11/19/2024 – BuiltOnAir Live Podcast Full Show – S20-E07

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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.

Kamille Parks – I am an Airtable Community Forums Leader and the developer behind the custom Airtable app “Scheduler”, one of the winning projects in the Airtable Custom Blocks Contest now widely available on the Marketplace. I focus on building simple scripts, automations, and custom apps for Airtable that streamline data entry and everyday workflows.

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

Meet the Creators – 00:01:42 –

Meet Chris Dancy from Chris Dancy.

Chris Dancy is touted as “the Most Connected Man on Earth,” and the world is watching those connections carefully. For 25 years, Dancy has served in leadership within the technology and healthcare industries, specializing in the intersection of the two. Chris entered the public dialog concerning digital health as the media started to focus on wearable technology. He earned his moniker by utilizing up to 700 sensors, devices, applications, and services to track, analyze, and optimize his life–from his calorie intake to his spiritual well-being. This quantification enables him to see the connections of otherwise invisible data, resulting in dramatic upgrades to his health, productivity, and quality of life.

Visit them online

Automate Create – –

Watch as we review and work through automations. Kamille will share how to use a utility record to trigger automations on demand or on a schedule.

Round The Bases – 00:01:40 –

Base Showcase – 00:01:42 –

We dive into a full working base that will Chris shares his life management system that does everything from bank reconciliation with AI to daily advice about that to focus on and prioritize.

Full Segment Details

Segment: Meet the Creators

Start Time: 00:01:42

Chris Dancy – The Most Connected Man on Earth

Meet Chris Dancy from Chris Dancy.

Chris Dancy is touted as “the Most Connected Man on Earth,” and the world is watching those connections carefully. For 25 years, Dancy has served in leadership within the technology and healthcare industries, specializing in the intersection of the two. Chris entered the public dialog concerning digital health as the media started to focus on wearable technology. He earned his moniker by utilizing up to 700 sensors, devices, applications, and services to track, analyze, and optimize his life–from his calorie intake to his spiritual well-being. This quantification enables him to see the connections of otherwise invisible data, resulting in dramatic upgrades to his health, productivity, and quality of life.

Visit them online

Segment: Automate Create

Start Time:

Airtable Automations – Using a Utility Record

Watch as we review and work through automations. Kamille will share how to use a utility record to trigger automations on demand or on a schedule.

Segment: Round The Bases

Start Time: 00:01:40

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

Segment: Base Showcase

Start Time: 00:01:42

Full Life Management

We dive into a full working base that will Chris shares his life management system that does everything from bank reconciliation with AI to daily advice about that to focus on and prioritize.

Full Transcription

The full transcription for the show can be found here:

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Built On Air podcast. The variety show for all things Airtable. In each episode we cover four different segments. It's always fresh and different and lots of fun while you get the insider info on all things Airtable. Our hosts and guests are some of the most senior experts in the Airtable community.

Join us live each week on our YouTube channel every Tuesday at 11 a. m. Eastern. And join our active community at BuiltOnAir. com. Before we begin, a word from our sponsor, OntoAir Backups. OntoAir Backups provides automated air table backups to your cloud storage for secure and reliable data protection.

Prevent data loss and set up a secure air table backup system with OntoAir Backups at OntoAir. com. As one customer, Sarah, said, having automated air table backups has freed up hours of my time every other week. And the fear of losing anything. Longtime customer [00:01:00] David states, OntoAir Backups might be the most critical piece of the puzzle to guard against unforeseeable disaster.

It's easy to set up, and it just works. Join Sarah, David, and hundreds more Airtable users like you to protect your Airtable data with OntoAir Backups. Sign up today with promo code BUILTONAIR for a 10 percent discount. Check them out at ontoair. com. And now let's check out today's episode, and see what we built on air.

Dan Fellars: Welcome back to the Built On Air podcast. We are in episode seven of season 20. Good to be with you. We've got myself, Ali and Camille and special guest, Chris Dancy. Welcome, Chris. Everybody, everybody should know who Chris is. That should be a familiar face, but we're excited to have Chris back. We've had him on once or twice in the past, [00:02:00] and we'll get, we'll get an update on Chris and everything going on in his world, uh, later in the show.

But I'll first walk us through what we're going to be doing built on our podcast is an hour long show. We'll first start with our Around the Bases to keep you up to date on all the community news and Airtable updates. And then we'll talk about On2Air, our primary sponsor, and how you can get signed up there.

Then we'll learn about Chris and his background and story. And then Chris is going to walk us through his base that manages his entire life. Is this called Caretable? Is that, is that the name of your base? On2Air. com It 

Chris Dancy: was originally their table. And then I built care table because interfaces was new, but now it's just back to being their table on its one base.

So that's, that's the big update. You can sign off now. 

Dan Fellars: Okay. So we're learning about that. You won't want to miss this. It's gotta be the most, uh, complex, intense space you'll ever see. And then a shout out to join our community at [00:03:00] built on air. And automations using utility records for. Um, to, to help in your automations and whatnot.

So excited for that first start with around the bases, see what we've got going on. 

ROUND THE BASES - 00:03:16

So last week, Oh, first, um, Airtable is now doing user groups. So they've got a couple of user groups that they're starting within the Airtable community and Kevin is, is helping to organize that. Um, so I believe they've already, they've had an enterprise user group for a while.

I think they had a, um, uh, another one, but now they have an education user group. A marketing user group, product operations, and an AI user group. So if you fit into any of those categories, then if you go to the Airtable [00:04:00] community, um, you should be able to see those and you have to opt in to join those and participate in them.

So that's a shout out for those. Um, I'm going to jump ahead here. Let's see. Well, let's keep going down. Okay. So I know a lot of air table users use make. com and now make has a new product called make grid, which I'm not exactly sure what it is. They don't give any screenshots, but it's basically like a visual of like.

Everything going on across all of your tools and things like that. Anybody else have any insight here?

Alli Alosa: I haven't seen it yet. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah. So I'm, I'm curious. I would have thought they would give some screenshots of it. Um, so you at least get a sense of what it is. So, 

Chris Dancy: so I, we heard a little bit about this [00:05:00] almost two years ago at the dare table in San Francisco. They said this was coming. They didn't call it grid at that point, but, um, I, they haven't suddenly shown any screenshots.

What I thought was really interesting about grid was apparently that a pretty big event in Europe to launch this. Did you guys see that? 

Dan Fellars: Uh, no. 

Chris Dancy: Yeah. So they must've had three or 400 people at this conference and it looked like it makes specific. Um, and they had someone on demoing it, but there were no actual videos.

