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Base Design

Need help with your Airtable base design? You've arrived at the right place.

  • 3,347 Topics
  • 8,350 Replies
3347 Topics
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Judy12New Participant
asked in Base Design
Interface table won't stay sorted on default

 

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ScottWorld
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jaytee223New Participant
asked in Base Design
Base Colors Removed Omni Release

Is it just me, or is anyone else seriously frustrated by Airtable’s recent UI update that removed base color customization?I used to rely on those colors to quickly distinguish between different bases — especially when juggling multiple tabs (client work, internal projects, staging vs. production, etc.). It was such a simple but powerful way to reduce mistakes and navigate faster. Now that everything looks the same, it’s way easier to click into the wrong base or waste time scanning titles.For a platform that prides itself on organization and efficiency, this feels like a strange step backwards. Color coding was more than just a cosmetic feature — it added real clarity and boosted productivity.Anyone else feeling this pain? Has anyone found a good workaround? Just me?Would love to know your thoughts — maybe if enough of us speak up, they’ll reconsider bringing it back!

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Mike_AutomaticN
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noahb123New Participant
asked in Base Design
Help with bookings

Hi there,  I run an auto detailing business by myself and I am trying to create a booking system so my customers can automatically book a detail without having to message me. I have three different locations that I operate out of, and I would like for them to be able to choose the location and time.  Here is the tricky part.. I cant be double booked, so I need to find a way to limit this..  Any help is appreciated I currently have two tables set up, Appointments and services. All fairly basic stuff. Thanks 

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ScottWorld
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dctrousersNew Participant
asked in Base Design
Table Linking Question: Brand Guidelines AI Demo

Hello! I am looking to create a database that is similar in structure and function to the “Brand and compliance checker” demo in Airtable’s AI Playbook (https://www.airtable.com/ai-playbook/brand-and-compliance-checker)Instead of brand guidelines, I am using different scenarios and their criteria to analyze real estate records. I have 2 tables. One is the property data (similar to the “Product Shots” table in the video) and one is the scenario/criteria table (similar to the “Brand Guidelines” table). In the properties table, I have a single column for each scenario (similar to the “Brand Check” fields in the demo) that the AI will resolve to either “Yes” or “No” depending if the record matches the criteria. I would like to know the best and most straightforward way to link the tables or instruct OMNI to reference the specific criteria in the scenario/criteria table when checking the data. Any assistance would be appreciated.

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TheTimeSavingCo
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hsfpixNew Participant
asked in Base Design
Searchable External Drive Contents

I am a photographer and cinematographer. As such, I have innumerable external drives with images and clips on them. Each drive has a top level file ‘listing.txt’ that has the entire folder structure, down to each filename. This can have tens of thousands of lines. I want to create a base that lists all of my drives and has ‘listing.txt’ as an attachment. Easy.  BUT!!! I want to make the base searchable, so if I type in ‘badger’, the base will return the drives that have a file or folder that contains the word badger. Can I make the listing.txt file searchable? Or, do I need to break it up into 100000 character chunks and have numerous long text fields. (I have tried unsuccessfully to do this - but I don’t really know what I am doing!).  Insights welcomed, and thanks in anticipation,Roy Dunn

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tzuhouseParticipating Frequently
asked in Base Design
Form select buttons

On my form, I have a couple of questions linked to a single select field.  It's automatically naming the button and I don't know how to edit that.  Instead of Add record or Add show, I just want to change it to Add Committee Preference. 

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Taha-Jiruwala
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will.priceParticipating Frequently
asked in Base Design
How to hide new left sidebar with LLM button

The left sidebar, which contains nothing but the new LLM button, can no longer be collapsed. In an interface that is essentially a series of excel-like rows and tables, every inch of my screen is valuable, especially on a laptop screen. This bar of empty space actively slows down my workflow as it increases the amount of scrolling sideways I have to do, and it also throws off my muscle memory by moving all of the tabs over, and pushes the actual useful information on the left side of the screen away from the edge of the screen where I am used to finding it. Please add an option to move the LLM button to the top right, next to the base history and contact sales buttons, where there is a ton of empty space already. Or, add an option to minimize the sidebar, like we used to be able to. Or better yet, give us an option to hide the LLM button entirely if we are not interested in using it. I know every CEO believes that LLMs are the next big thing that must be included in any technology, but

1516
Philip_Maier
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Judy12New Participant
asked in Base Design
Designed base wrong--how to fix? Primary field not appearing when adding new record from interface

Here’s the problem in a short loom. Maybe I need to have the event table with the name of the event as the primary field: 

346
DisraeliGears01
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Judy12New Participant
asked in Base Design
I have two different tables with organizations that each have linkages already. How can I combine them?

They are in the same base.

