What's new in Airtable: September 2021
Hey there, Nic from Airtable here. I’m once again bringing you a first peek at an array of new features—and this update’s a doozy. These product updates include a brand new view, discoverability improvements on mobile, a sleek automations interface, and more.
Taken all together, these features will help you stay productive and organized while seeing your data in a chronological (and colorful) order.
As always, you can read on below—or watch our snazzy two-minute video rundown.
Timeline view
Timeline view is simply the best way to visualize data over time.
This new view groups records by fields and displays them neatly on a horizontal timeline, allowing teams to see what’s coming over the next few days, weeks, or months. It’s a great way to check and balance workloads, schedule content, and color-code data based on factors like importance, stakeholder, and much more.
Like most timelines, this view exists horizontally—and chronologically—from left to right. If something’s not relevant, you can collapse it with a click. You can change deadlines with a simple drag-and-drop. And yes, shifting a record will update that deadline in real-time across all your views.
Pretty fancy, right? Timeline view is available now for Airtable users with Pro and Enterprise plans.
You can read more about it here or click here to learn how to create your own timeline view.
Find it faster on mobile
Over the last few months, we’ve been rolling out a steady cadence of mobile updates. And that cadence continues today, with some added discoverability in your Airtable app. Now, when you open Airtable’s “My bases” pane, you’ll see a category called “Recently opened.”
We built this because we know every team has a group of super-essential bases, a few bases that they need often, and a few bases that they just need to check out from time to time. This feature is directly aimed at making it easier to find those bases that you rely on daily, without having to hit search or scroll through a list.
This is an especially huge boon for teams with 10 or more bases. (And you can trust me on that one; we have a lot of bases over here at Airtable.)
A fresh face for Automations
Automations have never looked so good. We’ve updated our automations interface to make it even more intuitive, with easy-to-read modals. Whether you’re a daily automator or you’re just dabbling, it’s easier to set up a new automation, with a fancy full-screen mode, and a handy guide that will walk you through every step of the process.
This new interface is available now for all users.
> Read more about it here
Table Talk + Tool Tips
We're launching not one, not three, but two new video series on YouTtube. It all starts with Table Talk, a weekly livestream running every Thursday. In Table Talk, we pick a topic, then answer our users’ questions live. It’s a captivating way to get deep into the nitty-gritty of that week’s topic. You can submit questions beforehand or just hop into the stream and ask questions live. Watch our streams here.
And secondly, we’re introducing Tool Tips. It’s a new video series where we discover the surprising ways you can use Airtable—like creating clear CTAs with the button field or automatically creating a meeting agenda with page designer. Subscribe to our Youtube channel so you don’t miss it.
Ebook: Upgrade the way you work
If you’re a longtime spreadsheet user, you know their intrinsic limitations. Heck, that’s probably why you’re reading this! But for any of those Excel experts or Sheets specialists, we know change can be hard—especially if you’ve grown accustomed to your spreadsheets’ quirks.
“Upgrade the way you work” outlines three warning signals that you’ve outgrown your spreadsheet—and offers practical advice on how to upgrade to a database. This is a great resource for spreadsheet loyalists—so send it to all the holdouts in your life.
> Download the ebook here
Airtable Community AMA: Timeline view
We’re hosting our very first Airtable Community AMA on October 13th. If you’re not familiar, “AMA” means “Ask me anything” and our product team will be answering all your burning questions about timeline view. You’ll have the opportunity to see timeline view in action, chat with other Airtable users, and share any feedback with our product team. We look forward to seeing you.
> Find registration details here.
That's all for now. Look out for more features next month!