Using Airtable for data management
Airtable is an online database.
Although it's been around for well over a decade and is popular in some circles, I think it's highly underrated for operations data in small businesses. It sits somewhere between spreadsheets and apps designed for a specific purpose.
We’re using it heavily at InJoinery.
Airtable has a few central ideas that make it great:
Strict data types for fields:
This means a field (eg column) has a particular ‘shape. It is truly a ‘date’ or a ‘number’. It has many fieldtypes.
This provides more data integrity for formulas plus formatting options.
Tables:
Similar to ‘sheets’ in a spreadsheet, this is where fields are defined for common sets of data.
Filtering parameters:
We can tell it what to show or not show with a wide variety of logical options.
Grouping data:
Sets how we can aggregate rows. This in turn allows us to see summary info.
Unlimited views:
A view is a combination of: filtering, field visibility & order, grouping and sorting.
Granular permissions:
Set who can edit or view data.
Can even create one-off public views (no sign-in required, visitors cannot edit).