So maybe check out YouTube or link or Twitter or whatever they call it now and see if there are any quick videos. But I was kind of anxious to see it. It's, It looks like they're pushing more to that visual layout that Zapier did a few years ago. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah, there was a, yeah, Zapier from the no code ops team, they built a something that's probably similar to this and then Zapier acquired it and, um, might be building it in.

So Zapier will likely come out with something similar. 

Chris Dancy: I'm not kind of happy to see make making, uh, [00:06:00] making it. For lack of a better term. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah. It's, it's an interesting story. Yeah. They got acquired and, uh, seems to continue to, to innovate even after the acquisition. 

Chris Dancy: Yeah. I just met a few people. They're just super, I don't know.

They're super nice people. 

Dan Fellars: Good. All right. Next one. Okay, so this we saw from Russell. He also posted this in the built on air community. I haven't seen this published by air table, but they air table has a co builder, which up until this point allowed you to create new bases using a using a prompt. But now they have the ability to extend existing bases with a prompt using a I.

So that'll be interesting. Good evolution of their co builder product. 

Kamille Parks: Yeah, I think this is useful. I think one of the complaints I have about some of the newer [00:07:00] Airtable features is that they're great if you want to start over or start fresh. Um, like a managed apps, for instance, you can't convert an existing base into a managed app.

You can create a new managed app from it and then several children from that. But the original kind of stays put. Um, this is in contrast to that where you can have something that exists and build on with it with some of the newer Airtable features, which I think is, you know, where I'd like to see because there are a lot of new people to Airtable, a lot of new customers and a lot of people who've been using it for quite some time.

Dan Fellars: Very true. All right. Okay. Another, another, uh, form builder fill out, which is a very popular one. Looks like they now have a new functionality. Um, I know a lot of Airtable users use fill out. So now they have, um, human in the loop, workflows, automations, uh, uh, approvals. [00:08:00] And so now fill out approvals is, is live.

Has anybody played with it? I know Chris, you're a big fill out user. 

Chris Dancy: Well, no, I wanted to, I mean, I, I think I should have a comment somewhere in there, just eyeballs, um, because what they, what they had was in their update, they said, Coming soon for air table. So I love fill out. I was like, I don't know, probably one of the first few customers they had to that end.

I was completely abused by all the things that everyone got to not have to live through them. We're making work. Um, but I think I'm not going to try it until they have the air table integration. But I mean, again, we're actually integrating fill out into their table next year. There'll be a whole fill out Part of the conference, just because I think fill out is one of those companies that is becoming a brand onto its own beyond just forms.

Alli Alosa: Yeah, 

Chris Dancy: that's interesting. Yeah. I reached out and wanted to see if they [00:09:00] wanted to officially come on board to do that. So I don't have to curate that track and those speakers, but they just don't feel they're ready yet. I'm like, Oh, you were ready last year, but okay. 

Kamille Parks: I think of all of the, you know, partner programs that, um, Airtable has all of the different SAS tools.

A lot of people use in conjunction with Airtable. Uh, fill out is probably the one with the most glowing reviews. When, when there's a feature missing and fail out, it's normally, I hear it in the tone of, man, I wish I could do this, but if something's missing from like softer or something, it's like, I can't believe they don't have this thing.

I don't know. I feel like a lot of air table people really love fill out despite fill out, not necessarily being exclusively an air table product. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah. And it's amazing how quickly as a, as a fellow software engineer, like how quickly they, they push new feature and functionality out is, it's pretty remarkable.

Chris Dancy: Well, their team background click on Dominic. He came from somewhere. I [00:10:00] mean, they're all hardcore engineers, uh, with kind of super duper, Yeah, he was at Retool. Retool. I mean, the guy knows how to code. He knows how to scale. You know, what I really like about watching Dominic, um, online, specifically LinkedIn, is he also knows how to work that system to get views on those posts.

You know, I mean, and I just think there's such a fine line between looking cringy on LinkedIn and looking talented and dominant. Yeah, yeah. Come here. You don't mean you look real. Some people look so cringy. I don't know what it is. I don't know what makes him cringy, but he's good. But this is sexy. I don't know.

This reminds me of when jot form added. Was it JotForm or FormType that added the database behind the tool about three years ago? 

Dan Fellars: JotForm. Yeah. Yeah. 

Chris Dancy: Yeah. You know, I tell Dominic all the time, once he adds just a little bit of like low code in front of a form where you could actually have a site, [00:11:00] he blows right into that whole softer, pory 

Alli Alosa: stuff.

Chris Dancy: He's going to blow right into it. He doesn't even see it. Yeah, maybe he does, but he refuses to say they're going to do it. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah, it's an interesting place they're in. So, okay. Yeah. But it looks like air table notion, not quite ready yet. So that's what Chris and us are waiting for. So, okay. Next one. This was curious if anybody looks like they were in Chicago, uh, for a product led summit in Chicago.

I did not make this one. I did go last week. There was a, there was one in Philadelphia. Yeah. I went to that one last week. Um, so Airtable's got several city specific. Um, events. So if you haven't been to one, you should check those out. See if they're coming to your city anytime soon.

Okay, this is an interesting one. Air table is now [00:12:00] available in AWS Marketplace. So what that means, my understanding is if you're an AWS customer, you're already paying a lot of money to AWS. Um, you can now essentially purchase. air table using your AWS account. So it just shows up as a line item as part of your AWS billing.

So it reduces the friction to, to become an, uh, an air table customer. Um, so for large enterprises that want to just make it streamlined through AWS, this, this is a pretty interesting approach. Be curious to see how that impacts their adoption.

Alli Alosa: Yeah, that is interesting. 

Kamille Parks: Yeah, that is the side of enterprise that I don't really cover. They don't let me touch billing.

Dan Fellars: Yeah, [00:13:00] what I don't know is, um, what I'd be curious is if this allowed you to store your air table data. Into your own AWS, you know, network instead of it's being hosted in air tables. I don't think that's what this means, but that was my original thought of like, Oh, you almost could install air table into your own AWS environment, but I don't think it's that.

Kamille Parks: That'd be nice. 

Alli Alosa: I think 

Kamille Parks: one thing that a lot of enterprises are missing, uh, being able to like finer control over where their data actually sits. Um, but yeah, it does, it feels like they would have made that a bigger deal if, if that were the case. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah. All right. Let's move on to. The built on air community, this I thought was cool.

We might, we might need to do a segment on this. So Scott Rose, bring this up. I think this has been around for a while, but good [00:14:00] reminder. So if you're in an interface and you, um, have a, a linked record, and then that has a lookup to another linked record, you can actually click on that lookup field and it'll bring the sidebar.

