8/15/2023 – BuiltOnAir Live Podcast Full Show – S15-E06

Duration: 50 minutes

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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.

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 – 00:03:11 –

Meet the Creators – 00:16:11 –

Meet Zakey from Ask Airy.

Zakey is a software engineer from Virginia and currently works at a digital product agency as an Applied AI Engineer. He recently fell in love with Airtable when building an inventory management solution for a local club. Since then, he’s built two extensions in the Airtable extension marketplace and is looking forward to building more tools for Airtable users in the future.Zakey is a software engineer from Virginia and currently works at a digital product agency as an Applied AI Engineer. He recently fell in love with Airtable when building an inventory management solution for a local club. Since then, he’s built two extensions in the Airtable extension marketplace and is looking forward to building more tools for Airtable users in the future.

An App a Day – 00:25:56 –

Watch as we install, explore, and showcase the Ask Airy App from the Airtable Marketplace. The app is described as “Discover the power of AI with Ask Airy, an Airtable extension enabling intelligent search and Q&A with your data.”.

View App

An App a Day – 00:42:13 –

Watch as we install, explore, and showcase the Softr Action Buttons App from the Airtable Marketplace. The app is described as “Buttons have long existed in Softr, but previously you were only able to set up navigation actions, such as open URL, page, or modal. With the new action buttons, you can now perform CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations with the underlying data.”.

View App

Full Segment Details

Segment: Round The Bases

Start Time: 00:03:11

Roundup of what’s happening in the Airtable communities – Airtable, BuiltOnAir, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Segment: Meet the Creators

Start Time: 00:16:11

Zakey –

Meet Zakey from Ask Airy.

Zakey is a software engineer from Virginia and currently works at a digital product agency as an Applied AI Engineer. He recently fell in love with Airtable when building an inventory management solution for a local club. Since then, he’s built two extensions in the Airtable extension marketplace and is looking forward to building more tools for Airtable users in the future.Zakey is a software engineer from Virginia and currently works at a digital product agency as an Applied AI Engineer. He recently fell in love with Airtable when building an inventory management solution for a local club. Since then, he’s built two extensions in the Airtable extension marketplace and is looking forward to building more tools for Airtable users in the future.

Segment: An App a Day

Start Time: 00:25:56

Airtable App Showcase – Ask Airy – Discover the power of AI with Ask Airy, an Airtable extension enabling intelligent search and Q&A with your data.

Watch as we install, explore, and showcase the Ask Airy App from the Airtable Marketplace. The app is described as “Discover the power of AI with Ask Airy, an Airtable extension enabling intelligent search and Q&A with your data.”.

View App

Segment: An App a Day

Start Time: 00:42:13

Airtable App Showcase – Softr Action Buttons – Buttons have long existed in Softr, but previously you were only able to set up navigation actions, such as open URL, page, or modal. With the new action buttons, you can now perform CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations with the underlying data.

Watch as we install, explore, and showcase the Softr Action Buttons App from the Airtable Marketplace. The app is described as “Buttons have long existed in Softr, but previously you were only able to set up navigation actions, such as open URL, page, or modal. With the new action buttons, you can now perform CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations with the underlying data.”.

View App

Full Transcription

The full transcription for the show can be found here:

[00:01:42] Welcome back to the BuiltOnAir Podcast.
[00:01:45] We are in season 15,
[00:01:46] episode six. Coming to you live
[00:01:48] this Tuesday morning. Good to be with you.
[00:01:50] We've got myself and Alli back as always.
[00:01:53] Kamille could not make it today,
[00:01:56] so she should be back next time,
[00:01:57] but we have special guest Zakey
[00:01:59] on with us. Welcome Zakey.
[00:02:01] Good to have you with us.
[00:02:03] Hello, glad to be here.
[00:02:05] Yeah, and we'll learn more about Zakey
[00:02:08] and his background and story coming up
[00:02:10] on the show. So
[00:02:12] I'll walk you through what
[00:02:13] we're gonna be talking about. As always,
[00:02:15] we BuiltOnAir podcast is an hour long
[00:02:17] show where we go through
[00:02:19] and keep you up to date
[00:02:20] on all things Airable.
[00:02:21] We'll start off as always with our
[00:02:24] skip one.
[00:02:27] Oh, shoot. We'll start with our
[00:02:28] Round the Bases, the screen,
[00:02:29] the, it didn't work the image,
[00:02:31] but we'll start with our Round the Bases
[00:02:33] talking about what's going
[00:02:34] on in the Airtable world
[00:02:36] and then a quick spotlight on On2Air,
[00:02:38] our sponsor,
[00:02:40] then we'll learn about Zakey
[00:02:42] and his background and what he
[00:02:44] is up to
[00:02:45] and then he will show
[00:02:47] his app called Ask Airy
[00:02:50] that's in the marketplace
[00:02:52] and do a demo of that.
[00:02:54] Then we'll talk about our community,
[00:02:57] how you can join and then we will end with
[00:02:59] Softr and learn about action
[00:03:02] buttons with Alli.
[00:03:03] So with that,
[00:03:05] we will start with our Round the Bases.
[00:03:07] Don't have my screen for that. But
[00:03:11] let's see what's going on in the
[00:03:13] Airtable world. I didn't see any major
[00:03:14] announcements of new features.
[00:03:17] Last week, we got quite a few.
[00:03:19] We did find a couple new ones
[00:03:21] that we'll talk about, but they weren't
[00:03:23] announced officially. So
[00:03:25] some unofficial
[00:03:26] features that that community
[00:03:28] members found.
[00:03:29] But
[00:03:31] going through in the Airtable community,
[00:03:34] a lot of people talking about views
[00:03:36] not loading.
[00:03:37] I don't know that I noticed
[00:03:39] this last week
[00:03:40] but there's actually quite a few,
[00:03:41] there is even another post
[00:03:43] somebody else posted asking about it.
[00:03:46] But
[00:03:49] yeah, I don't know. Did you guys
[00:03:50] experience any issues last week?
[00:03:51] Any performance
[00:03:53] other than the normal?
[00:03:55] I got a lot of errors.
[00:03:58] like the like you must
[00:04:00] refresh the page error
[00:04:01] a lot.
[00:04:05] And things were loading slowly
[00:04:07] and I noticed when up
[00:04:08] like editing formulas took
[00:04:09] a long time to hit save.
[00:04:12] But
[00:04:14] yeah,
[00:04:16] saying load times of 20 minutes.
[00:04:18] I'm not, I'm not saying that that
[00:04:19] I don't think that sounds right.
[00:04:21] That might be more a networking
[00:04:23] issue on their
[00:04:23] end
[00:04:24] agreed.
[00:04:26] So,
[00:04:27] but other people, they weren't
[00:04:29] the only ones saying there was issues.
[00:04:32] So,
[00:04:33] yeah,
[00:04:34] but that is somewhat typical.
[00:04:36] Sometimes, sometimes it's slow to load.
[00:04:38] But I have, I haven't noticed
[00:04:40] anything outside the norm.
[00:04:43] All right, next one.
[00:04:44] this also came from the community,
[00:04:47] somebody asking to
[00:04:48] how to create a change log
[00:04:50] of major changes in Airtable.
[00:04:53] Ideally wanting it in Slack.
[00:04:55] And
[00:04:57] this is something actually On2Air
[00:05:00] we have our schema apps that technically
[00:05:02] is going away,
[00:05:03] although a lot of that functionality
[00:05:05] will be moving into our
[00:05:06] backup solution. So
[00:05:08] some of this functionality of getting
[00:05:10] of being able to keep track of changes
[00:05:12] will be part of our our backup solution
[00:05:14] over the coming months.
[00:05:16] So that's an option for you.
[00:05:18] But somebody mentioned on here
[00:05:20] something that I wasn't aware of.
[00:05:24] Was this link here
[00:05:26] into the to the support, and
[00:05:28] I didn't realize that there was
[00:05:32] that the Slack app allowed you
[00:05:34] to get notifications
[00:05:35] when things change to an Airtable
[00:05:37] base or specific records or views.
[00:05:40] So I'm not using this Slack Integration.
[00:05:43] I don't know if either of you are,
[00:05:44] but this was new to me that,
[00:05:46] that this is possible.
[00:05:49] Yeah, I think it's
[00:05:50] been around for a while but is like
[00:05:53] kind of a very like under the hood
[00:05:56] feature that isn't like super prominent.
[00:06:00] I think I've used it maybe once
[00:06:02] for a client
[00:06:03] but I can't really remember what
[00:06:04] the advantages are
[00:06:05] other than I think it's like,
[00:06:07] instead of you can use an automation to,
[00:06:08] like, you know,
[00:06:09] do a particular Slack notification. But
[00:06:12] this doesn't use any automation, I think,
[00:06:15] which is nice.
[00:06:16] Yeah. Right. Yeah. So this is,
[00:06:18] I think an app
[00:06:19] that installs inside a Slack.
[00:06:21] So it's a Slack app.
[00:06:24] Yeah. So, but they also,
[00:06:26] yeah, they talk about,
[00:06:28] if you need to build direct integrations,
[00:06:31] then I've, I've used the automation
[00:06:33] Slack integration quite a bit but
[00:06:36] have not used the
[00:06:39] the Slack integration side.
[00:06:43] So yeah, that could be worth
[00:06:45] checking out if you want
[00:06:47] more notifications and see
[00:06:48] what's what's getting updated
[00:06:50] and you're already using Slack.
[00:06:51] That could be good,
[00:06:52] which we are using Slack
[00:06:54] with the BuiltOnAir community.
[00:06:56] It's a community of
[00:06:57] thousands of Airtable users.
[00:07:01] There was Russell posted
[00:07:03] a video that he put
[00:07:05] together of how to transfer
[00:07:07] ownership without adding
[00:07:08] users to your plan.
[00:07:10] So if you're trying to figure out
[00:07:12] you want to transfer who's
[00:07:14] the owner of the Airtable,
[00:07:16] but you don't want to
[00:07:17] add them that could potentially
[00:07:20] cause an extra charge.
[00:07:21] He walks through a video
[00:07:23] of of how you would do that.
[00:07:26] And it requires sharing the vi
[00:07:29] or making a duplicate and then,
[00:07:31] and then working with the duplicate
[00:07:33] to, to change ownership.
[00:07:34] So
[00:07:36] that could be useful to people
[00:07:38] in that boat.
[00:07:42] Next one, this one is,
[00:07:44] I believe a new feature
[00:07:46] Jan
[00:07:46] who goes by Databaser, friend of the show
[00:07:50] says that you can now get
[00:07:52] some different languages
[00:07:55] in Airtable.
[00:07:56] French and German apparently.
[00:08:00] And but they don't
[00:08:03] yet have currency support
[00:08:04] for foreign currencies,
[00:08:06] like European currencies.
[00:08:08] So, I guess this, so,
[00:08:09] I don't know exactly
[00:08:10] what this means. Is that
[00:08:12] what actually changes within the app?
[00:08:17] But that's interesting
[00:08:18] that they're finally starting to
[00:08:20] add internationalization.
[00:08:24] Absolutely.
[00:08:25] That's exciting.
[00:08:27] Yeah,
[00:08:28] I know this is a, a high demand
[00:08:30] request for,
[00:08:31] for our international friends.
[00:08:36] So we'll see more of this.
[00:08:38] I haven't found this. I don't,
[00:08:40] I, I haven't quite looked
[00:08:41] for it but I don't know if, if it
[00:08:43] detects where you're coming from,
[00:08:45] if you're coming from Europe,
[00:08:46] maybe it offers up different languages.
[00:08:49] I don't, I don't know how that works.
[00:08:50] I don't know if, if either of you seen
[00:08:53] a way to change this.
[00:08:55] I have not,
[00:08:57] let me check real fast.
[00:08:58] Let's see in here.
[00:09:00] So it looked like it was just on.
[00:09:04] Yeah,
[00:09:06] then let's see.
[00:09:08] It looked like it was just on here. Right?
[00:09:12] Yes.
[00:09:14] Yeah, just on the,
[00:09:15] or this is an interface.
