Transcription
If you don't know Air Tableable in 2025, you're missing out big time. Air tableable may look like a spreadsheet, but behind the scenes, it's a powerful database that can automate your workflows and replace entire tools.
The problem is that most people have no idea how to use it effectively or what to use it for. If that's your case, stay along. In the next 20 minutes, I'm going to take you from zero to confidence so you can start using Air Table like a pro in 2025.
I'm Alex, one of the co-founders of 9x. I teach AI and automation. I've taught airable to hundreds of people already. I'm happy that you're the next. If you want to see more videos like this, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Let's dive in.
So, let's start with an overview. Air table is the easiest way to build internal applications. If like me, you're using dozen of SAS applications every day, you've probably encountered the situation where an application is not working exactly the way you want it to work, that's frustrating. The reason for that is tools are built with a specific use case in mind and yours just doesn't cut it. The promise from Elable is that you will be able to build a tool that fits your exact needs, that matches your exact requirements.
Now, what this means also is that you're going to have to build this tool yourself and building can be daunting. After all, we have software developers that help us build applications usually. And so, my goal in this video is to show you how easy it is to build with Air Table.
Now, before we take a look at the platform, some basics of software architecture. At a high level, any app you use has three layers. the interfaces. Those are the screens you interact with, what you see as an end user, the buttons you press. Then you have the logic. This is the part that automates workflow steps for us, the things that run in the background. And finally, you have the database. This is where we have our applications data where we have this data persist. So remember those three layers, interfaces, logic, and database.
Building an airable happens on the three same layers. You have a data section from the database. You have automations where you will handle the logic. And we have interfaces.
Throughout this video, I'm going to use the same example of a campaign approval workflow to show you how you can take an existing process and turn it into an application with air tableable. We're going to take this very simple process of a campaign approval where a campaign manager is going to create first a campaign. the budget owner, another user is going to approve or reject that campaign ID and we'll have two possible outcomes. Either the campaign is approved. That's a win. And in this case, we want to already generate the campaign tasks or that campaign is rejected, bad news, and we want to notify the campaign manager back.
So this is our starting point. I am inside Air Table. I just created a new project also called B for short of database. And this is where everything starts which I personally find amazing. But if this is your first time, you probably don't know what to do here. As mentioned, we have three layers. We are in the data section. So this is where we manage our database. Next, we have the automations section right here. This is where we're going to build the logic. And finally, we have the interfaces. Forms are interfaces that are also available to external users. We're not going to see them in this [Music] video.
So, first thing, every Elable project starts with data. No data, no body. And if you want to know how to start building inside Elable, you need some knowledge on databases. So, here are the five essential things you need to know about databases in general, but also databases in Air Table. Well, first you need to know what a table is and how to create one, edit one. Second, you need to know the difference between records and fields and how these are configured inside tables. Then you need to understand how to create table relations, record associations. And finally, when you work with data, understanding the difference between table and views is going to make all the difference.
So let's start with tables. This is a table in air table. And if I want to create another one, can just click here. There are different options. We're going to create from scratch. And here I'm creating a second table. Why would we want to create different tables? You want to create different tables when you want to store different types of informations also called records. The information that you store in each table is going to be defined by its fields. Let's first name our two tables in our example. Uh we have on one side we have campaigns and further along in the process we have tasks. So, we're going to store two types of records. And right now, the two tables are identical. The way we're going to modify what type of information is stored in each is by creating and editing the fields.
To add a new field inside an existing table, there are various options. You can either press plus here and the different field types will appear. More on that in a second. You can also go to tools and manage fields here. And this is also different interface. Same same different. Now the most important thing to understand with fields is the notion of field type. As you can see in the table campaigns we have right now different types. We have a single line text user long text and single select. The type of the field is going to determine the type of data you are allowed to store in that field. I'll give you a quick example. If I want to add a campaign start date, I may want to store it as a date. And so there's a dedicated field for that which once created only allows me to put dates, no text, no numbers. In a similar fashion, our status field that we have here only allows me to put these three values, one of these three values. So you define the properties that you want to store inside a dedicated table by defining the fields and the types of these fields.