Over as if it was, you know, one child removed. So you can essentially go two tables down. And interact with that, with that grandchild record, um, in the sidebar, similar to you can, how you can interact with child records, um, but it looks like there are some limitations on that. 

Alli Alosa: Yes, there are. You can't, yeah, sorry.

No, I was just going to say exactly what Scott said. You can't add new records through a form, um, or link or unlink the records if you're, working with a lookup field, which makes sense because it is a computed field. Um, but you could, [00:15:00] there are other workarounds to get around that too. You could have a button run an automation to add a record to that list and it'll show up right in front of you, which is nice, but this is a great feature.

I believe it has been around since day one of interfaces that, uh, is super powerful. It does eliminate the need for a lot of clicks. Having to make things messy. 

Kamille Parks: Yeah. This is, this is another thing where like, The concept of utility records, which I'll cover later. If you have a system where you're connecting a lot of records to one record for whatever reason, you can make great use of this sort of feature.

It's sort of a replacement for in the blank layout. You can have as many, you know, tables and galleries pointed at random tables as you want with no real clear connection between the data. This is kind of a half step where you can connect. You know, all [00:16:00] records that are in some way linked to a specific record, whatever record you're looking at for the detail page or for the record review layout.

Uh, but it's really useful. Um, and I, yeah, probably next episode we'll show how to do this. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah, that'd be good. All right. Thanks scott for the update there. Okay. So last week we talked about, it was like Fresh off the press portals, they announced it. Um, so this one, this is just the LinkedIn post, but what cut, what cut our eye was, um, the comments on this.

And it's, it's kind of interesting. So not the most positive comments in particular around the pricing of, of portals, um, you know, a lot of frustration of. of people saying, you know, this just is not feasible at this pricing to, to work and kind of where they're coming in. And so, you know, so the, the [00:17:00] competitors, the, the softers, the stackers that sit on top of Airtable likely still have a place.

Their, their pricing points are much lower. So this is. Likely targeted for more enterprise, um, customers that, that want to stay within Airtable. Um, so that seems to be the general consensus of, of feedback here. 

Chris Dancy: I just saw something today on this too. When, when I originally met with our closing keynote, I ended up not coming.

Her name escapes me. Does someone know her name? 

Kamille Parks: She, she wasn't there. 

Chris Dancy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She, uh, she's so good. Um, yes. Aisha, when I originally met with her, um, about portals and bringing them some people at the conference could use them this year, what I was told and what I'm still getting quoted is you can't get this cheaper.

Um, and so they will go down to almost 4 a seat from eight, [00:18:00] which again, that's still, I mean, you can just ask. I mean, what I thought was really interesting was even in what I saw today, I can't remember where I saw it's being offered at the team level, which wasn't an option before dare table. It was just the business and enterprise level.

Um, and at that team, wherever that screenshot I saw today, it was, it said, and contact us for additional discounts, which I've never seen them price say that in writing before. So I do think they're listening. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure they're trying to find. You know where that product market fit is. I'm pricing there, but what's your?

Yeah, go ahead. I 

Alli Alosa: was just gonna say it's got to be a struggle because they don't want to cannibalize themselves like they they make too low. Then there they could potentially lose millions of dollars because all these people are going to be like, I don't want to pay 20 a month per user. I'm just gonna.

Switch them to a portal user, and so there's, there's, I can imagine it's a very difficult [00:19:00] line to find, um, but yeah, pricing is prohibitive in a lot of cases. I think, 

Chris Dancy: unfortunately, I've been saying this for seven years now. I mean, the problem isn't air table pricing. The problem is air table permissions.

Uh, at the way the permissions are structured drives the pricing model point blank, end of sentence, nothing else to talk about. And until they can relook at how permissions are defined across the entire system, right? We thought maybe it'd be views and we got interfaces. We sorry, I could go down a big, long rant on this, but I think at the end of the day, until they come out with what I would call a self service license, which is something between portal and, uh, And, uh, and a software where you basically have one process that anyone can use on a web type form, not an interface, right?

How most companies self service works, right? I, you know, Camille, we did, we did, I was part of the installation of ServiceNow at Apple back in the day, right? So our, our, and I think they still, I don't know, but I think they might still use it. But. [00:20:00] We sold self service licenses, which was a different, you know, you get 5, 000 users for one flat fee.

All right. And that could go into this one process all day long, whatever that process will look like. So that being said, I don't think this is an air table trying to bifurcate people into enterprise and not, I think this is an engineering challenge. They're managing through until they can figure out what it's going to look like.

Kamille Parks: I think my, my thing that makes me hesitant about portals today, aside from, you know, pricing. I feel like there's certain types of interface pages that are missing that I would want. In a portal. So like the welcome page. I think it's called welcome or something overview the overview page. It's relatively new.

Is that it this year? That's pretty nice, but you can only have like sort of static information on it. Nothing really dynamic and Um, there's like, there's no true replacement for the [00:21:00] blank layout yet. It's still just sort of there in legacy format and dashboard is close to what I want, but not quite. And I think there's just something missing.

I can't quite put my finger on what page I want to see in an interface quite yet, but I can't quite design a portal for strictly external users, uh, which is what portals is, you know, sort of aimed at. Um, a portal user must be a different email domain than your email domain, essentially. So, Strictly external people.

I don't know if I could give them the experience I would want that I can give them in something like softer in stacker. Someone in the comments mentioned bubble, which I hate, but you could build in bubble. You know, I just I don't know. I don't know if it's quite there yet from a design standpoint. 

Alli Alosa: Yeah, I agree.

Kamille Parks: [00:22:00] Webflow. Chris says Webflow. Yes, exactly. WeWeb as well. Any of those. 

Chris Dancy: And I think it's, what is the uh, what is Noloco? That, that other company that's kind of newer? So to me, this looks close to what they're doing. And obviously they're doing it at a different pricing model. But I just said on Facebook today exactly what Camille said.

And maybe it's because Camille and I just come from backgrounds where you have to think about what the user wants first. 

Alli Alosa: You know, 

Chris Dancy: air table is one of those rare tools where you don't have to think about the people you're building it for. I don't know why we don't say that out loud. We don't need to be ashamed of it.

Right. But I think when you think about, well, what is the user experience until there's a welcome or overview, it's that's mobile. Right. I think, I think we're kind of stuck. And then the user experience, if you're, if you're not an air table, when you invite someone to portals, It's not very pleasant. It's like, it walks them through air table onboarding, which again, sorry, there's no need to do that.