463
TheTimeSavingCo
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D-CarbonNew Participant
asked in Base Design
UK Registered Airtable Expert

Are there any airtable builders based in the UK.  I need to find someone registered here to qualify for funding for my project which is a client facing portal.  Thanks 

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Niki_JuniorChefsNew Participant
asked in Base Design
General Help Building a Base

I am an Airtable First-Timer and am having a really hard time understanding how to build what I want. I think Airtable is the solution, but I’m just an idiot. I own a small business and need help creating a Food Ordering and Management System. I have a project scope, our current SOP to share if someone would help me build it or I would happily pay someone to build this for me! Can you please message me back if you’re interested? Thank you!

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StudioTime1
StudioTime1New Participant
asked in Base Design
Airtable keeps opening on an old base whenever logging on

Hi all, this might sound trivial but we are having an issue with Airtable opening on an old base instead of our newest one.  The old base is called Jan 2025 and the newest one, which we are working from, is June 2025. Previously, whichever base we closed the app, logged out or closed the browser on, was the same base Airtable opened on next time.Since creating the June 2025 base, Airtable always opens on the old Jan 2025 base. It’s happening for each user who logs in so it’s a universal thing. We’ve deleted the cookies, logged out properly, logged in again but no joy.I’ve tried searching but can’t find an answer. Any ideas please anyone?

242
StudioTime1
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samanthareidNew Participant
asked in Base Design
Same Tasks associated with different projects

I have been looking everywhere for this answer and I swear I have watched 100 Youtube videos to no avail. Hoping someone on here can help me :)I currently have a “projects” table and a “tasks” table in my base. The projects table is configured so when I add a task to that project it adds it in the tasks table to be tracked. However, if I add that same task to multiple projects it tracks it in the tasks table as one record. Therefore, I can’t individually track the same tasks for several projects. Basically, I want to select the same tasks for several projects and then track those tasks separately. Example:Project A tasks:-solicit bids (complete)-draft contract (in process)-hire sub (on hold)Project B tasks: -solicit bids (in process)-draft contract (on hold)-hire sub (on hold) Thank you so much in advance!! I really appreciate any help that can be provided. This seems so simple but I just can’t figure it out.

552
ScottWorld
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cjvalenteNew Participant
asked in Base Design
Calendar Labels

I am perplexed by the labeling in Airtable Calendars.  In the attached screen grab, I have two projects in a single calendar, separated by color.  Great. However, it does not show the label of the fields I have associated with dates, even though it seems like there is ample room. So great, let me enable the labels I want.  Except it doesn’t show the labels, it shows the date, but instead of just including the date on the specific entry, it puts it on ALL entries.  Very perplexing.  Why would I want to show the date of one entry on a completely different entry that falls on a different date? This makes no sense and can not imagine a case where this would be useful.  Why won’t just show me the label that is already there on a specific date? Is there away to show the whole label on a given entry? In both the Interface and Calendar view I see this and can see know way to show the entire label.

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Revolutions_AIParticipating Frequently
asked in Base Design
Attachment field not loading google url to attachment preview?

Hello all,So I have been uploading attachments to a field through a google share link and have made sure to make the file and folder public but for some reason when i click on the attachment it just comes up as a blank screen and says loading but never loads. The share link is fine as when I put it in the url bar it works perfectly. Im unsure what is causing this??

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ScottWorld
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SarahVFRFNew Participant
asked in Base Design
Dependencies in parallel

Hi everyone, I’m setting up a project management base with dependencies between tasks. I have two questions: In some cases, task 2 can begin before task 1 ends, but the completion of task 2 does depend on the completion of task 1. There will simply be some overlap in when both start (e.g. parts of task 2 can be started before task 1 begin, however until task 1 is completed, task 2 cannot be fully done). I have set up the dependency as Task 1 → depends on → task 2. However, this then shows up as an error: Task 1 begins before Task 2 ends. Is there a way around this? What happens when you have some dependencies in the same table that are predecessors and some that are successors? Thanks a lot in advance!

344
felipe-saucedo
GulfViewCabinets
GulfViewCabinetsNew Participant
asked in Base Design
Google Calendar Sync Issue: 1-day all day events with no times span 2 days instead of 1

We recently updated our AirTable interface to sync directly with our google calendar. We deal with scheduling out many projects across multiple calendars with subcontractors and we use all day events to do so. When I tried to sync our calendars without incorporating times, all of our all-day events were extended out by one day (ex: All Day Event on 7/8/25 in Google Calendar would translate to Start/End: 7/8/25 → 7/9/25 in AirTable when times are excluded). I’m assuming that this stems from Google Calendar and AirTable having different “all day” time functionality. Is there a way to fix this? Here is the result I’m looking for:All Day events syncing from Google Calendar to AirTable exactly as shown on Google Calendar (ex. All Day Event on 7/8/25 in Google Calendar has a Start/End Date of 7/8/25 → 7/8/25 on AirTable) No times in the date fieldPlease keep in mind:We are currently on the Teams plan for our level of permissions. We are not using automations for any of our date creation. We

