer is being slow, [00:33:34] but you can now drag them [00:33:37] try one more time [00:33:39] with the recording. It's it's super slow. [00:33:43] There we go. [00:33:46] can't get it up, there we go [00:33:49] now, you can get them [00:33:50] and you can actually create [00:33:52] dashboard like with with each [00:33:54] of our editor views [00:33:57] and the other powerful thing [00:33:58] that I'll highlight, [00:33:59] there's actually a ton of [00:34:00] features. I'm not going to talk through [00:34:02] all of them but we are actually coming [00:34:04] out with the ability to [00:34:08] create filtered records. [00:34:10] So for every table you can [00:34:12] actually personalize [00:34:16] based off of a field [00:34:18] and set up each collaborator [00:34:20] to only view records within [00:34:22] the app [00:34:23] based off how they match up [00:34:25] with that specific field in that table. [00:34:27] So for any layout that you create, [00:34:30] you can turn on this record, [00:34:33] filtering and say okay, [00:34:35] these users can only [00:34:37] see records that have this in [00:34:40] the title for example [00:34:41] or you can match it based off of [00:34:44] like a collaborator field [00:34:45] or formula field, [00:34:47] anything like that. [00:34:49] So for this one, [00:34:51] I can say Alli [00:34:54] for that has to be [00:35:02] actually I think it's too small. [00:35:04] Let me make it bigger [00:35:06] or there's a bug here [00:35:07] so yeah there should be [00:35:09] another field here that [00:35:11] that shows that. So [00:35:14] final stages of bugging [00:35:15] this is a preview [00:35:16] but yeah you basically would be able [00:35:18] to say okay Alli [00:35:19] can see anything with this in the title [00:35:23] and other people can see [00:35:24] anything with this in the title [00:35:26] so you can set up [00:35:27] filtered records [00:35:28] and then when you go into [00:35:31] the layout settings you can turn that [00:35:34] on and say for this layout [00:35:35] I want to use the filtered records [00:35:38] and then even at the layout [00:35:39] there's now permission level [00:35:41] so you can specify who [00:35:42] can see this specific layout, [00:35:44] you can do it by role or by user. [00:35:47] Either which users [00:35:49] can see it or which users [00:35:50] can't see it [00:35:51] and then everybody else can [00:35:54] so flexibility on there as well as who [00:35:56] can create or copy a record, [00:35:59] Who can edit records or delete records. [00:36:02] So you've got more granular [00:36:04] functionality that [00:36:06] at some point Airtable may [00:36:08] implement that but until then [00:36:10] we said we need [00:36:11] this we've got lots [00:36:12] of clients asking for this [00:36:13] and so it will help you [00:36:15] manage your record [00:36:18] lifecycle all within [00:36:20] the On2Air Amplify app. [00:36:23] That's awesome. [00:36:24] So that is coming [00:36:26] hopefully in the coming weeks [00:36:28] we're in final QA get those [00:36:30] final bugs worked [00:36:31] and then we'll get it to Airtable [00:36:33] for their QA process [00:36:34] and hopefully we see this [00:36:36] in the coming weeks [00:36:38] this month at some point. [00:36:41] Yes. Yeah that's it's been [00:36:43] a few months in the making [00:36:46] for that functionality. [00:36:48] Yeah. [00:36:48] All right. Next one [00:36:50] I'm going to continue talking here, [00:36:52] we're gonna do an App a Day [00:36:54] and we're talking about the Embed app. [00:36:56] If you haven't used this this is a [00:36:58] pretty useful app [00:37:01] that you need to incorporate into your [00:37:07] systems. So how this works, [00:37:10] you like all apps you just click on, [00:37:13] add an app. [00:37:15] This one is made by Airtable. [00:37:18] So Airtable is the creator of [00:37:20] this so you can find it in their apps [00:37:24] and install the Embed app. [00:37:25] And it's pretty simple. [00:37:27] The only thing you can do is [00:37:28] specify a website URL [00:37:30] so