[00:09:17] Is this an interface?
[00:09:19] No.
[00:09:21] Yeah.
[00:09:23] Jan, if you're, if you're watching today,
[00:09:26] let us know where you found this,
[00:09:28] we can try it out.
[00:09:32] All right. Next one going into X
[00:09:35] or Twitter.
[00:09:36] This one I thought was just kind
[00:09:38] of cool story of obviously
[00:09:40] some pretty devastating fires in,
[00:09:43] in Hawaii.
[00:09:44] And somebody asking for help
[00:09:47] to get access to an enterprise account so
[00:09:51] that they could put together
[00:09:53] some relief efforts
[00:09:54] or keeping track of missing people.
[00:09:57] And was hoping to get in contact
[00:10:00] with somebody at Airtable and it looks
[00:10:03] like
[00:10:04] they did and were taken care of.
[00:10:07] so,
[00:10:12] got somebody from Airtable.
[00:10:14] So it looks like somebody tagged Howie.
[00:10:16] I don't know that Howie
[00:10:17] was the one that responded. But,
[00:10:19] it just kind of cool
[00:10:20] to see the effort.
[00:10:21] And I think a lot about,
[00:10:22] I've, I've heard, I've, I've know,
[00:10:24] I know like Chris Dancy has done,
[00:10:27] bases to help mobilize during
[00:10:29] disasters and things
[00:10:31] like that or during the
[00:10:32] pandemic.
[00:10:35] Airtable is a really good platform
[00:10:37] for that to just quickly get,
[00:10:38] you know, a database up
[00:10:40] and running to just track
[00:10:41] things during a disaster.
[00:10:45] It's a good excuse for that.
[00:10:48] So that was kind of cool to see.
[00:10:50] All right. One more kind of cool one.
[00:10:52] This, this guy caught my attention.
[00:10:55] The guy, I, I'm predicting he'll,
[00:10:57] he'll get popular
[00:10:59] within the automation world.
[00:11:00] He does these videos
[00:11:02] where he's riding a horse,
[00:11:03] he's a rancher in Montana
[00:11:05] and, talks about how he uses
[00:11:07] Airtable for his own stuff.
[00:11:09] So he's kind of a,
[00:11:10] a data geek slash rancher,
[00:11:12] and helps other ranchers and,
[00:11:15] and outdoor organizations
[00:11:17] to use technology to
[00:11:19] help, you know, maybe industries
[00:11:20] that aren't,
[00:11:21] aren't necessarily as tech
[00:11:22] tech savvy.
[00:11:24] So Walker, if you're listening,
[00:11:26] if you're out there, we'd love to have you
[00:11:27] come on the show
[00:11:28] and talk about how you use Airtable for,
[00:11:31] what you're doing.
[00:11:33] So,
[00:11:34] caught my attention. I was like,
[00:11:36] is this guy riding a horse
[00:11:38] talking about Airtable?
[00:11:42] And there was one more feature
[00:11:44] Alli were you able to to find?
[00:11:47] Yeah, I can share my screen really quickly
[00:11:50] found a feature that that is new.
[00:11:54] Yeah, the announced that we
[00:11:56] didn't talk about last week. There we go.
[00:11:59] Awesome. All right.
[00:12:01] So it's a little frustrating
[00:12:03] because I've found that it,
[00:12:04] it is a little half baked.
[00:12:06] Which
[00:12:08] if you are following Airtable updates,
[00:12:10] it doesn't come as a surprise,
[00:12:11] I'm sure.
[00:12:14] But in the list view in an interface,
[00:12:16] I don't think you can do this in the base.
[00:12:19] I tried to and couldn't find it.
[00:12:22] And actually not even
[00:12:24] on this list view itself, but once you
[00:12:29] I guess it could be any, any gallery convo
[00:12:32] calendar, et cetera, once
[00:12:34] you go into the record details, page,
[00:12:37] if you set up a list view there.
[00:12:41] And this is like a really light CRM
[00:12:43] example we'll be looking at later when I
[00:12:45] talk about Softr.
[00:12:46] Here when you look at the list options,
[00:12:51] you can say I want
[00:12:53] to collapse all by default
[00:12:55] and I don't have any grouping,
[00:12:57] set up now. But if I did
[00:12:59] have grouping by type of
[00:13:00] contact, for example,
[00:13:03] and then
[00:13:05] of course, it goes me away from that,
[00:13:08] but now I can collapse all by default
[00:13:11] and it will have this look
[00:13:13] and feel retained every time I open up
[00:13:17] a detail page,
[00:13:19] which is
[00:13:20] really, really nice. That's a feature
[00:13:23] that I've been really wanting for a long
[00:13:25] time.
[00:13:27] Sometimes when you open
[00:13:29] this up, you don't want it to be
[00:13:30] so overwhelming and you want
[00:13:32] to just be able to drill
[00:13:33] into those groups.
[00:13:35] So this is really nice.
[00:13:37] I hope that they make this
[00:13:38] more persistent across other
[00:13:39] view types and
[00:13:41] everywhere you actually have
[00:13:43] that list view.
[00:13:44] I'd love to be able to do this.
[00:13:46] Yeah.
[00:13:47] Yeah, that's funny.
[00:13:48] It's only on the the side bar.
[00:13:50] Yeah, it's only right here.
[00:13:53] So collapse all by default
[00:13:54] under appearance actually. Now that I
[00:13:57] know it's under the appearance tab
[00:13:59] which is in different places and different
[00:14:01] places.
[00:14:03] Yeah,
[00:14:04] it's not here. Yeah, so
[00:14:07] that's what
[00:14:08] I'm a little bothered by that.
[00:14:11] It would be great to have that just,
[00:14:14] you know,
[00:14:15] wherever we can get it
[00:14:18] if I have a grouping and go to appearance.
[00:14:20] Yeah, it's not there.
[00:14:21] So only in the detail pages but
[00:14:24] still a cool new feature.
[00:14:26] Cool.
[00:14:27] Yeah, I don't, I don't see,
[00:14:29] I don't, I didn't see
[00:14:30] that posted anywhere.
[00:14:30] I don't think that was part
[00:14:32] of their announcement. So
[00:14:33] you heard it here first
[00:14:35] inside scoop.
[00:14:38] Love that.
[00:14:40] Great.
[00:14:42] Ok. And that concludes
[00:14:44] Round the Bases,
[00:14:45] like I said, not a ton of new
[00:14:47] announcements,
[00:14:48] just a couple of hidden gems for you.
[00:14:50] So we will move on.
[00:14:53] Let's talk about, let me bring back up my
[00:14:57] screens. So we'll talk about On2Air
[00:15:00] it's an all in one tool kit.
[00:15:01] It's actually now a backup solution.
[00:15:03] We've, we've restructured and,
[00:15:06] and focused on our backup solution.
[00:15:08] So On2Air, we'll get a new screen for our
[00:15:11] podcast probably
[00:15:12] before next season. But On2Air
[00:15:14] is now a focus backup solution
[00:15:17] and data asset management
[00:15:19] platform to help you back up
[00:15:21] your data from Airtable,
[00:15:23] make sure it's secure
[00:15:24] and stay on top of it.
[00:15:25] Just wanted to give a quick spotlight.
[00:15:29] This comes from, this is one
[00:15:31] of our social media posts
[00:15:32] and quotes David Derby.
[00:15:34] A customer says building the tools
[00:15:36] we need to take Airtable
[00:15:37] to the next level.
[00:15:38] On2Air Bcakups might be the most
[00:15:40] critical piece of the puzzle to guard
[00:15:42] against unforeseeable disaster.
[00:15:45] It's easy to set up and just works.
[00:15:47] Thank you.
[00:15:48] Thank you, David.
[00:15:50] And so yeah, we have many,
[00:15:52] many customers using backups
[00:15:54] to make sure that their
[00:15:55] data is backed up and in a secure location
[00:15:59] outside of Airtable,
[00:16:00] which is best practices. So
[00:16:02] if you are not backing up your data,
[00:16:04] be sure to check out On2Air and sign up
[00:16:06] today.
[00:16:08] Ok.
[00:16:10] Moving on Zakey,
[00:16:12] gonna meet Zakey and learn about
[00:16:15] what you've got going on.
[00:16:17] Let me change our
[00:16:18] screen here a little bit.
[00:16:20] Put you in the forefront,
[00:16:22] Zakey,
[00:16:23] why don't you tell us a little bit
[00:16:25] about your background
[00:16:26] and tell us how you
[00:16:27] came into the world of Airtable.
[00:16:29] Sure. Well, first off,
[00:16:31] thanks for having me on.
[00:16:32] So yeah, I'm, I'm Zakey.
[00:16:34] I I'm a software engineer
[00:16:37] for the past five years,
[00:16:39] I've worked at this
[00:16:40] digital product agency that
[00:16:42] essentially builds
[00:16:44] products for fortune 500
[00:16:46] companies that don't have the
[00:16:49] that don't have the talent
[00:16:50] or the manpower to,
[00:16:51] to build digital products
[00:16:52] themselves. So,
[00:16:54] so yeah, I've, I've been,
[00:16:55] I, I have a lot of experience