495
ScottWorld
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bitstreams_redKnown Participant
asked in Base Design
How to normalise after import

Please excuse the long explanation..I have a spreadsheet showing some factories producing a number of products. For the sake of the example, let’s assume that the factories are the primary records and the products that they produce need to be split out in to a linked table.So the source spreadsheet looks like this:Factory City Country Product Acme Tools Denver USA Spanners Acme Tools Denver USA Screwdrivers Western Hardware Paris France Spanners China Supply Shanghai China Hammers China Supply Shanghai China Screwdrivers  I can create and import this spreadsheet in as a new table called Factory.But I don’t want duplicates in the Factory table. I want to have a Products table that would look like this.Product Factory (linked) Spanners Acme Tools Western Hardware Screwdrivers Acme Tools China Supply Spanners Western Hardware Hammers China Supply  This obviously works fine, and the Factory table would only have 1 row per f

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Mike_AutomaticN
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Paradise_ParcelNew Participant
posted in Base Design
"Block" the Airtable Preview Link when sharing base

I am looking for a way to change the way that my shared Airtable base can be shown as the preview when sharing the url, instead of the generic “Airtable, everyones app platform” being shown. I frequently share the base, and people aren’t opening the base, or are wary to because they dont know what Airtable is. Please tell me there is a way to have a different preview shown? Do I need to first embed it in my website? I am open to paying, or outsourcing but I am just not sure how to start! Uploading: Screen Shot 2022-06-08 at 9.32.46 AM.png… https://airtable.com/shrbYQAOhU8YNsK99

213
ScottWorld
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adehaan86Inspiring
asked in Base Design
how to Interface button go to form?

Trying to figure out how to have the Interface “Button” When clicked it will go to the form I built? Do I use external URL?

192
TheTimeSavingCo
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Matt_Kennedy1Known Participant
asked in Base Design
Omni - Data Loss?

I’ve been playing with Omni.  I asked it to merge two multi-select columns.  It created an AI field, which didn’t solve my needs.  I asked it to undo and it could not.  I can’t find one of the merge fields. I’m pretty sure I didn’t delete it.  Which makes me think Omni is not super safe in terms of preventing data loss.Maybe I am imagining things.  Has anyone else accidentally blown away data while using?Thanks!

211
Mike_AutomaticN
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Ariella_MessingNew Participant
posted in Base Design
Employee shift attendance tracking

Hi, I’m fairly new to airtable and having a hard time setting up what I think should be a relatively simple base. I have a staff of about 40 individuals. They only have access to the share views of two of my bases, if that is relevant (so anything they do on airtable has to go through forms). The 40 staff are each assigned between 1 and 4 shifts a week. Each day is divided into 4 shifts of 6 hours, so we have 28 shifts per week. The number of staff members assigned to a given shift varies. Right now I just have a base with two tables: staff names and shifts (listed as mondayshift1, mondayshift 2, etc.). Staff members fill out a form and select their shifts so that the resulting tables fill in. What I would like is a way to track attendance and then later, set up automations (for emails) if someone misses a shift. I was thinking I would create a form for them to fill out when they clock out, with name, shift, and then one optional question (long text). Shifts do not change from week to

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Mike_AutomaticN
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Chef TarikInspiring
asked in Base Design
Print layout from the interface

Hi  Dear Community I’m facing issues with the print layoutJust 2 days ago everything was smooth and today I hace noticed this issue with the printing layoutIt does’nt som th complete information here a copy  

512
ScottWorld
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Daniela_FernandKnown Participant
posted in Base Design
Form view won't let me add a New record for a linked Table - attendance and

Hi, I need an attendance tracker for nonprofit organization that organizes different extracurricular activities throughout the year. I'm working on a generic form that the coordinators of each activity would use to report the activity, time, description/impact, and attendance. The attendance is linked to a table that compiles the beneficiaries of the different activities that are run by the Non-profit. We already have some beneficiaries or previous participants in this table and so some of the attendees are already in our records, but when we have new attendees, I would like to be able to generate a new record from a form. I am able to add a new record in the grid view, but not in the Form. I have already tried to use the link to the form, not the form builder view and it was still not allowing me to add a new record. Is this even possible? or am I missing something? The objective is to be able to have a beneficiary registry or a complete list of beneficiaries to report to ou

869
ScottWorld
tiramisu
tiramisuNew Participant
asked in Base Design
Terrible new UX - please change it back to the old one!

Please change back your UX to the old one. The new one is so washed out its difficult to use!!!

1565
ScottWorld

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