All [00:23:00] right. You're inviting them to your portal. You're not inviting them to your CRM to market webinars 

Dan Fellars: too. 

Chris Dancy: Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Like just set up a portal and like set up a fake email. It's like, this is no different than sharing my code that I used to get 10 bucks for. It's like, it doesn't feel friendly at all.

Yeah. 

Kamille Parks: Yeah, one of the things about portals is that they, um, you could see it in the screenshot that they, you can custom brand the, uh, login page, so it shows your logo rather than Airtables, but there are pieces of Airtable that are still in there. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah, 

Kamille Parks: yeah, 

Dan Fellars: it's not a full white label experience. No. 

Chris Dancy: to their, you know, to Aisha and everyone else because they're lovely people.

It is beta, so they are listening, uh, but gosh Camille, I really felt it when you said there's no kind of welcome page. It's like, I know, I need a welcome page. 

Kamille Parks: It's, it's not quite there and maybe they'll edit. With the, you know, in conjunction with the beta, I feel like it'd be relevant for regular [00:24:00] interfaces as well, not just portals, but 

Chris Dancy: And how hard could it be to add some code that we used to have over in extensions to put in a picture?

Or just a static piece of text or something? That blank layout we talk about, to me, that thing is crap. You can do everything in that blank layout, but it's almost like they said, okay, here's a full turkey dinner, and by the way, now you just get stuffing.

Kamille Parks: So, yeah, little things, little things like that. Um, 

Alli Alosa: yeah. 

Kamille Parks: Base row is a, an alternative to air table and they have their own sort of like interfaces and you, it's more like, it feels more like HTML if that makes sense, but you could put a static image there. So it's, it's things like that where I'm like, I feel like interfaces should have this.

Dan Fellars: Yeah. Yeah. And Chris, you were probably one of the first to use it in. In a real world example, I used it for their table, right? 

Chris Dancy: And it works great for their table. Let's be honest, right? Everybody knew air table already. So it wasn't gonna be [00:25:00] that much of a jolt of your user experience. I mean, if you were there at the conference, it worked on mobile.

I mean, again, there are some benefits. Um, but you know, I just, I, I went back cause I wanted to use it at one of my clients, it has like 1300 external members and like, you know, yeah, 4 it's kind of doable. But without the welcome page, these are not smart people that I'm dealing with. They will get into that, sign up and like, are you on a team?

Invite your team member. And they're going to be like, no. 

Dan Fellars: Yep. All right. Let's move on a couple more to wrap up. This is a good reminder on API usage. So if you're a developer using APIs. To understand like how it works, especially now they're cracking, cracking down on, on, uh, abuse of their API limits. Um, they used to not stop people that were hitting the limit, but now at least on the free plan, they're, they're locking that down.

Um, and [00:26:00] so just to understand how it works, if you're reading a list of records from a table, you can only read a hundred at a time. So some tools like make and Zapier, I think they abstract this. So you don't realize. Under the hood, if you're reading in 500 records, it actually has to make five API calls to read a hundred at a time.

So even though it looks like one operation in make or Zapier. It's actually multiple API calls under the hood. So that's going to add up quickly. So ZZ here is realizing that, um, looks like they're hitting the limit. So if you are seeing that in, and you start to see that they now show in your dashboard and your account, um, your API usage.

And so if you're not sure where that's coming from, this might be a likely explanation

that, okay. Last one we'll wrap up. Okay, [00:27:00] this is um, a good reminder on, so a very common use case is pre filling forms and trying, and then also hiding them. So, if you're using something like fill out, you can definitely do things like that, but in, inside of Airtable forms, there is a way to hide fields. Um, and depending on the field type, you can pre fill it and hide.

Is that correct? I've played with this and it's different behavior. I think in the interface forms versus the. The legacy forms, there's four different types of forms. They're all, 

Kamille Parks: they all treat this differently. So, 

Dan Fellars: yeah, 

Kamille Parks: you can hide a field, but it won't submit. It has to be visible on the page to submit.

Chris Dancy: I have form PTSD. I'm just going to say it out loud. The forms are so anxiety provoking to me. 

Kamille Parks: Yeah, it's [00:28:00] not great. I feel like you could make a strong argument for any of the behaviors that the forms have. The problem is that all the forms have different behaviors. So you have to remember which is which and figure out which one works best.

And. 

Chris Dancy: Yeah, some of them can be online, some of them can't. If they have a linked record, they behave different. I mean, I don't know what's happening there or what that future looks like, but it terrifies me. 

Alli Alosa: Yeah. It's 

Chris Dancy: one of the few parts of Carrot Cable that I suddenly feel like I don't know what I'm doing.

Alli Alosa: No, it's hard to keep it straight. It's like, oh wait, no, it's actually this version of the form that can do that versus the other. Um, it is very, it's crazy. But the, I think the key thing for this post is what Russell is mentioning here, which is that this can be, if you are using the URL to hide a field, it is not secure and you should be very aware of what will [00:29:00] happen if somebody decides to get rid of that part of the URL and they can see that field.

If it's just a text field, probably not a big deal, but if it's a linked record field that's like linking it, you're pre-filling the link to the contact that you're asking to fill out this form. They could easily end up seeing your entire list of contacts. So just be aware of that. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah, there's lots of nuances.

And I don't believe you can hide and prefill a linked record field type. At least that's I think you can. In the new interface. 

Kamille Parks: Well, when you when you say interface form 

Dan Fellars: in the interface,

bar, if you click forms 

Kamille Parks: so that the top bar, what I'll call the top bar form, I think you can pre fill and hide a linked record. I can test offline to see if that's still the case. [00:30:00] I do know for full page. Interface forms that aren't in the top bar that are in the sidebar. Super confusing. You can have a field pre filled and locked so it can't be edited by the user, but it must be visible on the page to submit.

You can't hide it. So there's, that's what we mean by there's. Differences between all of these variations of forms, all of which could be reasonably called an interface form. Airtable, please fix this. 

Chris Dancy: I always have to do what you said, Camille, when I use that form, and actually create a section and just tell the user, this section is just letting you know what you're working on.

So they're like, why is it there, but I can't touch it? Yeah. And I, it's weird. Uh, from a UI standpoint, I like the form in the traditional tool across the top. It makes sense. Data automation forms. It makes sense. It just makes sense. I like it. It makes sense. Then I go out to interfaces and I'm like, [00:31:00] I'm not sure I'm going to be able to not be sick, because I don't know what to do with any of it.

I just, it, and then I get to that welcome or overview page that's not mobile, and I only look at what's mobile. It, yeah, I'm literally, I might need medication. It's all so overwhelming. I'm not lying. 

