Airtable

Comments: My work team uses airtable as opposed to Excel or Google Sheets to keep shared records, and this has been very helpful to us especially in keeping lots of complex information in one place that we can easily sort through. Because it has more features than a traditional excel sheet, like attaching documents or pictures, it is an easier way to keep track of documents than a traditional Cloud Storage system like Dropbox or Google Drive. It also gives us lots of special "blocks" that we can use (but are still exploring) so we can continue to improve our workflow and data spread.

Pros: I love that this works as an Excel document, but you can also do so much more with it - attach documents, check boxes, drop down options, and so many more things. It has great integrations with other platforms, and is easy to set up for various different functions that Excel could never offer. I also love the extra blocks you can use that give you more options for functions, such as creating pivot tables, sending texts, keeping an organizational chart, and even setting a countdown! It makes me want to explore more ways I can use this to help make our workflow better within my work team.

Cons: It does take a little getting used to at first if you are used to excel. It's not quite a replacement for Excel if you are trying to make a traditional sheet with borders, and it also isn't as easy to highlight select cells and copy/paste them in other places like in an Excel sheet. It also doesn't really support traditional Microsoft formatting which is kind of annoying when you try to copy information in. But seeing as how this is a better system for containing information, its pros outweigh the cons and you can easily use Excel and Airtable at the same time to support your various needs.

Comments: So far it's a golden resource for us. I use it every day for member tracking, marketing planning, storing up a cache of future content, assigning team members as leads for stories/members/etc. I really, REALLY hope this program sticks around because it's dead useful for us in so many arenas.

Pros: I love the customization options. I also really appreciate the aesthetics, how easy it is to hide/unhide/move fields, the filter abilities, the blocks for bulk editing, the linking between records, and so so much more.

Cons: There are still some pieces missing that would be super useful for us (the ability to read a cell's contents and apply if-then results and not just count the contents, for instance). And it can get expensive quickly if you have a big team.

Comments: I run a site called Wikihospitals, and display international health technology services. This data all needs to be linked together, so I can see information like country of origin, founder's details, technology used and medical specialty covered. Airtable was a great discovery for me. I can shared my data easily, embedded it into my website and am now transforming it into a fully fledged directory site.

Pros: Before Airtable, pre formatted databases were costly platforms to subscribe to, and extremely difficult to create from scratch (for the non coder). Airtable is just dead easy to use. It looks like a spreadsheet but behaves like a database. You can import or export data as a CSV file. You can share a link or embed a view into you website using iframe code. It is also lightning fast. You can link any number of different 'sheets' together. You can selecting different types of 'fields' ie numerical, date, multiple select, calculations, upload document etc. You can also display your data in a range of 'views' from maps to calendars to gallery views of pie and bar charts.

Cons: When using the embed code option, it doesn't show that well on a mobile device. Apart from that, it's really the perfect software for people with a large amount of data and no code skills.

Comments: Our team uses Airtable as a centralized location to track our project progress. We've even hacked it as a CRM on occasion, and used it for event planning, reporting--anything that requires you to organize lots of information in a standardized way. The resistance to using yet another platform was strong at first, but once we got into it, everyone has become an Airtable advocate.

Pros: When a co-worker recommended Airtable, I was predictably skeptical. Who needs yet another spreadsheet software I said, with an internal (ok, maybe external) eye roll. But this is no mere spreadsheet platform. It is the only one you will ever need. Ever. Again. The functionality that make it worth it to switch from Excel or Google Sheets might seem insignificant when you look at them on a features list. Colored labels, grouping, filtering, view options, etc. But you have no idea what a big difference they make! Airtable makes it possible to put in all the data you have, but the key to its success is it lets you filter it down to only the essential information you need to see to make the decisions in front of you. It's the database that actually helps with decision-making. And the more I use it, the more uses I find for it!

Cons: There are very few cons to Airtable. It's simple to use, and the potential is limitless. Once you start putting bases together, you just don't want to stop! One thing that is slightly non-intuitive is the relationship (or lack thereof) between different "tabs" of data. Read up on those before you go that route. You can also start getting out of hand pretty quickly with creating lots of different views, but nothing a little intentionality can't address. We trained our entire team on using Airtable for project management, and it's been the best decision we ever made.

Comments: Overall I am a super fan of Airtable - first discovered, fell in love, and told everyone I knew about Airtable 3-4 years ago, IIRC when they first appear on Product Hunt. Build a whole bunch of bases to manage my person life (book list, financial trackers, a large inter-linked base to track 3D printing activities for a local maker space etc.). Stopped using it for awhile because I was focusing on my day job for a few years, before coming back to do side projects and businesses. Ended up build a tracker for my subscription business, with automated renewal and receipt email generation via Zapier. Airtable is not perfect but it made a non-coder me into someone who can create a solution that’s “almost there”. I always tell people - Airtable can’t do everything (like a fully customized software) but 80% of your need can be satisfied by Airtable with 20% of effort, broadly speaking. I also love their Customer Services - while it is no longer the Airtable 2-3 years ago where I just chat using the chat tool (Intercom or..?) and ask UX related questions as they come to me (simple questions, not too different from asking a coworker in your office) and even caught the CEO Howie Lou a few times; it is still a very well supported software/ company where the CS team actually know the system really well and does’t just shove canned responses in your face. Overall, lots of love for Airtable!

Pros: Ease of use, basically a database without the complexity of being one. No more managing of tabulated data via spreadsheet or simple table in word processing software. I also like the fact that I can do data entry in expanded and table views (I have a base called “Ideas”, where each column correspond to an area of interest in idea generation, e.g. Problem, Market, Competition, Elevator Pitch etc. - which the preferred data entry method is in the Expanded Jew; where as for base such as my “Bank Transactions Tracker”, the table field is better. I also like how they aren’t just focusing on being American (yay to company that bother to cater to ALL date format under the sky) although for some other colum type they haven’t got down to it yet (telephone number etc.). Personally I am a big fan of the Pro feature Blocks, which I used to create performace dashboards for my freelance subscription business. The Blocks feature is the only reason I opt to pay, although I am paying mostly out of my credits accumulated during the earlier days of Airtable. Also like the community that’s building on top of it, forum is very active and lots of power users to learn from. Combine with with other IaaS tool such as Zapier and you get a really powerful tool.

Cons: Insufficient control (can be easy to make mistake such as accidental typing etc.), lack of data validation (upon data entry), and interface could use more customization (e.g. lots of empty/white spaces in Card views, can’t have multiple lines in field header etc.).