[00:16:57] building like websites and,
[00:16:59] and working on the full stack
[00:17:01] of software back end and front end.
[00:17:05] And yeah, I, I came across the
[00:17:07] Airtable about eight months ago.
[00:17:10] I'm a part of this outdoors club
[00:17:12] in my, in my local community that has this
[00:17:15] large inventory of
[00:17:17] like camping gear and equipment
[00:17:19] that members
[00:17:20] can check in and check out kind of
[00:17:21] like a, like a library.
[00:17:23] And so,
[00:17:26] so yeah, a lot of members
[00:17:29] use, use this, this equipment library
[00:17:31] and and so we, we needed a system to keep
[00:17:34] track of this inventory
[00:17:35] and who has what checked out
[00:17:37] and when things are due and
[00:17:38] whatnot.
[00:17:39] So about five years ago,
[00:17:41] I built my own custom
[00:17:43] like software solution for this problem
[00:17:45] inventory management solution.
[00:17:47] So I had my own database
[00:17:49] and website back end, front end
[00:17:51] and it worked, but it, it was quite,
[00:17:54] quite a hassle and to maintain and to,
[00:17:58] to do bug fixes and add
[00:17:59] add features and whatnot.
[00:18:01] So about a year ago,
[00:18:03] I started looking for like an
[00:18:04] out of the box solution
[00:18:06] that could replace this
[00:18:07] and that, that's when I found Airtable.
[00:18:08] So
[00:18:09] yeah, in March, I finished migrating
[00:18:12] this inventory management system onto
[00:18:14] Airtable and,
[00:18:15] and now it's totally off my plate.
[00:18:17] It's and, and it, and it works great.
[00:18:19] And so that that's how
[00:18:20] I first got it to Airtable. And
[00:18:21] as part of that effort,
[00:18:23] I built my first Airtable extension.
[00:18:25] It's, it's on the marketplace,
[00:18:27] it's called checkout cart.
[00:18:29] And that just facilitates like bulk
[00:18:32] check ins and checkouts for like a
[00:18:34] library style inventory.
[00:18:38] And yeah, and that, that was in,
[00:18:40] in March or April.
[00:18:41] And once I finished that
[00:18:42] I started paying attention to the A I
[00:18:45] hype wave that we're seeing ourselves in
[00:18:47] now and
[00:18:48] got, got super interested in it. And
[00:18:52] and I, I learned best by doing.
[00:18:54] So I figured like,
[00:18:55] I just freshly finished this
[00:18:57] Airtable Extension.
[00:18:58] So I kind of knew how,
[00:19:00] how that worked and,
[00:19:01] and how to build extensions. And,
[00:19:02] and so I was like, OK,
[00:19:03] let me see how I can
[00:19:04] combine building a new Airtable extension
[00:19:07] with all this new A I tech.
[00:19:09] That's how,
[00:19:09] and that's how Ask Airy
[00:19:11] was born.
[00:19:14] And so, yeah, if
[00:19:16] I, I can, I can give a demo
[00:19:18] of Ask Airy and
[00:19:19] and explain how it works if
[00:19:21] a couple a couple of questions first
[00:19:24] before we get into the to the demo.
[00:19:27] So
[00:19:29] yeah, talk about how
[00:19:30] maybe some of your,
[00:19:32] your favorite things as you gotten
[00:19:34] into Airtable, like what was
[00:19:36] that experience?
[00:19:36] You're obviously coming from a
[00:19:37] software development world,
[00:19:39] you know, you knew database design.
[00:19:41] How's that been?
[00:19:42] What, what's, what's just been
[00:19:44] your impression of Airtable?
[00:19:46] Oh, yeah, I mean,
[00:19:47] I think Airtable
[00:19:49] is just amazing because it empowers
[00:19:51] non-technical people to do things that
[00:19:54] previously like you,
[00:19:55] you could only do
[00:19:56] with like custom software.
[00:19:57] So for example, with, with this
[00:20:00] inventory management system,
[00:20:03] it
[00:20:04] with the with the automation's workflows,
[00:20:07] we've, we've got there,
[00:20:08] we've got this whole system where like
[00:20:10] the day when, when members
[00:20:12] check out pieces of equipment,
[00:20:14] they get emails
[00:20:15] showing like a receipt
[00:20:16] with what they checked out,
[00:20:17] they get emails the day before
[00:20:19] something is due,
[00:20:20] they get automated emails if
[00:20:21] something's overdue
[00:20:22] and
[00:20:24] and these are all and,
[00:20:26] and, and you can see like
[00:20:27] if emails failed to send or
[00:20:29] and, and, and like non
[00:20:30] the nontechnical
[00:20:32] like officers of the club,
[00:20:33] they, they can like see all
[00:20:35] of this and, and tweak things
[00:20:37] and tweet the messages
[00:20:37] and the emails and
[00:20:39] just kind of manage the whole
[00:20:41] inventory themselves without
[00:20:42] any like, no, no, no one else
[00:20:44] besides me in the club
[00:20:45] has like software engineer
[00:20:46] experience. And so
[00:20:47] I, I just think it's amazing that
[00:20:49] we could build something
[00:20:51] like like a library
[00:20:52] inventory management system
[00:20:54] with all of these
[00:20:55] bells and whistles
[00:20:57] just completely with like out of the box
[00:20:59] drag and drop kind of software.
[00:21:01] And so
[00:21:02] so yeah, I mean,
[00:21:03] I, I just, I, I like the,
[00:21:05] the I love the low code movement
[00:21:07] how, how it empowers non-technical users.
[00:21:09] So that, that's,
[00:21:11] that's what I love about it.
[00:21:14] Talk about
[00:21:16] you know, we'll get into the specifics
[00:21:18] of your A I solution but talk high level
[00:21:20] of,
[00:21:21] you know, that hype wave,
[00:21:22] like what you've learned from it.
[00:21:24] What do you,
[00:21:24] what do you foresee the future of A I
[00:21:27] and low code? No code platforms?
[00:21:30] Oh sure.
[00:21:31] Yeah. So
[00:21:33] the way I like to think about
[00:21:35] the,
[00:21:36] well, well, the, the, the current hype
[00:21:39] wave, it's, it's mainly driven by these
[00:21:41] large language models like chat GPT
[00:21:43] And
[00:21:44] the way I like to think about these
[00:21:46] models is that they're, they're kind of
[00:21:48] almost as powerful as
[00:21:49] like human brains.
[00:21:52] And
[00:21:53] with chat GPT, the the interface
[00:21:56] we have to this like
[00:21:58] human brain is sort of
[00:22:00] like text in, text out, but
[00:22:02] they can do so much more
[00:22:04] than that if you,
[00:22:05] if you give them the tools and,
[00:22:06] and capabilities.
[00:22:07] So like, like humans, if you,
[00:22:10] if you like teach a human how to like use
[00:22:12] tools, like how to browse the web,
[00:22:14] how to do its own research,
[00:22:16] how to use a computer, how to write code.
[00:22:20] Humans can be like much more,
[00:22:21] much more useful,
[00:22:22] the like the more tools and
[00:22:23] capabilities they have.
[00:22:25] And if you also like teach
[00:22:26] a human how to kind of
[00:22:28] create goals and, and have like
[00:22:31] a task management system.
[00:22:33] Humans can also be autonomous
[00:22:35] and, and kind of like
[00:22:37] self direct themselves.
[00:22:38] And so
[00:22:39] how I kind of envision the future is,
[00:22:42] is
[00:22:44] with, with this A I hype wave is
[00:22:47] I I kind of view like everyone
[00:22:49] figuring out how to equip
[00:22:51] these large language
[00:22:52] models with tools and with autonomy
[00:22:55] so that they can basically
[00:22:57] be like super useful personal assistant.
[00:23:01] So,
[00:23:03] so yeah, everyone's like the cutting
[00:23:05] the cutting edge in the,
[00:23:07] in the field of large language
[00:23:08] models right now,
[00:23:09] I think is basically trying to
[00:23:10] trying to figure out how to,
[00:23:13] how to create like the optimal
[00:23:15] workshop or workspace
[00:23:16] for these large language
[00:23:17] models so that
[00:23:18] they can do more than just like
[00:23:20] summarize things or like generate text.
[00:23:23] So, so like in a, this might,
[00:23:25] this might be a little abstract,
[00:23:26] like what I've said so far.
[00:23:28] So a concrete example
[00:23:29] I like to think about is like
[00:23:30] one of the more
[00:23:32] cutting edge products
[00:23:33] that's come out these,
[00:23:34] recently is called multi.
[00:23:36] and
[00:23:38] basically what it can do is like,
[00:23:40] you can say something like,
[00:23:41] hey, I'd like a pizza delivered
[00:23:42] to this address, please.
[00:23:44] Like order Domino's