Alli Alosa: Oh, it is, it's very overwhelming, and that form, the one that's the, the interface page form, Not the one in the top bar, but the interface page form.

I almost never use that. It's like, it doesn't, you submit it, it doesn't go anywhere. Like, you just have to send those words for the record that you just did. I think 

Chris Dancy: that's the one you can hide based on permission too. Like a whole section, if you're on a high enough plan, where you can't do it in the top form.

Kamille Parks: Yes. Because you have to be logged in. So that's, you know, there are advantages to that page. But man, is it. Janky. I 

Alli Alosa: mean, you can do the same kind of thing if you [00:32:00] enable, like, you know, add records through a form as an option on a list view, for example, like that form is. Great. It's a little modal that pops up.

It's got the same functionality, I think, as the sidebar, the interface page form, I think. 

Chris Dancy: Can we just make a general plea to the Gareths and the other YouTubers out there? Listen, we love your films where you talk about these new, just do one film on like how to on, uh, how to on F your form. It just, I need someone to show all the different variations of forms and all the, and then create a giant matrix.

That I need to study with AI to figure out which one to use. That 

Dan Fellars: would be useful. 

Kamille Parks: I wonder why people love fill out. 

Dan Fellars: Yeah. And that's where that's the conclusion. Jen check out fill out. All right, let's move on. Got a lot to cover. 

ON2AIR AIRTABLE BACKUPS - 00:32:51

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MEET THE CREATOR - CHRIS DANCY - 00:33:30

Chris, let's learn a little bit about Chris. I'm sure everybody knows who Chris is, but we're going to learn a little bit more. Awesome. 

Alli Alosa: Yeah. Thank you for joining us, Chris. Welcome back to the show. 

Chris Dancy: Almost five years. 

Alli Alosa: I know, it's so crazy. Oh my goodness. Well, for the, like, probably zero people that don't know who you are yet, [00:34:00] uh, could you just share a little bit about your background and how you joined the Airtable world?

Chris Dancy: Sure, um, So if you're at Dare table to share or watched my keynote, I actually have a really long background. I'm 57 years old. So I spent from the 90s until the early or late 2000s in enterprise I. T. So I started out on WebMD all through the, you know, I. T. asset management all the way up to I till you see M.

D. B. S. M. D. S. Project management, all the things. I mean, I watched DevOps coming. People like what? Um, it was a whole thing. And then, uh, by 2014, I, so that's like my career track. By 2014, I became a D list internet celebrity known as the world's most connected person. And for the last 10 years, I've been that most of the time I don't, I haven't had a real job since like 14 because I just, I get paid to be me.

Um, so how Airtable comes into, it's And then, uh, how Airtable came into it was, um, in that same, uh, period of time, I [00:35:00] became really focused on just how enterprise software should work, could work, enterprise consulting. I remember when I first met Ben and he was like, Helping some influencer on, on, on Instagram.

And I'm like, stop selling air table, start selling processing. So I really love the concept of how you develop people, uh, and organizations into not using tools, but having workflow, um, in 2015, 16, I started looking for a replacement because my entire life system that I ran historically was on Google.

Calendar, believe it or not. So I had, I was one of Zapier's first customers. I know Wade really well. I used to break Zapier cause I'd have so many zaps running that would just grab stuff from, and I'm talking like 2008, like early, early stuff, like, um, went and ate. I was using Yahoo pipes, but it doesn't matter if anyone remembers Yahoo pipes, but, uh, uh, it was just this whole thing.

And then I needed a replacement. So I started looking around and I found this thing by 2017 called pipe drive. [00:36:00] Um, and PipeDriver is kind of like the CRM system, kind of a light back end. I don't even know if it's a real thing anymore, to be honest with you. Um, and at the same time, I found Airtable. And I used Airtable and Notion in tandem for about a year.

Um, and I'm not gonna lie, I loved Notion. I loved everything about it. Um, but something kept calling to air table because there was no database in notion yet. Notion was pretty. It left me feeling like I'm accomplished because it was like having an air freshener and an old beat up car, but it didn't actually get the job done.

I wouldn't make it to my destination. Whereas air table really allowed me to come in and say, I know how things work together. But not in silos. And that's where Airtable just slowly won me over. Um, and then since then, the evolution of my system, which became DareTable, that's what I first called it. Cause I thought it's kind of like daring to try to do something as complex as Airtable was just 2018 was system one by 2020 I had system 1.

5, [00:37:00] which was, and that was when I actually interviewed with you, Allie. Um, that system was one five and I had a lot of extensions or apps or whatever they called the dashboard section way back then. Um, and that was, that was really a major win for me. Um, but it wasn't until they did interfaces in 2021, I think that I started working with system two, which was I left system one alone.

I still used every day, but I kind of wanted to work more with like what's going on in my mind and my life in addition to like all the life stuff and I'll show you all this in a minute. Um, and that's by 2020. But they had an interface contest and I won that. And that new system was called care table. So my dare table and care table was running simultaneously.

At the same time, I'm running the dare table conference and getting involved in the community and still being Chris Dancy D listener. And so, but it was weird by 2023, when we did the conference in San Francisco, I was breaking, I'm not lying to you. You guys know, if you have to use more than one air table system, like you might have a client system [00:38:00] here and your personal system and a business you guys know, it's like air tables.

Great. But you end up in just gigantic silos, not these miniature ones. So I needed to find a way to kind of unify my client experience, my life experience, all the things that I had built. And I started rebuilding the system into one system. And it got to the point, I think in 2020, early 2020, this year.

Where I felt like I could probably use interfaces full time. I remember calling Ben in February saying, I don't know if I've told you, but I rarely go into classic air table money. Um, and that was a big deal for me. I'll be honest with you that I felt like something broke in my mind. Cause I didn't think I'd ever use interfaces.

It was cute. And I understood how to use it for care table. Cause it started air care table started as an interface. It doesn't start as classic air table. I don't know what people call the old air table, but it's like Camille earlier, unless you're willing. To be an old timer and rebuild the wheel. You're always going to have a little bit of a bumpy ride.[00:39:00] 

It's just a reality of air table. And I think for me, like now, since I've unified the two systems, life is so much easier, you know, and then you add portals and all the other things I've done with it. So is that enough of a background before I do a little demo? 

Alli Alosa: No, that's great. Yeah, thank you so 

Chris Dancy: much. I could have just kept ranting with you guys and not even talked about my stuff like that was so much more.

It's like when you're an air table, you know, I'm not in all these slacks and stuff. But um, when you're when you're when you use air table, you don't have other people to talk to. It's like going to a playground and going, you know, oh, your kid beats up other people too. Yeah, you know, it's suddenly you're a friend.

