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Getting Started

In this chapter, we’ll cover the basics to help you:

Learn the sad difference between Cloud and Data Center versions.
Understand how pages are organized.
Get familiar with the Layout feature.
Explore how to use Macros effectively.
Search in airtable.

With these foundations in place, we’ll be ready to dive into the real fun.

Layers

Data Logic Interface

Core Concepts

Airtable is like a spreadsheet on steroids. Here’s what makes it special:

Base: Your main workspace
- Like an Excel workbook, but smarter
- Can have multiple tables (sheets) that talk to each other
- Everything in your project lives here
Table: Where your data lives
- Looks like a spreadsheet but acts like a database
- Each column (field) has a specific type (text, number, date, etc.)
- Can link data between tables (like a database)
Fields: Your columns, but smarter
- Each field has a specific type (text, number, date, etc.)
- Can include attachments, links, and rich content
- Can have formulas and rules
Views: Different ways to see your data
- Grid: Classic spreadsheet view
- Kanban: Like Trello boards
- Calendar: For dates
- Gallery: For pictures
- Form: For data entry
- Gantt: For projects
Automation: Make things happen automatically
- Send notifications when data changes
- Update records automatically
- Connect with other tools
Interfaces: Share your data beautifully
- Create custom dashboards
- Build forms for data entry
- Control who sees what

The big difference from Excel/Google Sheets:

Tables can talk to each other (like a database)
More ways to view and organize data
Built-in automation and apps
Better for teams and complex projects

Automation Approaches

There are integrations and plenty of things. But saddly, I haven’t use a lot from those, as at the moment of writing this I was focused (at least at the beginning) on JIRA automation.

Sync Tables

An interesting feature to get data from other tables outside of your base.

API Sync

This is an endpoint configuration that allows you to make updates to a page associated with it. Once created from the integrations menu, it will give you a query like this:

curl -X POST "https://api.airtable.com/v0/{baseId}/{tableIdOrName}/sync/{apiEndpointSyncId}" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: text/csv" \
--data 'column1,column2
row1-column1,row1-column2
row2-column1,row2-column2'

That endpoint will be public.

API Tutorial

One would expect to have an option to provide a way to upload a file, but no.

My workaround was to cat the CSV file:

curl -X POST "https://api.airtable.com/v0/{baseId}/{tableIdOrName}/sync/{apiEndpointSyncId}" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOURAWESOMETOKENHERE" \
-H "Content-Type: text/csv" \
--data "$(cat myspreedsheet.csv)"

And yes, because of this I had to export the table as CSV, but without the descriptions or descriptions updates, as it breaks the format…

But that wasn’t the full extend of the problem! 5 days for us, it’s about 118 records, were more than what it could handle. In theory it was 10.000 characters, I first I fought it was “ah 10K rows”

Working With Data

Rather than rehashing the docs, I’ll only add notes to stuff that’s worth mentioning. Let’s dive in!

Data Cell Types

The core!

Text & Numbers:
- Single Line Text.
- Long Text: you can enable Markdown, which can greatly impact the way that you have fields in Interfaces, like formated links.
- Number.
- Currency.
- Percent: this is one of the fields that you probably have seen before! You have an option that allows to display this information as a progress bar.
- Rating: 5 stars, what else could I say?
Date & Time:
- Date
- Date & Time
- Duration
Structured Data:
- Single Select
- Multiple Select
- Checkbox
- Attachments: this is where you place your images!
- Link to Record: this will allow you to link to another table.
  - Or to records in the same spreadsheet. This will be a key element to generate charts with integrations like the Charts from Airtable.

Common Formulas

Text Manipulation:
- CONCATENATE(): Joins text strings
- LEFT(), RIGHT(): Extract characters
- FIND(): Locate substrings
- SUBSTITUTE(): Replace text
Numerical:
- SUM(), AVERAGE(): Basic calculations
- ROUND(), FLOOR(), CEILING(): Number formatting
- MAX(), MIN(): Value comparison
Logical:
- IF(): Conditional operations
- AND(), OR(): Multiple conditions
- SWITCH(): Multiple case handling
Blank: if empty or 0.

Advanced Formula Examples

Date & Time Calculations

 // Get working days between dates (excluding weekends)
 WORKDAY_DIFF({Start Date}, {End Date})

 // Add business days to a date
 WORKDAY_ADD({Start Date}, 10)

 // Format date as custom string
 DATETIME_FORMAT({Date Field}, 'MMMM D, YYYY')

Complex Text Processing

 // Extract domain from email
 REGEX_EXTRACT({Email}, '@(.+)$')

 // Create slug from title
 LOWER(
     SUBSTITUTE(
         REGEX_REPLACE({Title}, '[^a-zA-Z0-9\\s]', ''),
         ' ',
         '-'
     )
 )

 // Concatenate with conditional formatting
 IF(
     {Status} = 'Urgent',
     CONCATENATE('🚨 ', {Task Name}),
     {Task Name}
 )

Lookup & Calculations

  // Weighted average calculation
  (SUM({Score} * {Weight})) / SUM({Weight})

  // Running total with conditions
  ROUND(
      SUM(
          IF(
              {Date} <= TODAY(),
              {Amount},
              0
          )
      ),
      2
  )

Advanced Conditional Logic

  // Status based on multiple conditions
  SWITCH(
      TRUE(),
      {Progress} = 100, 'Complete',
      {Progress} >= 75, 'Almost Done',
      {Progress} >= 25, 'In Progress',
      {Progress} > 0, 'Just Started',
      'Not Started'
  )

  // Dynamic color coding
  IF(
      AND({Status} = 'Active', {Days Remaining} < 7),
      'red',
      IF(
          AND({Status} = 'Active', {Days Remaining} < 14),
          'yellow',
          'green'
      )
  )

Array Operations

  // Unique values from linked records
  ARRAYUNIQUE(
      ARRAYFLATTEN(
          VALUES({Linked Records})
      )
  )

  // Count items matching criteria
  COUNTIF(
      SPLIT({Tags}, ','),
      'priority'
  )

Array Operations

  # if empty use another field, otherwise use original
  IF(
      OR({Primary Field} = '', {Primary Field} = BLANK()),
      {Backup Field},
      {Primary Field}
  )

Known Limitations & Workarounds

Data:
- Combining fields from a multiple or single select will result in repeated elements.
  - This may be fixed by using the Rollout feature. This will filter along with the “ARRAY” formula.

Premium vs Free Tier

If you ever consider this for personal use, then you need to keep the following in mind:

Team:
- Share publicly interfaces.
Business:
- Interface: filter elements from view

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