[00:23:45] Pizza
[00:23:45] and it will,
[00:23:47] browse the web to find,
[00:23:49] to like search like the pizza
[00:23:51] places near you.
[00:23:52] It'll navigate into that pizza,
[00:23:54] shop's website,
[00:23:56] like order the pizza,
[00:23:57] maybe ask it what kind of toppings
[00:23:59] you want or something, ask for your credit
[00:24:01] card number,
[00:24:02] it'll ask you and then it'll fill out
[00:24:03] the whole checkout form
[00:24:04] and
[00:24:05] like order it for you.
[00:24:06] And, and that's an example
[00:24:08] of like a large image model
[00:24:09] equipped with tools and
[00:24:10] autonomy
[00:24:11] that I think is like a powerful
[00:24:14] example of, of like an,
[00:24:16] of an assistant.
[00:24:17] And so if we,
[00:24:18] if we think of like a version of that
[00:24:20] in the Airtable world,
[00:24:23] something like that could look like,
[00:24:25] like a, like an assistant where you
[00:24:27] just
[00:24:28] tell it
[00:24:29] what you wanted to do with
[00:24:30] the Airtable data. So let's say like
[00:24:32] you have a bunch of duplicate data
[00:24:34] that you want deduplicated
[00:24:35] as a as a really basic example,
[00:24:37] you could say something like,
[00:24:38] hey, could you
[00:24:40] do like find all the duplicates
[00:24:43] and, and remove them and it'll just,
[00:24:45] it'll just do it for you.
[00:24:46] A more complex example
[00:24:48] could be something like
[00:24:49] if you have like invoices
[00:24:51] in Airtable and you want to
[00:24:53] kind of get some analytics
[00:24:55] from that, like what your
[00:24:56] monthly revenue numbers are
[00:24:57] or something, something like that,
[00:24:59] you could say verbally like,
[00:25:00] hey, can you generate a chart showing my
[00:25:02] like monthly revenue
[00:25:04] over time and it will kind of write
[00:25:06] the, the Airtable scripting code
[00:25:09] and execute it
[00:25:10] that will kind of get the data
[00:25:12] that you need and then,
[00:25:14] and it'll the LLM
[00:25:15] will like create the chart for you
[00:25:17] and, and like email you
[00:25:18] the chart that, that's kind of a
[00:25:20] like a, like an example
[00:25:21] of a more powerful,
[00:25:22] like,
[00:25:23] like
[00:25:24] the large language model
[00:25:25] that's, that's enabled with,
[00:25:27] with tools and,
[00:25:27] and data and autonomy.
[00:25:29] We're, we're not there yet
[00:25:30] but that, that's,
[00:25:31] that's where I see it going
[00:25:33] only because you haven't
[00:25:35] built it yet, but it's coming,
[00:25:37] I'm working on it.
[00:25:40] Very cool. That's great insight.
[00:25:42] Appreciate that.
[00:25:43] All right.
[00:25:44] Why don't we let me bring this back,
[00:25:49] OK. Why don't we go through
[00:25:51] your demo of your, of your app?
[00:25:53] Sure.
[00:25:54] Can I share my screen?
[00:25:56] Yeah,
[00:25:57] yeah, once you move it over, I'll add it.
[00:26:00] There we go.
[00:26:02] All right. Can you see it?
[00:26:04] All right.
[00:26:05] So yeah, Ask Airy
[00:26:07] a
[00:26:07] ask
[00:26:08] a
[00:26:08] is like a very
[00:26:09] basic version of, of
[00:26:12] of kind of like an assistant
[00:26:14] that has like some,
[00:26:15] some capabilities beyond
[00:26:16] just like chat GP T
[00:26:18] like it has access to read
[00:26:20] your Airtable text data.
[00:26:21] So that this is the marketplace listing.
[00:26:24] So if you install it,
[00:26:25] this is kind of what it
[00:26:26] will look like in, in your base.
[00:26:27] So this is a, this is a base
[00:26:30] that just has like some
[00:26:31] test data that I used.
[00:26:33] And so I've, I've got a few tables here.
[00:26:36] None of them are related.
[00:26:37] They're just kind of like
[00:26:38] different example, use cases.
[00:26:41] So let's say, for example, you've got
[00:26:45] like
[00:26:46] a table full of reviews,
[00:26:47] the these could be like
[00:26:49] like product reviews or
[00:26:50] restaurant reviews or survey feedback
[00:26:52] responses, something like this.
[00:26:55] And it's basically
[00:26:56] like a table full of text data.
[00:26:59] And
[00:27:00] if you wanted to kind of glean insights
[00:27:02] into these reviews, you could
[00:27:04] like manually read all the reviews
[00:27:06] and kind of get the,
[00:27:07] get a feel for what the
[00:27:08] general customer sentiment is
[00:27:10] or
[00:27:12] that that's or you can
[00:27:14] like ask, ask Airy.
[00:27:16] So I I've got an example question here
[00:27:19] that we can ask it. So
[00:27:21] I said, what are some reasons
[00:27:22] people don't like the Acne Solutions
[00:27:24] Cleansing Bar
[00:27:25] for face and body product?
[00:27:26] Summarize their complaints
[00:27:28] and make some recommendations
[00:27:29] for how I can address
[00:27:30] customer complaints
[00:27:31] in the product design
[00:27:32] include the review I DS in your
[00:27:33] response.
[00:27:37] So
[00:27:38] yeah, it's finding
[00:27:39] kind of the most relevant
[00:27:40] negative reviews and
[00:27:45] coming up with an answer here.
[00:27:47] So we'll see what
[00:27:48] it's got. So it says based
[00:27:50] on the top 27 most relevant records,
[00:27:53] here's some reasons people
[00:27:55] don't like the product
[00:27:56] and it kind of gives a some of
[00:27:57] those review I DS
[00:27:58] and it says product didn't
[00:28:00] infect the user's skin and
[00:28:01] actually caused acne
[00:28:03] product is incredibly drying,
[00:28:05] et cetera and then it gives
[00:28:07] some recommendations for how to,
[00:28:08] how to address these reviews.
[00:28:11] So,
[00:28:13] so yeah, that this
[00:28:15] this is an example of something
[00:28:18] that like before to kind of glean these
[00:28:21] insights, you would have
[00:28:22] had to just like manually
[00:28:23] read through all the reviews.
[00:28:24] But
[00:28:24] now you can
[00:28:26] instead, now you can just
[00:28:27] like ask, ask the question. And
[00:28:29] so chat GP T will read all the reviews
[00:28:31] for you and, and kind of answer your
[00:28:32] question.
[00:28:33] So
[00:28:34] what's another example?
[00:28:36] So I've got this books table
[00:28:38] where it's got like book titles,
[00:28:41] book descriptions.
[00:28:42] And
[00:28:44] this is kind of more of like a,
[00:28:45] a search query instead of a question.
[00:28:48] Although it's still, it's still kind of
[00:28:50] a question. So it says
[00:28:53] find some books in this library
[00:28:54] that would be appropriate for my eight
[00:28:56] year old who's interested in math
[00:28:57] and science explain why the books would be
[00:28:59] appropriate.
[00:29:01] So yeah, in this books table,
[00:29:03] there is no like field
[00:29:05] in in this table that labels
[00:29:08] the book as being like good
[00:29:10] for an eight year old or
[00:29:12] like related to math and
[00:29:13] science.
[00:29:14] There is, there's like a description
[00:29:16] or a summary of the book but no like
[00:29:17] specific labels. So
[00:29:19] the only way that
[00:29:22] you would have been able to,
[00:29:23] you, you can't, you can't do a search
[00:29:25] like this in a typical library catalog.
[00:29:28] And so this is cool because
[00:29:30] like the A I is kind of
[00:29:31] reading all the book
[00:29:31] summaries and determining
[00:29:33] what which ones
[00:29:34] are related to math and science
[00:29:36] and good for an eight
[00:29:36] year old. And so it,
[00:29:38] it found some titles
[00:29:39] and and yeah, we can,
[00:29:40] we can see the,
[00:29:41] the records here that,
[00:29:43] that are
[00:29:45] that it found.
[00:29:46] So
[00:29:48] that's
[00:29:49] very cool.
[00:29:52] Oh Go ahead, go ahead.
[00:29:54] I was just gonna say like
[00:29:56] and how, how this is
[00:29:58] working under the hood at,
[00:29:59] at a super high level is
[00:30:01] like you could, you could
[00:30:03] replicate this functionality
[00:30:04] if you essentially like
[00:30:05] copied and pasted your entire Airtable
[00:30:07] base into chat GPT and then like ask the
[00:30:10] question
[00:30:11] but um if your base was too big,
[00:30:16] Chat GPT has, has like a context
[00:30:18] window where it,
[00:30:19] it can only take in so much
[00:30:21] input. And so if you have more
[00:30:22] than like a couple 100
[00:30:23] records or something like