I put it in today's Youtube video, [00:37:34] we could watch ourselves [00:37:36] watching ourselves [00:37:38] very meta if we wanted to. [00:37:40] But basically that's it. [00:37:42] So if you ever need any [00:37:44] external content that you [00:37:46] want to have right next to your data, [00:37:50] you can just use the embed and and do [00:37:53] that. [00:37:54] That's great for if [00:37:55] it's just something that is [00:37:58] that you want to stay across all tables [00:38:02] or anywhere within the base [00:38:05] that will stay because it's tied [00:38:07] directly to that URL [00:38:09] so that could be like your main website, [00:38:11] maybe you want to always have your [00:38:12] website up [00:38:13] or another crm system or something [00:38:16] that you always want to be able to [00:38:18] access as you're looking [00:38:20] at your Airtable data. So [00:38:22] very useful to to see [00:38:23] kind of things side by side. [00:38:26] Now there's a similar app [00:38:28] called URL preview [00:38:29] and the difference here is [00:38:32] this gets the URL from your data [00:38:35] and so you use [00:38:36] a specific field [00:38:37] for previews [00:38:39] and you set up the table [00:38:41] and then the field where [00:38:43] you're getting the URL from. [00:38:45] And so I just have a formula field, [00:38:47] I was actually [00:38:48] I was hoping that it [00:38:50] supported Formula as it does. So it just [00:38:52] so I think either formula or URL [00:38:56] fields are supported [00:38:57] actually looks like text fields as well. [00:39:00] So anything where it could [00:39:02] potentially generate a URL [00:39:04] this will then this one is now [00:39:07] records specific [00:39:08] now I just have a formula that [00:39:10] just has our Youtube link for all of them. [00:39:14] But if you had for example a list of [00:39:16] Youtube videos and you had a unique ID. [00:39:19] for each of them are unique [00:39:21] URL for each of them, [00:39:23] then this would easily every time [00:39:25] you move to another one [00:39:27] it will it would [00:39:28] switch to that different URL [00:39:32] within the URL preview. [00:39:35] So both of these are similar. [00:39:37] One is for just kind of a static URL [00:39:39] that stays the same [00:39:40] and then the other is [00:39:42] a record specific URL [00:39:45] that will switch with each one [00:39:47] And this is where Alli [00:39:49] shared where she uses the [00:39:52] URL preview app to [00:39:54] embed [00:39:55] a filtered view, shared view [00:39:58] based off of a formula that generates, [00:40:01] you know what that filtered [00:40:04] aspect would be [00:40:06] so cool use case there. [00:40:07] So try that out. [00:40:09] These two are pretty pretty [00:40:11] standard come in pretty [00:40:13] common with the work that I do. [00:40:15] And it sounds like Alli as well. [00:40:17] So definitely include those [00:40:19] in your repertoire of apps [00:40:21] that you're using. [00:40:24] Alright. Let's move on. [00:40:27] We're now gonna do [00:40:29] Field Focus Alli if you want to [00:40:32] share your screen, [00:40:33] talk about the new filters that came out. [00:40:38] All right. [00:40:41] And all right. [00:40:43] I just had it up. Here it is. All right. [00:40:49] Okay. So this is a super super [00:40:52] exciting new feature. [00:40:54] I know a ton of people have [00:40:55] been waiting for this [00:40:57] including myself for a very long time. [00:40:59] And in honor of Halloween, [00:41:01] I figured I would do something [00:41:04] little silly for this use case. [00:41:07] So [00:41:09] basically prior to this new release, [00:41:12] we were really limited [00:41:14] to only being able to use [00:41:17] all ands in a filter or ors. [00:41:21] It's hard to say that. [00:41:23] But essentially it was [00:41:26] saying, you know, you could say [00:41:28] where the color or like let's say and or [00:41:31] you and this is a list of a trucks. [00:41:35] So, I'm just gonna say [00:41:37] if they're new and [00:41:39] you