Um, you know, because another parent understands how bad kids are, right? Ah, hi. So is that a bad example? Maybe, 

Dan Fellars: maybe before you jump in there, give us some context of DareTable, what your experience has been like running that, what the future holds. 

Chris Dancy: Well, yeah, I mean, in 2020, after I met with Allie, I actually got this [00:40:00] idea that I really wanted to create.

I think I'm more an IRL community because our, our conference, our first one was virtual and we signed up a lot of people real quick. And I was enamored with what Dan had built with, um, the back to air community. He had the video, the podcast, he had a website, he had an app store where you could browse other people's stuff.

He had his own apps, he had his own consulting practice. You know, to me, Dan and what Dan was doing was everything that you should see in a healthy ecosystem. Right? Someone doing community, someone doing a podcast, someone doing a directories, all of it. I mean, it was every, it was Airtable universe before there was Airtable Milky Way, right?

So I wanted to really think about What would that look like beyond what Dan was doing? And that involved what I would think everybody would want, which is traditional in person conferences. But it was 2020, like, what are you going to do? I mean, we couldn't do much in 2020, right? So, um, that's when I did the first dare table.

I tried to do another one in [00:41:00] 21, but had some trouble getting people kind of around. The idea of like, what does that look like by 2022? I, I said, I'm just doing it. I'm just going to spend the money. So we had our first in person one in Austin, Texas, and 80 or 90 people there, and we sold tickets. Uh, we lost about 7, 000.

Um, uh, and I split that one with Ben Green. Uh, and then in, Ben had bought a house, so he couldn't help in 2023. And that one was in San Francisco. That one, we broke 120 people. We headed at Airtable headquarters. That one was just amazing. It was just a lot, a lot of work though, I'll be honest with you. Um, that was the first year that I made a little of money on Airtable.

So I think I brought home about 15 or $20,000 from that event, um, with 120 people. Now that being said, you know, if people are like, that's a lot of money, the work, I don't think people understand the work behind a conference. Um, and then, uh, last, and then this year we did, uh, New York. And this year the, the goal was have an event in New York.[00:42:00] 

Have it be on something that's three floors. Have it be something with at least 300 people. We broke that number. Um, have it be in partnership with their table, uh, and really take it to the, kind of the next level. So something that people, cause people flew in from all over the world for San Francisco. Um, and yeah, so it was an amazing event this year, probably broke even.

I spent a hundred thousand dollars on my own money, uh, on this. So, I mean, that's. It wasn't cheap, right? So that's the other thing. She was like, that's just an event. Like, uh, your ticket shouldn't be 400. Mike, literally the building is 60, 000, right? Houses cost that much, right. In certain parts of the country.

Um, But, you know, I worked real hard to make sure we had a good partnership with Airtable where I could help get some of those costs absorbed. Um, and then, of course, two months before this year, we planned next year. So, I flew out to Chicago. I thought if you're going to do Chicago, you have to do something iconic.

So, the Sears Tower, if you're old enough, that's what we used to call the, I think it's called something different now, I think [00:43:00] Willis Tower. Um, And yeah, we're just, we're aiming for 500 people next year. We're aiming for a separate track, uh, that has fill out involved. I've been working with, uh, I've asked Nelson if he wants to bring the partners back for some partner training before and after there was a partner summit this year where they had partners kind of talk about their best practices.

But again, as an old timer, like it takes a lot more to be a successful partner than a website. It takes a lot more to be a successful partner than good talent, right? If you had someone like a Camille Ronaldi, you can be a successful partner. But it's even more than that, right? It's the sales process. It's the value you bring to the organization.

Um, and I really want to focus on that. those partners. But the other thing is I really want our users, uh, the attendees who this year we had a majority of enterprises, um, and a lot of education. I really want them to start to think about what is the experience? I'm just I love air table makers. But you know, at the end of the year, we have to learn to think about the air table takers.

[00:44:00] And you know, what are we building for those people that make them feel so empowered? Um, to want to use air table, meaning like if I were an employee and I was going to a company and then knew that they ran operations on air table, I'd want to go there, not because I'm going to design it or build it because I know how the system works, right?

Air table is where it's like sales people used to follow salesforce. I'll go here because they use salesforce too, right? I. T. I'll go here because they use service now too. 

Dan Fellars: Sorry, I'm ranting. I'll stop. No, it's been great. I think the three of us have been at all three, I believe. I think we're some of your faithful.

Chris Dancy: Yeah, you've spoken! I think some, I don't know, haven't some of you spoken at every single one, including the virtual? 

Kamille Parks: In a, in a way. One year I only did a scare table, so not a full session, but I have had the mic at all of them. 

Chris Dancy: Yeah. I mean, what do you guys think about it? I mean, you have a different perspective than I [00:45:00] do.

Do you like them? 

Alli Alosa: It's wonderful. It's like what you were saying. Like what you were saying earlier about like the playground and like talking to like other parents kind of like that's a good analogy. It's like you're there. It's, it's like our people, you know, we get to just talk about what we love, which is.

Building systems and learning about different tools, which is amazing. It's a, it's so cool to get to see everyone in person there. We really appreciate you. 

Chris Dancy: Listen, I'll be honest with you. I mean, even though it's a lot of work and money, I love it. I'm not going to lie. I love it because I also. I wasn't even going to speak this year.

And then someone was like, you have to do the Chris Dancy shtick. Like, okay. Cause I also love, you know, when I got to show during scare table this year, my God system where I, you know, create gods to talk to, you know, I love that kind of stuff. Cause I just love, uh, unorthodox uses of air table. But that being said, I've gone, like Dan was talking about earlier, I've gone to some of the air table events.

Now the user groups and things, it's not the same, you know, that's [00:46:00] more like a soft sales demo with a little bit of product updates. I could have gotten in a webinar. Like in the people that you're sitting with, you don't really know. There's not really one of these get to know people type of routines.

And I really think you're not really a community until you can talk to each other freely. And I think that's where your podcast has always really allowed people to do that. You know, long before we had any type of events, you guys were talking freely, not afraid of retribution or making someone mad or something like that about air table.

And you know, you're only as comfortable as what you're not allowed to say. 

Dan Fellars: Very cool. All right. 

BASE SHOWCASE - 00:46:34

We need to jump into your base. We got to see this. So we'll probably, Camille, we'll probably take. remainder of the time and then we'll, we'll have Camille's next week. So we do have a 

Chris Dancy: super fast, by the way. 

