31–40 of 199 posts
I wish our company had this 10 years ago. Everybody was using and mis-using Excel for everything, whether it's requirements, project tracking, documentation, manually updated dashboard and dashboard. We're not abusing Excel anymore, but we've ended up specialized software for everything. Ironically we've lost ability to create something that is exactly tailored for each person's need.
Excel is SUCH a double-edged sword, isn't it?
Glad to see this company get more funding. Last year I ported all of our companys excel and access files over to airtable. Currently tweaking with their API to work with a MS-SQL database using amazon Lambda and RDS at the moment. Their API documentation is fantastic, some of the best I've seen as well. They even have some of the best case studies for workflow management as well, posted on their blog, for setting up…
Glad to see this company get more funding. Last year I ported all of our companys excel and access files over to airtable. Currently tweaking with their API to work with a MS-SQL database using amazon Lambda and RDS at the moment. Their API documentation is fantastic, some of the best I've seen as well. They even have some of the best case studies for workflow management as well, posted on their blog, for setting up…
Can I ask what actual business functions these spreadsheets are for?
On this page, https://airtable.com/templates, there's a database called "Product Catalog". Thats what I use
It seems only slightly more useful than say a Google spreadsheet on a platform that yes might have blocks and templates but I didn't see anything there that made me want to switch away from Google Spreadsheets, Trello and a couple of other systems I use to run my 20 person £1mm turnover business.
I'll keep it in mind but having played with Airtable I just don't see the value. Still, wish them all the best.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
These alternatives are not alternatives at all.
Thanks! I glanced very briefly after a Google search, and will reply later when I have time to my own comment with a legitimate list of alternatives.
Airtable is a fantastic product. We use it religiously. For those that may be interested, one of Lambda School's students has been building out an ORM for Airtable to abstract away some aspects of the API. https://lambda-school-labs.github.io/Airtable-ORM/
I like airtable, but the per-base row limits (50,000 before you reach "contact us for pricing") are too small for many of the things I'd like to use it for. And there's something a bit odd in their pricing model, isn't there? The plus tier is $10 per user per month with a limit of 5,000 records per base; the pro tier is $20 per user per month, with a limit of 50,000 records per base. Suppose I want to use it to repla…
I don't know man, I might not be the target audience (MD of a software company) but I just don't get this. It seems only slightly more useful than say a Google spreadsheet on a platform that yes might have blocks and templates but I didn't see anything there that made me want to switch away from Google Spreadsheets, Trello and a couple of other systems I use to run my 20 person £1mm turnover business. I'll keep it in…
> Over the next two weeks we visited dozens of Excel customers, and did not see anyone using Excel to actually perform what you would call “calculations.” Almost all of them were using Excel because it was a convenient way to create a table.
> What was I talking about? Oh yeah… most people just used Excel to make lists. Suddenly we understood why Lotus Improv, which was this fancy futuristic spreadsheet that was going to make Excel obsolete, had failed completely: because it was great at calculations, but terrible at creating tables, and everyone was using Excel for tables, not calculations.
If you view it from the lens that most Excel users employ the spreadsheet to create lists and tables (data organization), then Airtable is one way to improve that workflow.