know and stock contains or we'll [00:41:41] say group is that [00:41:44] and it's just going to keep [00:41:46] saying and all the way down [00:41:47] if I change that to or, they [00:41:48] all become ors. [00:41:51] and that is [00:41:53] very restrictive [00:41:55] for some use cases. So let's say, [00:41:59] I want to be able to [00:42:02] limit this by [00:42:04] the make [00:42:06] and I'm gonna say Kenworth [00:42:11] and [00:42:12] we'll say [00:42:13] and the color [00:42:17] contains orange, [00:42:21] now, [00:42:23] previously I'm gonna act like [00:42:24] those conditions groups [00:42:26] don't exist right now, [00:42:26] let's say I wanted to see [00:42:29] all orange and black trucks. [00:42:32] There's no way I can do that [00:42:33] with just these filters because [00:42:35] right now it's trying to look for [00:42:37] a color field that contains both the words [00:42:39] orange and black. [00:42:41] So I can't limit it by both [00:42:43] of these parameters separately [00:42:45] until now. [00:42:46] But just [00:42:49] previously a lot of people [00:42:50] would have to write [00:42:51] A formula such as this one [00:42:54] to be able to filter [00:42:57] this view. [00:42:58] So this is essentially saying [00:43:00] what I would want that filter [00:43:02] to say the make is [00:43:03] ken word and the color contains [00:43:06] either orange or black [00:43:07] to get our Halloween [00:43:09] trucks. Exactly. [00:43:11] So if I can just filter by [00:43:14] that Halloween trucks is not empty. [00:43:17] This would be the results [00:43:19] I am looking for [00:43:20] and let's also make it where picks, [00:43:23] it's not empty. [00:43:25] So you can actually see some pictures. [00:43:28] Let's go to our gallery view to actually [00:43:32] look at that. [00:43:33] So now I'm going to just [00:43:35] do it with the new version of our [00:43:37] filtered groups, which is awesome. [00:43:39] So I want to look at only Kenworth [00:43:43] and only orange and red trucks [00:43:46] or red rather. [00:43:47] So I'm gonna add a condition [00:43:50] first where the make [00:43:53] contains colors [00:43:56] and then I'm gonna add a condition group [00:43:59] which is where the magic starts to [00:44:00] happen. [00:44:01] So I'm going to add a condition [00:44:04] to that group [00:44:06] where the color [00:44:09] contains orange, [00:44:12] there's all of our orange trucks [00:44:15] and then I'm gonna add another condition [00:44:18] and then automatically assigned [00:44:20] or but I could change that [00:44:21] to and if I wanted to [00:44:22] I don't want to in this case [00:44:24] the same color contains black [00:44:29] that looks like a blue truck to me. [00:44:31] But either way, [00:44:33] so that is basically [00:44:36] the magic of this new feature [00:44:38] and I could add more condition groups [00:44:41] if I wanted to [00:44:42] as well [00:44:43] and get even more in depth. [00:44:45] And can you add a condition group too? [00:44:47] Yeah. You can. You can nest them too. [00:44:50] Which is very cool. [00:44:52] Yeah. I was gonna ask how many layers deep [00:44:55] does it support? [00:44:57] That's a great question. I'm not sure. [00:44:59] Looks like you can go one more [00:45:02] Click on the plus right there. [00:45:05] It's only one [00:45:06] so three layers total. [00:45:08] Right, or two layers. Yeah. [00:45:13] Or [00:45:16] I don't know. [00:45:20] So yeah, there's a whole [00:45:21] lot more you can do with that [00:45:23] and you could probably go [00:45:24] through and re factor a bunch [00:45:26] of things and get rid of [00:45:28] all those extra filter [00:45:29] formulas. [00:45:31] Yeah, that could help [00:45:33] if for the individual [00:45:34] who hit the 500 limit, [00:45:35] I'm guessing maybe they had [00:45:37] a bunch of formula fields for filtering. [00:45:40] Absolutely. [00:45:41] Yeah, that could help get you under 500. [00:45:45] Yes, so very, very powerful. [00:45:48] Much needed. I think everybody [00:45:51] is always happy [00:45:52] when [00:45:53] you