Now, this is a crash course, not a two-hour master class. So, I invite you to explore the different field types. One way to do that is to have a look at the documentation with here the list of field types supported by Air Table. Another way, more practical in my opinion, is to just play around with this window here. Add the different fields, see how they behave, and and sooner than later, you will get familiar with all the field types.
Fast forward 2 minutes. I just adjusted the fields for my campaigns table. We have now a name field. We have a long text field to store the description. Our user field is now the campaign manager. We have a status field with open, approved or rejected. Remember we have our process in mind. And a start date just as illustration. So that's for the columns. That's for the fields. Now I use my magic wand again. I pasted some data inside this table. And you can see there that we have now three different campaigns, three different campaign records. Each row in the table being a separate record. We can see and then we can open the record to see information. Campaign name winter promotion with the following description. I'm the campaign manager. Lucky me. That campaign is it status open and will start end of November 2025. If we move on to the second record, we have different information and so on and so forth. So all the data points we have on a single row are related to each other and they point to the same type of record, the same object we also see sometimes which in this case is a campaign.
I've done the same exercise in the tasks table. We can see here we have different properties. I have a task name, assigne, which is also a user field, a status with different values this time, and a task due date. You will need to create as many tables as required in order to capture the requirements of your process. In this simple example, we just need campaigns and tasks, but in reality, edit tableable bases can get much more complicated with more tables related to each other.
Speaking of related, that's the next key fundamental topic you should know about. In databases, in particular, relational databases, we are able to relate data from different tables to each other. Right now, my campaigns table and my task table don't know about each other. But if I want to associate certain tasks to a given campaign or I want to relate a campaign to its associated tasks, I will need to build this relation. And that you do with one field, the first one called link to another record, which if you click on it will give you the option to connect to existing tables or create a new one. Here I'm in the task table. So I'm going to link to the campaigns table. And a very important setting you should know about. I'm not going to dive into this right now, but this is sort of the key parameter to determine the nature of the relation between two tables is that little setting here, whether you want to allow linking to multiple records or not. And for this, use common sense. So, let's do it in the case of campaigns and tasks. Should tasks be related to multiple campaigns at the same time? For me, it doesn't make sense in this case because I want to have the series of tasks needed to run this campaign. So, we're going to create the field. On the other side, a new field has been created because relations go in both ways. And here I can check the settings and I can double check. Does it make sense for a campaign to have multiple tasks? If we think that building a campaign, running a campaign requires collaboration of multiple people and different tasks, then I will leave that setting as yes. Once we have that, we can link campaigns to tasks. And for instance, I could say that these three tasks are related to the first campaign. I'm going to reflect that. And you will see that now we have also the link on the other side with the different tasks. So table relations are paramount to understand if you want to build proficiently with air tables.
Last key point to understand on the database side are views as opposed to tables. So the table store all the information whereas views are going to allow me to view certain fields, view certain records and also arrange that information in the way that I see fit. So let's create a view. We can click create and for instance we can filter only for approved campaign. So here I have two views. The first one approved the second or default view. And here are the view settings that I can use. And if I want to filter for approved campaigns, I can for instance filter by status is approved. Now what happens when I toggle the status of one campaign to approved? It is still in this view because we're not filtering for any records or any type of values here. But this record has now landed in my approved view that shows all the campaigns with the status approved. One last thing on views, not only you're able to display information a bit different way, you can also select different types of visualization. Once again, I invite you to create these, play around with these, to experience them and know which type of layout is the best for you.
Now, let's move on to automations, shall we? There are five things you need to know about automations to get started. First, triggers. How to trigger automations. You need to understand the notion of record idea because we use it all the time inside automations. the different actions, how you're going to test automations, and then what are the different advanced options you have inside automations. So, let's take a look.