[00:30:24] that, then
[00:30:26] that, that, that's too much for it. And so
[00:30:28] the way this extension works is
[00:30:30] it essentially first
[00:30:32] does
[00:30:33] a,
[00:30:34] it does like a,
[00:30:35] it's called a semantic search
[00:30:36] which it, it essentially finds
[00:30:39] the most relevant Airtable
[00:30:40] records for your
[00:30:41] question.
[00:30:42] And then it takes those
[00:30:44] records in this case,
[00:30:45] it's like the top 13 most relevant
[00:30:47] records.
[00:30:49] It, it takes those records and
[00:30:52] squeezes them into a chat GPT prompt
[00:30:55] and, and then ask chat GPT,
[00:30:57] hey,
[00:30:57] here's some relevant records.
[00:30:59] Here's the user's question,
[00:31:01] answer the question.
[00:31:02] And that, and that's how it works
[00:31:04] at a high level under the
[00:31:05] hood if that makes sense.
[00:31:06] Got you.
[00:31:08] How does it?
[00:31:09] So this requires
[00:31:10] getting your own license to,
[00:31:12] to chat GP T.
[00:31:14] And then,
[00:31:15] yeah. So it's
[00:31:16] like
[00:31:17] if we go to the settings tab here,
[00:31:21] you
[00:31:23] there's a little input field for
[00:31:25] entering in an open A I API key.
[00:31:27] So I've got some links
[00:31:29] in the extension here
[00:31:30] for that direct you to
[00:31:32] where you can get an open A I account
[00:31:34] and
[00:31:36] generate an API key here.
[00:31:38] And the API
[00:31:40] like usage is actually very,
[00:31:43] very cheap.
[00:31:44] So
[00:31:46] if you, let's say you have like
[00:31:48] 10,000 records in a table.
[00:31:50] There is like this,
[00:31:52] ask Airy data index that I have to
[00:31:54] create here to be able to do that
[00:31:56] intelligent search.
[00:31:58] And to generate all of this like
[00:32:02] data index data,
[00:32:05] it costs maybe like
[00:32:07] 50 cents for 10,000 records,
[00:32:09] some something like that.
[00:32:10] And then
[00:32:12] each, each question that you ask Airy
[00:32:15] might cost like a cent or
[00:32:17] a couple cents or something like that.
[00:32:18] So the the,
[00:32:20] the API is is pretty affordable.
[00:32:24] Nice
[00:32:25] and how and what's the cost of your app?
[00:32:30] Oh and yeah, the cost
[00:32:31] I think it's 5 $5 a month
[00:32:33] if you want to use this.
[00:32:35] So
[00:32:38] yeah, there, there's a,
[00:32:40] there's a one week free trial. But,
[00:32:42] but yeah, you can,
[00:32:43] there's this license tab here and
[00:32:45] if you don't have a license,
[00:32:47] there's a, a link
[00:32:48] that shows up here that lets
[00:32:49] you buy a license at my gum Road store.
[00:32:53] And then I also have this guide
[00:32:55] tab that kind of
[00:32:57] it gives some suggestions on,
[00:32:59] on how to best use Ask Airy.
[00:33:00] So, so yeah, I could, I could go over
[00:33:03] a little bit of this right here.
[00:33:05] So I have this limitations list. So
[00:33:07] Ask Airy is like really great at
[00:33:11] analyzing and answering questions
[00:33:14] about text heavy bases
[00:33:16] But
[00:33:17] if, if you have statistical
[00:33:19] or like numerical questions,
[00:33:21] Ask Airy isn't as,
[00:33:21] as it,
[00:33:23] it, it's pretty limited in that regard.
[00:33:27] So,
[00:33:28] and, and I, and my next product
[00:33:30] that I'm working on
[00:33:31] will, will address that,
[00:33:32] but we're not there yet.
[00:33:34] And then
[00:33:35] Ask
[00:33:35] Airy also
[00:33:37] may be a little slow with
[00:33:39] very large bases.
[00:33:40] So anything kind of beyond 20 30,000
[00:33:43] records,
[00:33:44] it's, it's kind of questionable
[00:33:46] like how, how fast it'll be.
[00:33:49] Just because
[00:33:51] I, I won't, I won't get into it.
[00:33:53] But, but yeah, anything beyond that,
[00:33:54] it, it, it might not work too well.
[00:33:57] So just a disclaimer there
[00:33:58] and then,
[00:34:00] yeah, I mean, honestly, like,
[00:34:02] I, I think the, the best use cases for
[00:34:04] Ask Airy is like,
[00:34:05] searching,
[00:34:08] searching for records
[00:34:09] that you couldn't really search for,
[00:34:11] with just like the Airtable
[00:34:13] keyword search here.
[00:34:14] So like the example like
[00:34:16] books appropriate for a 10 year old
[00:34:18] or something like that,
[00:34:19] that's like a search
[00:34:20] that you can't, you can't do here.
[00:34:22] And then, and then just asking
[00:34:24] questions that otherwise would have taken
[00:34:26] reading a bunch of text data to answer.
[00:34:29] So that, that's kind of like
[00:34:30] the highlight use case. And
[00:34:33] yeah, that, that's, that's Ask Airy.
[00:34:35] That's
[00:34:36] any, any use cases out
[00:34:37] in the wild of people
[00:34:39] using this that you can share?
[00:34:42] Yeah, I've got like maybe 20
[00:34:44] 20 customers right now and I,
[00:34:46] and I sent an email to all of them,
[00:34:48] asking like,
[00:34:50] for feedback and,
[00:34:51] and, and how they're using it.
[00:34:52] But I haven't got,
[00:34:53] I, I haven't gotten too many responses.
[00:34:55] One of them, actually did get back
[00:34:56] to me.
[00:34:57] It's like a, a talent recruiter that
[00:34:59] stores like resume information in Airtable
[00:35:03] and he said that
[00:35:05] he used Ask Airy to
[00:35:07] to kind of search for
[00:35:09] like the ideal candidate
[00:35:11] given like some, some list of,
[00:35:13] of needs in, in his candidate database
[00:35:16] basically.
[00:35:18] So, so that's an example. But
[00:35:20] but yeah, I mean, it it's not,
[00:35:23] it's, it's, it's a limited tool
[00:35:26] and II I built it mostly to just as like a
[00:35:28] personal learning
[00:35:30] project.
[00:35:31] And what I'm working on next,
[00:35:33] I think will be much more
[00:35:35] powerful and useful,
[00:35:36] which is a tool that will be able to
[00:35:39] go beyond just answering questions
[00:35:41] about text data.
[00:35:42] It'll be able to like make
[00:35:44] charts for you or like answer numerical
[00:35:46] or statistical questions about your
[00:35:48] Airtable data or
[00:35:51] I don't know, be a be a little
[00:35:52] more powerful and, and tool enabled.
[00:35:54] Like I was talking about earlier.
[00:35:56] So
[00:35:57] yeah, that
[00:35:58] would
[00:35:58] be
[00:35:59] awesome.
[00:35:59] Yeah.
[00:35:59] And yeah, if
[00:36:00] you
[00:36:01] does this read attachments?
[00:36:03] This doesn't go into like PDF S.
[00:36:05] If you have attachments,
[00:36:07] it does not go into attachments.
[00:36:09] Yeah.
[00:36:11] Yeah. So it's just the the data there.
[00:36:13] Gotcha.
[00:36:15] Awesome. Alli, any other questions?
[00:36:18] No, but that is incredibly cool.
[00:36:21] So, so cool.
[00:36:23] Yeah.
[00:36:24] Yeah, you're the first to put,
[00:36:26] I think yours was the first
[00:36:28] kind of A I extension.
[00:36:29] Is there others now in the marketplace?
[00:36:31] I don't think I was the first I think,
[00:36:35] there, let's see.
[00:36:36] I think
[00:36:38] if we go here, there was a
[00:36:44] harmonic
[00:36:45] G, there's a GPT assistant.
[00:36:48] And that one was,
[00:36:51] it's, it's, it's kind of very similar
[00:36:53] to the A I functionality that Airtable
[00:36:54] themselves are about to roll out where
[00:36:56] it
[00:36:57] takes in data that from a record,
[00:37:00] lets you input a prompt and then
[00:37:02] puts an output
[00:37:03] into like another field or column.
[00:37:06] So,
[00:37:08] so yeah, my mine is quite
[00:37:09] a bit different from that. But
[00:37:13] yeah, that's, yeah.
[00:37:14] So the A I, the,
[00:37:15] the Airtable is talking about Airtable A
[00:37:17] I is more like a per record level
[00:37:20] and yours is more table. So
[00:37:23] they need to just buy
[00:37:24] yours and incorporate it.
[00:37:28] Yeah.
[00:37:29] Yeah, I, I expect that Airtable
[00:37:31] themselves will probably
[00:37:32] roll out something
[00:37:33] like this in, in a year or
[00:37:35] I don't know, probably a year or so,
[00:37:37] but
[00:37:39] by then I'll, I'll have already
[00:37:41] rolled out something even more powerful.
[00:37:42] So,
[00:37:45] yeah, and I've got this chart
[00:37:48] I made here that
[00:37:50] kind of illustrates
[00:37:51] what I was talking about earlier.
[00:37:54] With, with how I view the,
[00:37:56] the direction and, and the landscape of,