know sometimes there's [00:45:56] been pushed back for Airtable [00:45:58] when they [00:45:59] are releasing stuff that's nice [00:46:02] to have but not core. [00:46:04] This is a core must have [00:46:06] feature that everybody was happy to see. [00:46:09] Absolutely. [00:46:10] So yeah, we like to see [00:46:12] those core updates. [00:46:15] Cool. So yeah, [00:46:16] so definitely that's a integral [00:46:19] part of any set up [00:46:21] within your views [00:46:22] to set up those advanced field filters. [00:46:25] So worth learning more [00:46:26] about those [00:46:28] and thank you Alli for sharing that. [00:46:33] Okay, final plug [00:46:34] for the BuiltOnAir community. [00:46:36] If you're not a member [00:46:38] of our community, [00:46:39] we want you to sign up, [00:46:41] sign up for the newsletter, [00:46:42] get updates on these podcasts [00:46:44] and other things [00:46:45] that are happening in the Airtable world, [00:46:48] lots of resources for tools [00:46:50] and consultants and [00:46:52] and also our slack community [00:46:54] that we always want people to join, [00:46:56] ask questions and [00:46:58] meet other amazing [00:47:00] people working in the Airtable ecosystem. [00:47:03] So check us out at [00:47:05] builtonair.com/join to sign up today. [00:47:08] Okay. [00:47:09] Our final segment [00:47:11] that we have been doing [00:47:14] the last three weeks. [00:47:16] This is the third installment of [00:47:18] Airtable automation, [00:47:20] a customer feedback loop. [00:47:22] So what the goal was is to build [00:47:25] a system that would allow customers [00:47:28] of On2Air, the company that I run [00:47:32] and get feedback on existing apps [00:47:35] as well as ideas for new apps. [00:47:37] So if you watched our previous episodes, [00:47:41] you saw the space that we have [00:47:43] feedback for [00:47:45] our customers, our existing apps [00:47:47] and getting feedback from existing apps. [00:47:50] And then we also want to collect ideas [00:47:53] for new apps that people want us to build. [00:47:56] So we built tables and views [00:47:59] forms for people to fill out [00:48:03] and give us new [00:48:04] ideas [00:48:05] and then [00:48:06] and then the ability to up vote [00:48:08] those by clicking on a button [00:48:11] and adding your [00:48:12] name to the vote [00:48:13] that you want to get notified [00:48:16] that whenever we release a new [00:48:18] feature or fix something [00:48:20] that's been coming that's [00:48:21] come from the Airtable [00:48:22] community or our customer base, [00:48:25] so previous episodes, [00:48:27] we went through how to build all this. [00:48:30] So the final stage is [00:48:32] how do we make this [00:48:34] usable to end users outside of Airtable? [00:48:38] I don't want to add people to this base [00:48:42] and give them access to modify [00:48:45] these. So we need some kind of ui [00:48:48] component to that. So I thought through, [00:48:51] you know, you could use softer or poor e [00:48:54] or some website builders that [00:48:57] could, you could implement that. [00:49:00] I thought about maybe [00:49:01] building a static web [00:49:02] page that embedded these things. [00:49:06] But then I came to the realization like, [00:49:09] hey, what about using apps within Airtable [00:49:13] and sharing those apps with the [00:49:16] outside world. So there is a feature [00:49:19] that may or may not be available to you. [00:49:22] I don't know the status of this, [00:49:24] there's lots of questions [00:49:26] but I signed up for a beta [00:49:28] months ago that allowed me [00:49:29] access to be able to share [00:49:32] your apps with your shared base. [00:49:35] So if you really need this [00:49:37] functionality and you don't see this, [00:49:39] maybe reach out to Airtable. [00:49:41] And basically if I go to share a base, [00:49:44] there is an option here that says [00:49:47] show apps added to this space. Now, [00:49:50] so like I said you may not see [00:49:52] this toggle when you share a base but [00:49:55] does