The ever-increasing demand for digital information has led organizations to store data for making better business decisions. Most companies rely on databases to gather and analyze important data using a Structured Query Language (SQL). However, it requires experts to work with complex data for conducting organizational processes effectively. Consequently, organizations embrace Airtable, a low-code collaborative software, that integrates the functionalities of a database, excel, and google form to simplify working with huge data while managing business use cases. The rich-enhanced features of Airtable not only help enterprises gain the Flexibility to democratize data across teams but also accelerate Task Management with Automation.
This article will give you a comprehensive guide to the Best Airtable Examples and Use Cases. It will provide you with a brief overview of Airtable along with its key features. You will also explore the need for Airtable and the underlying terminologies in further sections. Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Introduction to Airtable
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Airtable is a Cloud-Based Hybrid Spreadsheet Database platform that has features of the database applied to Spreadsheets. It is a modern no-code tool that provides collaborative environments to create and share relational databases. The simplified user interface empowers new users to effectively store, organize, and interact with data in a colorful, friendly display. Airtable not only helps organizations to manage and represent data with attractive visual UI (User Interface) but also provides a dashboard for users to handle diverse project requirements.
Key Features of Airtable
Data is stored in different locations based on the method accompanied by organizations. Most businesses store data in relational databases that are queried to get desired results. In contrast, Airtable eliminates the need for coding while extracting subsets of datasets for performing analysis by spinning up new databases in just a few clicks. Below are some key features of Airtable:
1. Simplified Database
Most business professionals step back from implementing databases considering the technical requirement to learn and understand SQL (Structured Query Language) for extracting as well as reading data. As Airtable database provides a no-code solution, users can utilize a robust, simple-to-use UI to untangle the entire analysis process.
2. Seamless Integration
Airtable platform has built-in support for many popular applications and a robust API. Integrations help users to automatically migrate real-time information back and forth between Airtable and third-party software.
3. Accelerate Work
Organizations can accelerate their project workflow by streamlining a number of dependent tasks with Airtable Automation. It helps decision-makers to create a custom notification, prioritize work, and automate redundant tasks.
4. Customized Collaboration
Airtable simplifies tasks with Collaboration and Project Management features. Data administrators can set user permission levels to restrict database access and retain data confidentiality with advanced functionalities. These features allow businesses to update stakeholders with workflow status as well as minimize operational costs.
Introduction to Airtable Environment
Airtable environment consists of six major components that collectively help organizations perform various tasks. Below are the basic building blocks of an Airtable environment:
- Workspace: It is a collection of bases in Airtable. For instance, if bases are folders that include a bunch of excel files, a workspace stores a bunch of base folders.
- Base: It is a collection of tables that resembles a database. Each Airtable Base contains all necessary unique project information and may optionally have a primary key (common column) to derive relations among files.
- Table: It is similar to a Spreadsheet that contains a set of data stored in rows and columns.
- View: It is a virtual table that allows users to customize a set of fields from the entire table. Airtable features seven types of views:
- Grid view to organize data.
- Calendar view for creating schedules.
- Gantt view helps to plan the stages of a project.
- Kanban view for prioritizing tasks.
- Form view to assist in collecting data.
- Gallery view for displaying records as large cards.
- Timeline view to visualize and track your records.
- Field: It is the information that groups similar data in a column format. Airtable currently supports 29 field types that include long text, date, image, audio, and other data types.
- Record: It is a distribution of data in row format. Airtable facilitates the association of records between tables to pull up information.
To know more about Airtable, visit this link.
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Best Airtable Examples
With various unique features and a lower learning curve, many businesses embrace Airtable for implementing various applications for streamlining business operations. Below are some of the best Airtable examples along with their use cases:
Best Airtable Examples for Local Business Use Cases
Let’s explore some of the best Airtable examples for Local Business use cases:
1. Product Catalog
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Smaller businesses may witness higher growth in a shorter span, but managing vendor relationships and product quality may become a challenging task. Product catalog helps enterprises organize and keep their product information, vendors, and orders in a single base.
As Airtable provides multiple views, filters, and search functionality, you can quickly get information about your products, orders, and customers. For instance, an organization can use this template to filter by the number of orders to observe the most popular products.
