Airtable Pipe Questions

Pipes
#1

Has anyone used the Airtable pipe yet? I don’t see any posts about it yet. We currently use Airtable for a different internal system and I was going to see if we could use Tadabase to update Airtable. One of Airtable’s problems for us is there is no form based way to update records, only enter new ones. I was wondering if anyone knew how to do the following.

  1. Search for a particular record in Airtable
  2. Display the pertinent data in Tadabase (in a form or a detail?)
  3. Enter data or update a field in Tadabase
  4. Update the associated record in Airtable.

Thanks for the help in advance!
JCoop

#2

Hi @JCoop and welcome to the community.

The Airtable Pipe that can be installed is really just a starting point to demonstrate some features that can be done with a Pipe. Nearly anything that can be done via Airtable’s API can be done with a Pipe. Often it requires just learning the API methods Airtable uses.

Before I answer you your quesitons specificlaly it’s important to keep in mind that at this time a Pipe works ona 1-to-1 relations. Meaning, there’s no way to show lists/tables using a pipe unless you have the record ID for each of those records saved within Tadabase. This can get a bit confusing.

For example, if you have a record inside of Airtalbe and within Tadabase you have the record ID, you can show the Tadabase Record (which contains the Airtable Record ID) and at the same time pull in data from Airtable. You can not (yet) show a table of records directly from Airtable (or any API).

Searching for a record can be a bit tricky, but I believe its possible by structuring your URL using something like this: https://codepen.io/airtable/full/rLKkYB

If you want to display that data from the result in a details page you can do so as follows:

  1. Create a table with a field called “Search Term” and a field called “Airtable Record ID”
  2. Create a form with a record rule that searches Airtable for the search term provided and saves the record ID to the Tadabase record.
  3. Create a Submit Rule in the form to do to the details page of this newly created record
  4. Use another Pipe to retrieve details about a record based on the record ID saved in step 1 inside of a details component.

You can then also create a form with custom fields that can update Airtable values, but it would require you to create a new API call for each form so you can pass only the relevant data that must be updated.

As far as updating Tadabase from Airtable, this can also be done in a pipe, but might be easier using Zapier or Integromat so it gets updated in real time vs when the record is displayed/edited in Tadabase.

This is a bit advanced and if you’d like we can connect you with a partner that can likely assist with getting this set up.

#3

Thanks for the prompt response! The great support from the Tadabase staff is definitely not overrated!

From what I am understanding (forgive me, as that is not much at this point), in order to pull in data from the pipe using the API with Airtable, I would need to pass along a record id that Airtable uses (ex. recJA6IRTmdhODOnS). Given this id is a seemingly randomly generated alphanumeric sequence, a list of record ids and associated unique identifiers that mean something to humans would have to be imported into Tadabase for this to be at all useful, correct? In other words, I would have to have a form referencing a table with the user friendly ID and use the associated Airtable record id in the API call?

At this point, I am still just trying to figure all the functionality and if there are other internal use cases for which we can utilize Tadabase. No need to bring in the big guns! By the way, its been a blast playing around with all the customizations that are possible.

Thanks again for the quick response @moe and I am sure I will need more help in the future!

Jcoop

#4

Glad to hear you’re enjoying your Tadabase experience :heart_eyes:

You are 100% correct. Being that the relationship is 1-to-1 then importing all your record ID’s will be the simplest and best way to pull and update data to and from Airtable. You mentioned the user friendly ID which can help, but as long as you have the record ID saved behind the scenes you can use any value for the user friendly ID. Does not even need to be unique.

I’d be happy to help with any other questions you may have.

#5

Great responses from Moe :+1:

This is somewhat irrelevant but for what it’s worth, I was maintaining partial data sets in both Airtable and a Tadabase app for a long time. In order to keep data in sync, I had a couple scenarios setup with Integromat. The Airtable modules in Integromat are really robust, which is great, but in the end I ended up migrating everything over to Tadabase and will be removing Airtable from my app stack in 2021.

#6

@moe is definitely on his game! I notice that I see @tim.young all over the community and have read a few of your posts. Great information and questions!

Not irrelevant at all! I have been thinking along the same lines and am evaluating the cost/benefit of using Zapier or Integromat now. Everyone on my teams loves using Airtable because it is so simple and easily customizable, however the reason they love it is what makes it so difficult to manage. The views multiply like rabbits and we are still running into data integrity issues. Great platform, but the inability to update records through forms and the lack of rigid workflows is causing issues. Not to mention the record linking does not lend itself to very complex tasks and its just not a very a clean UX.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience and ideas. I am sure I will have other questions and I look forward to the insight from the community.

JCoop

#7

@JCoop averred:

One of Airtable’s problems for us is there is no form based way to update records…

I’m with @tim.young here, in that I’ve been using Airtable for a long time but I’m pretty sure I’ll be moving everything to Tadabase before end of 2020 or early 2021. Tadabase is just so much better in almost every way.

However and for what it’s worth, I believe there is a way to edit an Airtable record in a form. I watched a Gareth Pronovost (also known as “Mr Airtable”) video about it a while back. The trick is fairly simple. You have to construct a URL that loads the record into a form using its Airtable record ID. If you ask over in the Airtable Community, maybel somebody there will show you step-by-step.

It might of course be easier to use the Tadabase-to-Airtable pipe or perhaps Zapier or Integromat. I’m just sayin’… :slight_smile:

William

#8

Thanks for the tip @WilliamPorter!

I am beginning to think we are out-growing Airtable. Tadabase is indeed a powerful platform and I am beginning to wrap my head around all the potential benefits that it has over our current system. It’s even cheaper!

I will start working on my sales pitch to swap over eventually, if the projects will ever stop coming my way.

Thanks again,

JCoop