exist, it is out there, I don't know [00:49:57] what Airtable is going to do with this. [00:50:01] But I'm using it and it's [00:50:04] great for this specific use case. [00:50:07] So I started to build some apps [00:50:10] using like we talked about [00:50:12] the Embed feature [00:50:13] where I just used the Embed app [00:50:16] and I'm embedding a shared view [00:50:19] of the grid. [00:50:20] But one of the things about this [00:50:24] is if you share this, one of the downsides [00:50:29] is, let me [00:50:32] open this up so you see what it looks like [00:50:35] and you can actually configure the URL [00:50:38] to automatically show your apps [00:50:40] displayed. So if I were to embed this [00:50:43] like on our website or in our support [00:50:46] pages, you know, [00:50:47] I can embed this kind of view [00:50:50] and actually I would probably [00:50:52] embed it full screen like this. [00:50:54] So you can see that it added [00:50:56] this parameter BIP equals full. [00:50:58] So if I embedded this URL [00:51:01] onto our website, [00:51:02] I could get them to see this [00:51:04] kind of view [00:51:07] where they see like [00:51:09] all the lists of app ideas [00:51:11] and then a form to fill out [00:51:13] where they could submit their own [00:51:15] new app idea for us to do that. [00:51:18] The problem is is I want to [00:51:20] collect their name and email [00:51:22] and I also want to have a buffer that [00:51:27] I don't want people to see everything [00:51:29] that's committed because I'm guessing [00:51:30] there might be spam or ideas that [00:51:33] are not suitable for work [00:51:35] and things like that. [00:51:36] So I don't want everything to [00:51:37] just I don't want people to be [00:51:39] able to access everything. [00:51:41] So one of the biggest problems [00:51:43] with sharing apps [00:51:44] is, [00:51:45] you know, it could open up like this, [00:51:48] but there's obviously this button right [00:51:50] there that you click [00:51:51] and now you see every [00:51:54] view that is in the base [00:51:57] and that means you would see [00:51:59] people's emails, things like that. [00:52:01] So I obviously don't want [00:52:03] to expose that data [00:52:05] so that kind of put you know [00:52:09] an obstacle to overcome. [00:52:12] So the workaround that you do [00:52:15] is you create a second base [00:52:17] and this one is your [00:52:19] public facing base. [00:52:21] And you set up sync tables [00:52:23] based off of a view that only has [00:52:26] the data that you're [00:52:28] okay sharing publicly. [00:52:30] Right. And so now I have this second [00:52:32] base [00:52:33] and you see I've got two sync tables [00:52:37] and they are linked to my original base in [00:52:40] the forms all get updated [00:52:42] to my original base [00:52:44] and that's where I can control [00:52:45] what's in there. [00:52:47] And I have a status field [00:52:48] that says okay this one [00:52:50] can be shared publicly, [00:52:52] it's not spam or anything like that. [00:52:54] And then I have a [00:52:55] and I have a view back in my old base [00:52:58] that's a display view [00:52:59] and that's filtered to [00:53:01] only show the fields [00:53:02] that I want to share publicly. [00:53:05] And it's hiding any records, [00:53:07] it's only showing records [00:53:09] that I want to share [00:53:10] publicly. [00:53:11] And so now that is synced over [00:53:14] to the second table or base [00:53:16] and you can set up [00:53:17] views for different [00:53:18] so I've got views for each [00:53:20] of our different On2Air apps. [00:53:21] You could configure this [00:53:23] whatever makes sense for [00:53:25] your base. And then now I [00:53:27] have some gallery views [00:53:29] and then now inside [00:53:31] of here I can set up some apps [00:53:33] similar approach where you [00:53:35] can use the embed functionality [00:53:38] or you could use [00:53:40] you know you could configure this, [00:53:42] you could use the URL [00:53:43] preview where maybe you could [00:53:45] although I don't