To build your first automation, you need to head to the automations section. So far, so good. And there you can create various automation. So, by default, you have the first one. And the first concept of automations is the trigger. That's the event that's going to start initiate the automation. And here we have all the options tableable gives you. We have some database triggers. We have the possibility to trigger via web hook when an email is received when a button is clicked from the interface. That's a great one. And we have also a bunch of integrations that allow you to trigger editable automations from the outside. For instance, we can trigger an automation when a Google calendar event is created. The most common triggers you're going to use are the database triggers we have here. So I have my trigger when a record is created. Here you will need to specify always in which table. So when a campaign is created, when a record is created in the table campaigns, something is going to happen.
So here's one example of an simple automation we can build within minutes. And this automation is going to notify the budget owner that a new campaign was created and requires their approval. So if I take a look in more detail, we have a trigger when the record is created in the table campaigns and then we picked one of these actions. We picked Slack. We built an actionable message in this case. So that's a message with two buttons, one to approve and one to reject. And we configured this action. We specified that we would send it to the budget owner. Why? Because we have it stored in this table as an information. And we are going also to insert a specific message. So requested by the campaign manager's name, the name of the campaign, a short description, and then some actions here to approve or reject the campaign with some implications. It's going to in the first case send the status as approved and in the second case send the status as rejected.
Now, one key thing to understand is that all of this is possible updating the campaign back or updating a record inside air table using an automation thanks to a record ID. So, let's zoom in for a second on that. The record ID is the unique identifier given to each record inside a table. One way you can see the record ID of each individual record is by using a formula field. So that's one type of field we won't cover in this video. Uh but it allows you to build custom formulas and using that function record ID. And here you can see each row each record has a unique identifier and that identifier is what we're passing inside automations to specify which record in the table we're going to update here. In this case, which campaign will we approve or reject?
Now heading to testing. You can turn automations on and off this way. If you want to test how they behave, you can also use this panel here. Select a particular record and go through the whole process. You will see the different modules executing. Here you can see this is the notification that was generated. Uh with the two buttons, I can approve the campaign. And if we head back, we can see that the test results were completed. We can see that eventually the button approve was clicked and our first campaign was approved. So one example of an automation that can be built with just two modules, a trigger and a Slack notification.
Now to close the chapter on automations, let me give you another example that is using advanced logic and that would be our next step in the flow. Whenever the campaign is approved, we want to create the campaign tasks and whenever the campaign is rejected, maybe we want to notify the campaign manager. And this is very easy to build thanks to conditional logic. This automation will be triggered whenever a campaign's status changes, which is what happens when we approve or reject it. And we have two branches of a conditional logic inside this automation. If the status is approved, we're going to execute this branch, which creates the three tasks related to the campaign. And if the status is rejected, we're going to send instead a Slack message back to the campaign manager informing them that the campaign was rejected. I will run this live at the end so we can see the whole flow. But before that, one last thing on automation and let's move on to interfaces.
That last thing are advanced actions I won't cover in this video which are running a script and generate with AI. With running a script, we can execute JavaScript instructions right inside an artable automation. And it's a more advanced topic, but it allows you basically to do pretty much anything you want inside an airable automation. That's a very powerful use case for advanced users. Much more accessible for everyone is this other advanced action, generate with AI, where you'll be able to use the data of a record, inject it inside a prompt during the automation, and use eventually the result. We'll cover that in a separate video. There are bazillions of use cases from this action. I just wanted to let you know that this is right inside air table automations. [Music]
All right, and we're already at part three, interfaces in airable. Here are the five things you should know about interfaces. This is where we're going to bring everything together and create custom interfaces for our users. First, we're going to take a look at the designer and how it works. And then you can configure interfaces in four ways. You can define the permissions, who has access to what, who can do what. You can pick a layout. There are different layouts available and customize these. We're going to be able to filter data. And finally, we're going to be able to define specific user actions. Let's go.