Dan Fellars: I 

Kamille Parks: think people want to 

Chris Dancy: let's yeah.

Am I sharing? Yeah, now you're on so, um, just a real quick overview when I [00:47:00] originally sketched this back in 2017, I basically understood like, okay, air tables, a table system. So I created some basic tables. One was just like me, my family, my business. We had this whole concept of values that would drive all decisions, all records linked to a value.

It doesn't matter what type of record it is, timeline, et cetera. And I slowly built out through 2017, these interconnected tables that made everything in my life just start to fit together, almost like building blocks. I'm super visual, so I had to see things kind of like this. So if you've watched any of my other talks on Airtable, I did this before I even built the Airtable.

Uh, cause I wanted to understand how it worked. Once I had that, I had to see how those processes mapped together, and that's when I built this. What I call the version one of my life map, and that's all the individual tables in their life dependent process buckets, right? So a liability versus where I'm getting money from versus how I'm keeping records versus how I'm planning, et cetera.

You know, for me, Airtable was, had to be this really interconnected system. And [00:48:00] I had, you know, as I've said in my keynote and I'm, On cause before I've done complex it massive systems from everybody from the Waffle House to the White House Literally have it put in their systems, right? Uh, I can't tell you how many major companies have designed just, you know, ten fifteen hundred thousand people systems that connect all together So handling my life was going to be pretty easy I thought but i've learned a lot since then Um, the first version of it, which is just a copy of it here has all those same tables it was really complex and I like to think of this these early versions as You You know, it was great because all run by views, right?

So if I wanted to say and just show me all these different views, boom, I had them. It was what it was. You know, fast forward then to, you know, 2021 when it first came out. I tried, right? I'm not gonna lie to you. I never showed anybody this. This was like one of the first interfaces I ever built, right? And again, It looks horrible.

It looks like air table, you know, just slapped in something ugly. I didn't like it, but I understood where [00:49:00] we were going by the time we got, um, late 2021, early 2022 interfaces had evolved a little bit. And that's when I did care table and care table really allowed me to come in and start experimenting with what I would call simplified interface design.

So basically you start with a really straightforward little interface, and then you say, how would you build that up? So that's the same interface with a little bit more. That same interface with a little bit more. That same interface with a little bit more. Alright, that same interface with a little bit more.

How would you keep laying it? And then could you put permission models around those different layers of an interface? And that's where I thought to myself, Oh, okay. There's a, there's a, there's a there there. Um, and, but then I used these two systems again, and this system was massive. So this particular system, If I can jump into the data side of it has this really interesting thing where every single unique identifier in my life historically was whatever the record table was, but care tables unique identifier [00:50:00] was this concept of a moment in time.

And what I did was I mapped my entire life from the day I was born out to the day I project I'll die, um, which is 30 some thousand individual days, um, and then mapped where the sun, the moon, the stars, the sunrise, the sunset, uh, was at any point in time. Uh, so, So was that 31,494 days or records? And then I thought, well, this could be easy.

Now everything just rolls back up to a day record. Does that make sense? I don't wanna go too fast. Um, so once I had that, I thought I need to start over. And that's when I actually built the version that I used today. And I've been on it almost, it'll be a year in January. And that's just one system that unifies all the processes, everything together, and an interface first, mobile first, except for overviews.

Um, uh, where I can get to stuff and it's broken into really simple sections. So I've got my today's section where I've kind of got the things I get too quick versus my public things. So public things being [00:51:00] social, financial, et cetera. A really quick and dirty little dashboard on tasks and billable hours.

Uh, something called a quick journal because I use the mobile now when I'm out and about and I needed a way to get in there really quick, the journal section, which takes me into. All the different parts of like the reflection part of my life. So understanding where I'm, where I am, what I'm working on, where I am in my life, how much life I've used, how much life I have left, uh, my journaling system, which I'll, uh, jump into real quick.

The journaling system every day, uh, has some different sections. So it's kind of the same type of thing I was doing before with the different. Layouts where I laid information on top, but I just use filter switches to show and not show things. The journaling system allows me to come in three times a day and just kind of touch base.

Like, where am I? What am I doing well with? What am I not? Um, I have a lookup based on. The types of things I write to try to match the emotion I'm experiencing. Um, it has my numbers and stats from the day. So how much I slept, how am I feeling when I get up? My daily summaries, eating, drinking water, meditating, et cetera.

The places I [00:52:00] go, that's a integration with Foursquare Swarm. So when I check in, it puts it here. And what's really nice about that is when I bring up one of these attach records, I see all the other times I was there. So if I'm at the post office, I say, well, last time I was here, You know what happened and I can jump right back into that day and look at it and say, Oh, that's what happened.

I was also that they planted my tulips, uh, um, and then interaction. So interactions just link in through an integration, uh, with email, uh, and calendar automatically. Someone I want to come in here and actually looking at interaction. I can pull up one of these interactions, see who I was talking with. I have an accountability flag, so I think something's going to come back to bite me in the future.

I flag it so I can quickly get into people who might say, I never said that. Actually, here's a view for you. Um, you guys talked about. Um, and then it goes through, uh, I used a lot of AI in there, so it goes through and reads my emails and my notes and gives me a feeling analysis. Also filter by feeling analysis so I can fire people from my life.

And also just a real quick summary so I know what I should do and what I did do. 'cause a lot of [00:53:00] times I don't wanna go back and reread my emails, et cetera. Is this interesting, by the way? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, because I don't know like how much I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole, um, And then tasks same type of things when I work on stuff all the dare table tasks That was their city johnstown, which is new client.

Um health milestones. I just started i'm trying to drop 15 pounds I've gained during the conference. Um, just started that and then uh again using a summary So I have a A backfill on each day in the journal, which grabs all the text from it and dumps into a big blob field, which tries to say what was the highest and lowest value you had each day based on who you talk to, what you did.

If I favorite a photo on my phone, it goes to a special Dropbox, which then comes in here through integration. So just my favorite photos for each day. It's like, if I go back and look at it, you see this and it's kind of nice. Cause you kind of have this really quick view of your life in real time. Um, and also makes browsing your life super in.

And then at the beginning of the day, I have a coach that tells me. What I need to focus on [00:54:00] by looking at the last month's worth of journals and tasks and spending. And I have a daily, uh, spiritual journal or AI view. And then as a daily, um, uh, life coach at the end of the day, it tells me kind of this, what you need to pick up.

And the coaches really kind of draw the whole thing together. So it's kind of not only like my client work and my work work, but it brings it all together. I can jump into the coach section if I just want to go back and look at coach, what coaches have been telling me to look for patterns and things.