think the [00:53:47] URL preview works with [00:53:49] with this mode right with [00:53:51] the gallery view [00:53:52] because you can't really [00:53:54] select a record view, [00:53:57] that would be nice. [00:53:59] Yeah I don't think you can. Let me see, [00:54:04] I know this one has, [00:54:07] that would be nice [00:54:08] because this is a better view. [00:54:10] Yeah there's no it doesn't [00:54:12] actually it does select [00:54:16] So that could be a good feature [00:54:18] where you oh yeah when you [00:54:20] click on it it comes [00:54:21] up. So that [00:54:23] yeah [00:54:24] but anyways you could have a grid view [00:54:27] where they could select, [00:54:29] you know, each app I could have [00:54:31] like an app list [00:54:32] or something that allows you [00:54:35] to see things but basically [00:54:37] oh yeah, it open them all up, [00:54:39] it just took a long time. [00:54:41] All right, let me close out here [00:54:46] and so now I created dashboards [00:54:49] for viewing all of the [00:54:54] come on. [00:55:03] Doesn't want to close, [00:55:07] so basically it [00:55:09] I created a dashboard that had [00:55:13] all of the all of the apps [00:55:16] that we have with their feedback [00:55:19] that's that would be coming in. [00:55:21] And then so now if I go into [00:55:23] full app mode, [00:55:24] I can see feedback for each app [00:55:28] within a layout and you could [00:55:32] you could, you know configure these, [00:55:35] it does give kind of [00:55:36] this header that can't [00:55:38] really get rid of [00:55:39] but you can basically embed [00:55:42] all of your gallery views for [00:55:44] each of your apps, [00:55:46] and then I also have a form view, [00:55:48] so you can submit a new one, [00:55:50] but then for each of these [00:55:53] there's two things, [00:55:55] I'm probably going to rework this [00:55:56] for my final version that [00:55:58] that I do, [00:55:59] I'll probably have a different [00:56:01] dashboard for each app [00:56:02] where you just have to a form [00:56:05] to submit a new one and then [00:56:07] and then the listing like this, [00:56:10] but it does I did kind of create, [00:56:13] I wanted the ability to add like [00:56:16] a new one in addition [00:56:18] to all the ones that you [00:56:19] see existing. [00:56:20] So I created sort of this like create new [00:56:24] item that shows up [00:56:25] and then it has this create new button [00:56:28] and this would [00:56:28] create a new feedback [00:56:31] for this specific app [00:56:34] and you see this one, [00:56:36] I disabled the up vote by [00:56:37] this this up vote is based off [00:56:39] of a URL that if it's blank [00:56:42] then it will be disabled. [00:56:45] And so I was able to disable it. [00:56:47] I wish that you could like hide this [00:56:50] dynamically if there is no value. [00:56:52] That would be the ideal way. [00:56:54] I know it would be cool. [00:56:56] You could use the can ban view [00:56:58] because I don't know [00:56:59] if it will hide the button [00:57:01] if there's no URL [00:57:02] but the bummer about I like how the [00:57:06] can band combine, [00:57:07] I don't know how, [00:57:09] but they, I don't like how they do the [00:57:11] uncategorized. Always, [00:57:13] even if it's always filled out, [00:57:16] it's always there but that [00:57:17] might look good if that weren't there. [00:57:20] Yeah, so I could have, [00:57:22] yeah, each app could be, [00:57:23] I could use the can ban [00:57:25] for that on a per app and [00:57:27] and then the shared view, [00:57:29] you can't move on so you couldn't, [00:57:31] you know, switch apps or anything [00:57:32] and you can't these can't these aren't [00:57:34] editable anyways. [00:57:37] so yeah, so this and then if it's a, [00:57:40] let's see the one that's got multiple okay [00:57:43] on this one. [00:57:44] So this one is an actual [00:57:46] improvement enhancement. [00:57:48] So this one the up vote [00:57:50] is enabled and the create new [00:57:53] is not enabled [00:57:54] and I'm probably, you