2. Purchase Process
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The purchase process usually initiates with identifying the need for a product. Organizations can prepare a purchase request form to collect the required information for each item from every department. Decision-makers can then review the list and finalize the purchase order.
Airtable provides a kanban view to arrange the entire purchase process in various stages across different cards. Each card can have a tag based on review status, urgency, and department. The finalized purchase order data can be linked with the accounting department to clear financial settlements without any delay. For more information, refer to this template.
Best Airtable Examples for Marketing Use Cases
Let’s explore some of the best Airtable examples for Marketing use cases:
1. Campaign Tracker
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Marketing campaigns promote products through different media sources like radio, television, print, and online platforms. Airtable can help businesses in tracking the performance of Campaigns, RoI (Returns on Investment), and Monitor Expenses. It provides robust applications in the marketplace to automate the scheduling process and send reports to stakeholders.
To create a campaign tracker in Airtable, users must know the source of sign-ups and the credibility of the incoming traffic. Such active data are often merged during analysis to gain the momentum of running campaigns. To begin campaign tracking, one can begin with this template.
2. Product Launch
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A product launch is a remarkable event for any enterprise. Not only does it open doors for new customers, but it also shapes the perception of the future events of the company. In general, a product launch comprises a set of dependent events that organizations iteratively redesign and recreate a prototype before introducing into the real market.
Airtable helps you align the business goals with a product launch. For instance, if a company plans to introduce its first product, one can use this template to solve most hurdles. Since a product launch involves a collaboration of many team members, businesses can center communication and task management of Engineering, Sales, Marketing, or Products departments with Airtable.
Best Airtable Examples for Sales Use Cases
Let’s explore some of the best Airtable examples for Sales use cases:
1. Sales CRM
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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is used to manage an organization’s relationships and interactions with customers. It helps businesses to stay connected with customers, improve profitability, and streamline processes.
Airtable provides a Sales CRM template that offers real-time access to accounts and customers. Each member of a team can create a personalized view to accomplish various tasks like view schedule meetings or a kanban view to understand how close the deal has reached in a sales process.
2. SWOT Analysis
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SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. SWOT analysis is a technique that allows decision-makers to understand the four crucial aspects of the business. This technique helps companies to perceive factors beneficial to derive successful strategies.
Airtable provides a SWOT analysis template for businesses to quickly surface internal as well as external factors driving your business. While Strengths may include market position, Weaknesses may be negative factors like a poor business strategy. Opportunities might be new products or opportunities in fresh markets, and Threats can include government regulations.
Best Airtable Examples for Software Development Use Cases
Let’s explore some of the best Airtable examples for Software Development use cases:
1. Bug Tracker
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Bug tracking is a tedious process of logging and monitoring issues during software testing. Debugging processes are often handled by QA (Quality Assurance) Analysts, Test Engineers require a tracking system to resolve errors and updates in certain intervals. Precisely, development teams rely on Agile processes for building custom workflows according to the complexity of the product.
Airtable platform provides a simplified bug tracking system template, where you can attach a form for easy submission of bug reports. It also allows companies to prepare customer support by sorting bugs based on priority tags.
2. Value Risk Matrix
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Value Risk Matrix (VRM) is a tool that helps you determine associated complexities (implementations) for a given business (value) idea. The level of complexity is assessed as either Routine (low value, low risk), Leveraged (high value, low risk), Focused (low value, high risk), or Strategic (high value, high risk). While the usefulness of a customer may govern value, the complexity depends on time, technical challenge, and funds for development.
Airtable helps to prioritize your projects/products by their expected business value and associated degree of risk. With the Value risk matrix template, users can customize risk scores and value scores to produce VRM.
Conclusion
Making business decisions from large data storage is a complex process. Many companies have to rely on experts to analyze data while maintaining the confidentiality of information. With Airtable, enterprises can optimize workflow, funnel multiple sources, and integrate third-party tools swiftly to address many industrial use cases. These were some of the best Airtable examples along with the use cases.
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Amit Kulkarni specializes in freelance writing within the data industry, by creating informative and engaging content on data science by using his problem-solving and analytical thinking ability.