[00:37:59] of A I products.
[00:38:01] So yeah,
[00:38:02] there, there's a lot going on here,
[00:38:04] but basically, there are two axis
[00:38:05] on this chart in this chart,
[00:38:07] one axis represents
[00:38:08] like the tools and capabilities
[00:38:10] of like an A I large language model.
[00:38:13] And the other axis represents
[00:38:15] the autonomy and agency.
[00:38:17] And
[00:38:18] and so,
[00:38:20] so for example, chat GP T
[00:38:23] is sort of like on the bottom
[00:38:25] left of this chart,
[00:38:26] it has very little tools and
[00:38:27] capabilities and very little autonomy.
[00:38:30] Like you, you say something and then it
[00:38:32] does something and then you say
[00:38:33] something and it responds and there's no,
[00:38:35] like it doesn't go off
[00:38:36] and do its own thing. Whereas like
[00:38:38] a human or A G I is on the opposite
[00:38:41] end of this graph. It's got full
[00:38:43] autonomy and like infinite tools, right?
[00:38:47] And so I think Airtable A I
[00:38:50] And that other extension I showed you
[00:38:55] the GP T assistant,
[00:38:57] it's kind of like on the lower
[00:38:58] end of this graph where
[00:39:00] like it,
[00:39:01] it, it's, it's basically like Chat GPT
[00:39:04] except it's just like a little more
[00:39:06] equipped with some extra information,
[00:39:08] so that
[00:39:09] like
[00:39:09] you give it,
[00:39:10] you input a record in and it outputs like
[00:39:13] like another, it outputs some data
[00:39:15] into a column. So like it's pretty basic.
[00:39:18] And, and I think like the trend
[00:39:20] of like big companies
[00:39:22] trying to roll out A I
[00:39:23] stuff is kind of gonna be
[00:39:25] in this lower left quadrant.
[00:39:27] Mostly because,
[00:39:28] everything LLM or A I products
[00:39:31] that have more tools
[00:39:33] and capabilities and more
[00:39:34] autonomy
[00:39:35] they're harder to build.
[00:39:37] And they're more risky. But,
[00:39:42] and so, yeah, but basically
[00:39:44] I think it's gonna take
[00:39:45] a while for Airtable
[00:39:46] themselves to roll out,
[00:39:48] like, really cool A I capabilities.
[00:39:50] Like I like I
[00:39:51] gave examples of earlier
[00:39:52] Ask Airy
[00:39:54] is kind of like over here as well.
[00:39:56] It's, it's, it's an application of a
[00:39:57] technique called retrieval augmented
[00:39:59] generation
[00:40:00] where like you retrieve the most
[00:40:01] relevant information
[00:40:02] and
[00:40:04] and then feed that to chat GPT
[00:40:06] for it to answer a question.
[00:40:09] And then some other examples of more like
[00:40:13] more autonomous, more tool enabled
[00:40:16] A I systems is like chat GPT with the code
[00:40:18] interpreter.
[00:40:19] I don't know if you guys have played
[00:40:21] around with that, but it's very cool,
[00:40:22] it can write and execute its own code.
[00:40:25] It has a
[00:40:26] it, it has its access to its own file
[00:40:29] system so it can like generate files,
[00:40:31] it can accept files and do things to those
[00:40:32] files. And then kind of on the,
[00:40:35] on the very far end
[00:40:37] of this graph is like the
[00:40:38] frontier, the current frontier
[00:40:41] of autonomous advanced A I systems that
[00:40:45] that can kind of you,
[00:40:46] you tell it to do something
[00:40:48] and it goes off and,
[00:40:48] and figures out how to do something
[00:40:50] on its own and might have its own
[00:40:52] like
[00:40:53] learning system and,
[00:40:54] and task prioritization system.
[00:40:57] So Auto GPT
[00:40:58] Multi,
[00:40:59] the Minecraft Voyager,
[00:41:00] these are all examples
[00:41:02] in this experimental space.
[00:41:04] So,
[00:41:05] yeah, this is just an illustration
[00:41:07] that I came up with that.
[00:41:08] That's how I view the space.
[00:41:10] Yeah. No, that's very helpful.
[00:41:11] Did you put together
[00:41:12] this chart or you just
[00:41:13] modified it?
[00:41:14] Yeah, I, I put it together.
[00:41:16] OK.
[00:41:17] Yeah. Yeah. If you're willing to share,
[00:41:19] we'll, we'll put this with our notes.
[00:41:21] Sure. Yeah, we do.
[00:41:22] Yeah, that's awesome.
[00:41:24] Yeah. And I think,
[00:41:25] I think that's everything
[00:41:26] I've got to talk about.
[00:41:28] Cool. Thank you Zakey
[00:41:30] for sharing that
[00:41:31] and your insights into the future.
[00:41:33] We look forward to your next app
[00:41:35] and see where you
[00:41:37] push the limits of A I and
[00:41:38] Airtable.
[00:41:39] That's
[00:41:39] awesome. Thank you.
[00:41:40] Yeah. Thanks for having me.
[00:41:42] All right, quick. Shout out to
[00:41:44] join our community.
[00:41:45] If you haven't already join
[00:41:47] us at builtonair.com/join
[00:41:49] lots of interesting people
[00:41:51] like Zakey are in the community
[00:41:53] talking about Airtable,
[00:41:55] talk a lot about A I
[00:41:56] and other tools and how you
[00:41:58] use them with Airtable. So please join us
[00:42:01] builtonair.com/join
[00:42:02] join the Slack community
[00:42:04] and get involved in
[00:42:05] the discussions there.
[00:42:07] Let's continue and Alli
[00:42:09] is gonna walk us through
[00:42:11] Softr in their action buttons.
[00:42:14] Awesome.
[00:42:15] All right.
[00:42:17] So this is a feature that
[00:42:19] I'm super excited about.
[00:42:21] It's been live for,
[00:42:23] I don't know
[00:42:25] more than a few months.
[00:42:26] And they've made some
[00:42:27] recent improvements to it as
[00:42:29] well.
[00:42:30] So this is the example base
[00:42:32] that I'm using
[00:42:33] is just a really delight crm.
[00:42:35] There's a lot of extra stuff in here.
[00:42:37] But basically, we've got people
[00:42:40] that are tied to interactions.
[00:42:44] And I've built a very,
[00:42:45] very, very simple Softr site
[00:42:48] to allow
[00:42:50] somebody on the team table
[00:42:51] on which I am the only person right now
[00:42:54] to log into Softr and
[00:42:57] look at the contacts in this database
[00:43:00] and then record some interactions.
[00:43:03] So if we pop over into Softr,
[00:43:07] I've got
[00:43:07] just three pages right now,
[00:43:09] just a home page
[00:43:10] which has literally nothing on it.
[00:43:12] And then contacts and contact details.
[00:43:16] The contact
[00:43:18] page, contacts page
[00:43:21] is just a list element.
[00:43:24] And when you click into one of those
[00:43:29] elements here,
[00:43:30] it brings you onto the contact
[00:43:33] details page for that contact
[00:43:37] and here's where things get
[00:43:39] really cool.
[00:43:41] So previously you would have had to have,
[00:43:44] you know, you could have a list
[00:43:46] details page here in Softr
[00:43:48] showing
[00:43:50] you have a list details page
[00:43:51] with all the details about the contact
[00:43:53] and then a list element underneath that,
[00:43:56] which is the these interactions
[00:43:59] are specific to this contact
[00:44:01] to Jim Doe here.
[00:44:03] And the way that you do that
[00:44:05] I've gone over in a previous episode,
[00:44:07] but you can conditionally show
[00:44:10] only the list items where
[00:44:12] the record ID of the person, for example,
[00:44:16] matches the
[00:44:17] person that you're looking at.
[00:44:20] And previously, you would need
[00:44:22] to have a form
[00:44:23] at the bottom of this page to
[00:44:25] add a new record to this list.
[00:44:28] But now we have this
[00:44:30] really handy option to set up
[00:44:33] an action button.
[00:44:35] So there's two different types
[00:44:37] of action buttons in Softr.
[00:44:39] We've got the top bar buttons here,
[00:44:42] which is this, it comes with this
[00:44:44] automatically. When you drop in the list
[00:44:45] records, you're gonna notice
[00:44:47] that it has that at the very top
[00:44:49] and I have not edited this at all yet.
[00:44:51] So we'll look at what
[00:44:52] it looks like by default.
[00:44:53] And then you also have item buttons.
[00:44:56] So these buttons are gonna show up on
[00:44:59] the actual elements themselves here.
[00:45:01] So each one of these list items
[00:45:03] will have its own little button.
[00:45:05] So we'll look at that in a moment too.
[00:45:08] But so by default, we've got a
[00:45:10] record as the
[00:45:12] default action.
[00:45:14] And when I expand this,