know, [00:57:55] I'm testing this. [00:57:56] I don't think this will be the [00:57:57] final version that I go with but [00:58:00] this allows you to, [00:58:01] if you say okay, [00:58:02] I want to click on this, [00:58:04] I spelled Airtable wrong. Oh my goodness. [00:58:08] Yeah, [00:58:09] formula spelling Airtable wrong. [00:58:11] So I got to fix that [00:58:12] and then that will take [00:58:13] you to a form and we talked [00:58:15] about this in last week's episode. [00:58:17] So it auto populates it with that [00:58:19] specific one and you can say yes, [00:58:21] I want to up vote this [00:58:22] and provide your email [00:58:24] if you want to get notified when, [00:58:26] when that gets added. [00:58:28] So we now have [00:58:30] you know this and a dashboard for new [00:58:33] app ideas. A dashboard for existing app [00:58:37] enhancements or or fixes. [00:58:39] And then now I can [00:58:42] now I can share this entire base [00:58:47] and then I've got a working UI [00:58:50] that is only showing the [00:58:53] data that I'm okay [00:58:54] sharing publicly [00:58:56] and has the forms to update it [00:58:59] and you now have two bases, [00:59:02] one for the public [00:59:03] facing data [00:59:04] and then one for your internal processing [00:59:07] and you don't have to [00:59:08] worry about what you know [00:59:10] people can do to that and do that. [00:59:13] So that's a great example [00:59:15] of you know, [00:59:16] it's obviously not ideal if you use tools [00:59:19] like candy, like I mentioned before [00:59:20] they're going to have a bunch more [00:59:22] functionality but [00:59:23] this accomplishes the ultimate goal [00:59:25] of getting feedback and [00:59:27] allowing people to get notified [00:59:29] when you're adding or updating things [00:59:33] that people want to see [00:59:34] in your product. So [00:59:35] and it's built entirely in Airtable. [00:59:38] No third party resources, [00:59:39] it does require to do this. [00:59:42] This showing the apps, [00:59:44] it does require that share [00:59:46] app functionality [00:59:47] that not everybody has. So [00:59:51] that's the only requirement [00:59:52] that you may need to [00:59:54] ask Airtable that turn on for [00:59:55] you. [00:59:57] Not bad for a working [00:59:59] solution all in Airtable. [01:00:01] Not bad at all. [01:00:03] That works so [01:00:04] you'll see this. [01:00:05] So we'll get this actually, you know, [01:00:07] I am going to use this on our website [01:00:10] and allow people to give us great [01:00:13] ideas on how we can [01:00:15] improve our products. So [01:00:17] with that coming up on the end [01:00:20] of the hour and we're finished [01:00:23] up just about on time. [01:00:25] Any final comments before we head out? [01:00:28] I don't think so [01:00:31] excited to see if, [01:00:33] Friday evening they actually maybe [01:00:36] make that error message go away. [01:00:39] That would be lovely. [01:00:41] But yeah. That would be nice. [01:00:43] Everything's gonna load [01:00:45] blazingly fast and maybe they [01:00:46] might even increase the record limit. [01:00:51] So that will be good. [01:00:53] So we'll definitely be addressing [01:00:55] that, so join us next week [01:00:57] to see what we found on [01:00:59] that upgrade and anything [01:01:00] else happening. Until then, [01:01:02] we love to hear from you [01:01:03] and see what you've built [01:01:04] OnAir. See you next week. [01:01:07] Bye.
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BuiltOnAir Podcast
- [S20-E06] Full Podcast for 11-12-2024 - Ben Green (OptimizeIS); Array Slice; Deduping Data November 15, 2024#airtable #on2air #builtonair 11/12/2024 - BuiltOnAir Live Podcast Full Show - S20-E06 ___________________________ The BuiltOnAir podcast is a live weekly show highlighting everything happening in the Airtable universe. Check us out at BuiltOnAir.com/join. Join our community, join our Slack channel, and see what's happening. ------------------------ SPONSORED BY On2Air - Airtable Apps and Integrations to run […]