So, the first time you open interfaces in a new project, you will have this menu. We can click start building. Select build an interface. And here we're going to give our interface a name. Let's say campaigns. Click next. And it's always the same steps. First, we have to choose a layout. And these are the different layouts available. And that's one of the big advantages with airable. These interfaces are already pre-built for you. We'll take a list for this example. We'll click next. The second step is always to choose the source. Here we have two tables. So, we can either create an interface displaying tasks or an interface displaying campaigns. I'll pick the first one. And pretty much you could already press publish and have a first interface that gives access to the data contained in the campaigns table.
Now one thing with this interface not much is happening in it because by default everything you see here is read only. So I can perform some actions I can search uh and filter group but I'm not going to be able to do much with the data itself. If we take a look at the interface designer, the canvas is the interface we're customizing. On the left side, we have the different interfaces and pages uh that we are creating for users to interact with the data from our database. And whenever we select an element here, for instance, this area, we are switching to the right panel, which is where you're going to be able to configure everything.
Before we do so, let's talk about permissions. Permissions are managed at interface level. And so let's create another interface so you can see the difference. Let's call it admin. Create it. Create another page. Maybe this time we're going to create a dashboard on the campaigns and publish it as well. Now I have not one but two separate interfaces and permissions are managed at interface level. Which means, for instance, if I want to restrict the admin dashboard to a specific type of users, I'm going to be able to restrict that and only give a certain group of people access to this interface. That way, you can ensure that people only see or are able to interact with the data that is only relevant or allowed for them.
In interfaces, I can add multiple pages. For instance, inside campaigns, I could add a canban with the tasks. You see, it's very easy. I can just grab the layout that I want, select the right table, and we are already done. And we have now two interfaces. One where I can work with the task. Right now, we can only see them and one where I can work with the campaigns.
Now, let's configure these interfaces. To add some functionality, we are going to click inside a specific page and we're going to click on the elements right here. So, we're able to customize them. Everything you can customize is contained within this column. So, whenever I select an element, I am able to see the different options there. We're not going to cover all of these now. I'm just going to leave you with two essential things right here, which are filters and user actions.
First filters. Right now, we're seeing all the campaigns available, but you are able to filter out some of the records. And one thing we can do in interfaces that's a very common pattern is to filter the records that are associated to the user. So, one thing you can do here is filter by and for instance the records that are associated to the current user. So now you won't see much of a difference right now because I'm the campaign manager of all. But let me quickly change the data in there and assign this last campaign to PF. If we go back to the interface, I am now only viewing the records that are assigned to me. So filtering records and you can filter from any of the properties inside the specific table.
Last item for today and there's so much more to tell but I really want to keep it compact for this introduction are the user actions. Right now it's a little bit sad. You cannot really interact with the data. You can just read it and you're going to be able to change that inside this panel. So usually user actions are available at the bottom. And by toggling this I can suddenly change the data from the interface. So if we publish that again can see that we are able to now change all of these properties right here. You can also allow users to delete records, add new records. There are plenty of other actions, but basically, you're going to be able to define all of that from the interface designer by grabbing a specific element and heading to user actions.
All right, we're done. I just added a little button here that allows me to create a new campaign right from the interface. Let's test our flow end to end and see whether I get my campaign approved. So here's the form filled. Let's click create and let's see what we get. So first of all, our campaign is created. I should have gotten a notification on Slack. Here's my notification with all the information. That looks pretty good. Let's approve. That was updated air tableable. We can see that our Valentine special campaign is approved back in air tableable. And most importantly, we can also see that our three tasks were created by the automation and associated to the right campaign.
I'll stop here for this overview. I hope that with this video I pointed you in the right direction so that you can start exploring this tool confidently. If what we've covered today was interesting and you want to learn more about Air Table, I'd be happy to do some follow-up videos to dive into each of these subtopics. If that's the case, let me know in the comments. And I'll end this video with a simple piece of advice. Just get started. Try to find a project that you could build inside air table and try to figure out how you're going to build it using this tool. I can guarantee you that if you spend a couple of hours in the tool, a lot of things are going to start to click and you will realize the power of air ball and I don't think you will want to look back. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this video. Until next time. [Music]