[00:45:17] it puts in basically
[00:45:18] all of the fields that
[00:45:19] like the first like 10 fields
[00:45:22] on that table.
[00:45:23] I don't need
[00:45:25] any of these really,
[00:45:26] I'm gonna leave only a few.
[00:45:31] And some of these
[00:45:33] are just a little funny for
[00:45:35] CRM
[00:45:38] implementations.
[00:45:41] But let's say I wanna have
[00:45:43] the person because I need it
[00:45:46] to link up to a person in my database.
[00:45:49] If I look at my interactions table,
[00:45:51] I have this field called person.
[00:45:53] So I wanna fill that in with the person
[00:45:54] I'm looking at on the page
[00:45:57] to talk about how to do that in a moment.
[00:45:59] I wanna put in a
[00:46:02] drop down
[00:46:04] to show the contact
[00:46:06] or the type of contact.
[00:46:07] So I can choose whether it's
[00:46:09] a Zoom call and email
[00:46:11] in person, phone call, et cetera.
[00:46:14] And this is also
[00:46:16] something released in the last
[00:46:18] probably year where you can
[00:46:19] actually sync those options
[00:46:21] with the data source
[00:46:22] used to be you'd have
[00:46:23] to actually type those in
[00:46:24] manually to make sure they
[00:46:25] match up with the options
[00:46:26] in Airtable, which was a
[00:46:28] really annoying thing.
[00:46:31] But now that happens automatically
[00:46:33] in Softr, which is great.
[00:46:36] And then I want to also log the
[00:46:40] date,
[00:46:42] we'll map that to the date column.
[00:46:45] And finally, I wanna log
[00:46:48] the team member that did it.
[00:46:50] So I wanna say
[00:46:51] if I'm the one that's logged in
[00:46:53] and I'm adding an interaction,
[00:46:56] I want that to fill in with my name
[00:46:59] automatically here.
[00:47:00] So I know who's the team
[00:47:01] member that actually performed
[00:47:03] this interaction with the contact.
[00:47:06] But I don't want the person
[00:47:07] who's logged in
[00:47:08] to have to select that every time.
[00:47:10] Actually, I'm gonna do
[00:47:12] the same for person.
[00:47:13] So here's where this
[00:47:15] hidden field
[00:47:16] comes in handy.
[00:47:18] So I can say I want a hidden field
[00:47:22] mapped to
[00:47:23] the team member.
[00:47:26] And I can say based
[00:47:28] on the current logged in user,
[00:47:30] I want their record ID
[00:47:32] to be filled in automatically.
[00:47:35] So this will be
[00:47:36] once I have this little modal pop up,
[00:47:40] I won't even see the field
[00:47:42] for team is just gonna know,
[00:47:43] fill that in with the
[00:47:44] current logged in user
[00:47:46] and then I can do the same thing
[00:47:48] for the person I'm looking at,
[00:47:49] right? Because if I'm
[00:47:50] looking at Jim Doe's page
[00:47:52] and I click add record,
[00:47:54] I expect this interaction
[00:47:55] to automatically be tied to
[00:47:56] Jim Doe.
[00:47:58] So we can do that
[00:48:00] as well if I map this to person
[00:48:04] and the current record automatically
[00:48:06] comes up here, which is super cool
[00:48:10] and I'll put record ID there as well,
[00:48:15] then you can change all these
[00:48:17] options. So if I wanna say add
[00:48:19] interaction instead of add new record
[00:48:22] can do that,
[00:48:23] I can change the success message.
[00:48:26] All sorts of different things there.
[00:48:29] And let's actually change
[00:48:31] the name of this too
[00:48:33] to add interaction.
[00:48:37] Now,
[00:48:38] that's super,
[00:48:40] I think, pretty straightforward.
[00:48:41] We'll look at what
[00:48:42] that looks like in a moment.
[00:48:43] I'm just gonna also
[00:48:44] touch on the item button.
[00:48:47] So you've got all these options
[00:48:50] to be able to
[00:48:52] apply and edit to that record
[00:48:54] or open a page,
[00:48:56] open a URL that's in that record
[00:48:58] you can do. So if you pick open URL,
[00:49:01] you can pick a field
[00:49:02] that has a URL value in it
[00:49:05] on that record and it's just gonna
[00:49:07] apply that little button at the bottom of
[00:49:08] that
[00:49:09] item.
[00:49:12] I don't want open URL though.
[00:49:13] I'm gonna delete this
[00:49:15] and I'm gonna say edit record.
[00:49:18] So now it similarly to the add
[00:49:23] record step,
[00:49:25] I've got basically all of the same things,
[00:49:27] but now this will open up a little
[00:49:29] model that I can actually
[00:49:32] edit the record with.
[00:49:35] So let's just say I wanna only edit the
[00:49:38] notes just to keep things simple
[00:49:43] and will publish.
[00:49:47] And now I'm gonna stop sharing and
[00:49:50] reshare just for a moment
[00:49:51] because I need to pop into
[00:49:53] an incognito window to show
[00:49:54] you what this looks like.
[00:49:57] And my,
[00:49:58] for whatever reason,
[00:49:59] I wasn't able to share my entire screen.
[00:50:01] I tried to and it was not letting me
[00:50:06] Right.
[00:50:09] There you go.
[00:50:11] Excellent. Thank you
[00:50:13] and let me refresh.
[00:50:18] Awesome. So if I pop into,
[00:50:20] let's look at Jim Doe
[00:50:25] and now I can say add interaction.
[00:50:30] Of course,
[00:50:32] there's,
[00:50:32] there's a little window that's saying
[00:50:34] a date can't be mapped to date time field.
[00:50:36] That's interesting. So
[00:50:38] I think I need to have
[00:50:40] include time
[00:50:43] on here.
[00:50:46] I've actually never tried this
[00:50:49] with a date field. So that would be why
[00:50:56] there we are.
[00:50:58] So now I've got notes,
[00:51:00] I've got my type of contact,
[00:51:02] let's say it was a Zoom call
[00:51:05] and just say
[00:51:06] discussed BuiltOnAir demo.
[00:51:11] And that was
[00:51:14] on today,
[00:51:17] let just say 10 o'clock.
[00:51:21] And now when I add that
[00:51:25] here it is,
[00:51:26] I get my nice little item here.
[00:51:29] You have to click into it.
[00:51:31] Depending on which list you've chosen,
[00:51:33] you might have that edit button
[00:51:35] show up right at the top
[00:51:36] or you might need to
[00:51:37] click to do it.
[00:51:37] This, that's all a user prep thing
[00:51:39] and you can set that up in
[00:51:40] Softr
[00:51:41] but now when I click edit,
[00:51:46] I'm able to edit these notes
[00:51:51] and say update
[00:51:55] and they, there's that edit
[00:51:57] that took effect.
[00:51:58] And also it was automatically
[00:52:00] applied with my
[00:52:02] a linked record here. So
[00:52:04] you notice when I pop this open,
[00:52:06] I don't have to actually
[00:52:08] select myself from a
[00:52:08] list or anything. It's a hidden field.
[00:52:11] So is Jim Doe here?
[00:52:13] Like I don't need to say
[00:52:15] this is an interaction for the person.
[00:52:17] I'm looking at logged by me.
[00:52:19] It just does that automatically
[00:52:22] which is super, super useful
[00:52:24] and makes for a really
[00:52:25] clean user experience.
[00:52:27] Yeah.
[00:52:29] Yeah, that's really powerful.
[00:52:31] That's cool stuff.
[00:52:33] Absolutely.
[00:52:36] There's some things I wish that they
[00:52:38] would still come out with like I'd love to
[00:52:41] actually, I think they recently did
[00:52:43] come out with the ability to hide this
[00:52:44] button based on certain things.
[00:52:49] So
[00:52:49] super cool the direction
[00:52:51] that they're headed in.
[00:52:52] I'm always really excited
[00:52:53] about new Softr releases.
[00:52:55] Yeah.
[00:52:56] Yeah, Softr cranks out features
[00:52:59] very quickly. They're moving fast and
[00:53:02] so very cool stuff.
[00:53:03] Thank you all for sharing that.
[00:53:06] Thank you, insights into Softr
[00:53:08] and how to make it useful.
[00:53:10] That software is a third party tool
[00:53:12] that sits on top of Airtable.
[00:53:13] So it requires
[00:53:15] a
[00:53:15] subscription to that platform,
[00:53:16] but it, it is powerful
[00:53:18] if you're looking for a
[00:53:19] portal solution.
[00:53:20] Absolutely.
[00:53:22] And they do have a free option
[00:53:24] with limited features but pretty robust,
[00:53:26] limited features if I say so myself.
[00:53:29] Ok.
[00:53:31] All right. Well, that concludes our show.
[00:53:33] We'll end a little early today and we
[00:53:35] will be back next week
[00:53:36] with episode seven.
[00:53:37] Have a great week everyone.
[00:53:39] Thank you.
[00:53:42] Thanks.