And then of course I can go into Christry, which is Uh, right now, 21 days, 21 years worth of days that are in, um, Airtable where I can go back and relive any day in real time. Spirituality is just that. So lots of fun stuff. I do intention setting at the beginning of each quarter and year so I know what I'm focusing on.

Uh, a time journal so I can kind of, there's a lot there. My system does, uh, tarot. So it draws tarot and does tarot readings with AI each day. So for example, if I were to go back in today and look at this morning's tarot, uh, I can just jump in here. [00:55:00] And it's just a script that pulls a tarot card randomly and then does an AI tarot reading based on my journal to let me know why I am.

Um, if I want to pray to a god or gods, I can select, I built a pantheon of gods from across time and history through every major religion. I can select one of those gods. It tells me a little bit about that god and I can ask them a question. Um, Health is just everything to do with my family's health. So a dashboard just lets us know all of our different health events.

Uh, for me, my spouse, I can look at those events, jump into them, symptoms versus supplements versus prescriptions, inoculations, which is kind of neat. Like I can go and ask air table. I, and so say, when was my last flu shot? And it knows cause it's all in there. Ask air triple AI with my systems, but kind of crazy.

I'll be honest with I'm going to events and look at, uh, Uh, my spouse needed to have some fingers, uh, some stitches on their finger. Um, I use AI to go ahead and take the treatment notes and convert them into something usable that my family can understand. Um, And [00:56:00] then emotions because everything's tied to emotion.

I can go and look up any emotion I've ever had and jump back to the day I felt it and see who, who influenced that emotion. Uh, home is like everything to do with my house. My house is literally, and every single air table is also tied to an external website. So there's a Chris Dancy type that all this is.

So these are all air table records about my house, but home is really where we come in here and look at like tasks to do like, uh, things you have to do within your house. So these are the different tasks, laundry, plant care, et cetera, where they get done, how they get done assets within the house. So this is in date order.

So how often I buy an asset. So there's my new Mac that I just got, um, all the information tied to that Mac, the receipt, et cetera. Locations are places that I visit or go in life. That's the historical record to physical places outside of my home. Places are things inside my home, so I can jump in there and then see what's going on in that place, a history of what it used to look like versus what it looks like now, the assets tied to it.

And then a home history. Um, I've [00:57:00] lived in a lot of homes over my life cause I had a really turbulent childhood. So what I did was I built a time machine to go back and look at any house that I've lived in and relive some of the memories in that house and what was important. to the people, places and things that were tied to that home.

Um, it's my first apartment outside of Maryland. Family is just my, my spouse and I, uh, a dashboard of what's going on with us, how old we are. We can jump into those, uh, those different family records, uh, a memory database where we have significant memories that we share with our people. And then friends and family to contribute to this.

So there's a form they fill out where they can link memories and like, Hey, I remember that when you came to visit us. It's this really great little system. I love it. It means a lot to me. Uh, and then just history. You know, I use the Gantt chart to look at like really long periods of time going back to my great great grandparents when they came from, um, Um, Ireland.

Uh, work is just everything to do with work. Uh, you know, work dashboard. I've got something called Navigator, which allows me to work with my clients. So it's kind of a view into [00:58:00] that client who I'm working with, what products I've sold them, what's from what service lines. Um, and I can jump in and see the actual deliverable that they've gotten from me.

Also helps with referring other clients to me. Um, I mean, I could go on and on and on actions. It's just like, Day to day stuff, like when I'm in here working again with City of Johnstown, uh, AI analysis on that. Sales, marketing, I don't know, I feel like I'm just going on and on and on now. Was this fun? Do you have any questions?

Finances? Bill, I love my bills, like being able to come in and like, pay bills right from here and know kind of when's the last time I paid for them. One of my favorite things in financial is statements. Uh, my accountant used to charge me 100 a month to reconcile my statements. Um, so what I did was I created a routine using Airtable AI that it pulls in the statement for you.

Uh, and then Airtable AI goes in and pulls out all the information from the statement for the reconciliation. So [00:59:00] I don't have to do it. So the transactions are rolled up to an auto tag. Um, I don't know, I could go on and on. I feel like I'm maybe going. This 

Dan Fellars: is crazy. I do have a question. How? So I look at that.

I'm like, man, that is a lot of work to maintain. Like, do you feel it's a burden? Like, this is just. Part of your life, like to keep this up to date. 

Chris Dancy: Well, you never, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, it was a lot to build, but it's been, I mean, I've lost in show five years ago and I started building it three years before that, right?

So, um, no, cause I live in journal, right? So if you're a journalist where I put the notes in and I link to things, most of that stuff gets linked or attached to emails that I send or calendar appointments that I make or transactions. So like if I spend money, they just come in there automatically because I'm tied to that date.

It's, it's it. The key. So it doesn't, I don't think that's a lot. I'll be honest with you. It doesn't feel like a lot to me because I'm just using it. It's like my interface to my life. But I can understand where if I was [01:00:00] watching what I just showed you, I would be like, there's no way. There's no way. I would break if I tried to use that.

Kamille Parks: Well somewhere in the middle there, you built a god system. 

Chris Dancy: It's a subsystem, right? Sure. Yeah, it's a sub, and then, you know, if you go to goddesstechne. com, The public can get to that subsystem too. Just like mytechnopagan. com, the people, the public can get to the tarot subsystem. My doctor has a whole Chris Dancy subsystem she can access.

My lawyer. So yeah, I just think in the future, if you don't control your identity beyond what you put on social media, you might have challenges. And I'm not afraid to fire anyone from my life. Yeah, you mentioned that. 

Dan Fellars: Very cool. It's amazing. So yeah that in comparison Here's my here's my uh daily to do list system 

Chris Dancy: Well, I mean it'd be honest if it means [01:01:00] it shows like yours that really inspired me I mean had I not met with ali originally, you know, I would have never shown this to anyone, you know It just and had I not had our community to talk to you know Yeah I just want to say, if you watch this and you don't know me or you watch us and you do know me and you're overwhelmed, don't be.

I think you can do anything with your life. I just think you should care about you as much as software pretends to care. And that's where Airtable comes in. 

Dan Fellars: Very cool. Well, thank you, Chris, for coming on. And our claim to fame is that we're connected to the most connected man on earth. So. Appreciate that.

Always good to have you. We'll have you back on and we'll see everybody next week. Thank you. Thanks guys.

Intro: Thank you for joining today's episode. We hope you enjoyed it. [01:02:00] Be sure to check out our sponsor, OntoAir Backups, automated backups for air table. We'll see you next time on the Built On Air podcast.