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Happy to see these guys doing well. Got turned onto their product middle of last year and have started using it for all sorts of stuff. Its a great middle groun

Happy to see these guys doing well. Got turned onto their product middle of last year and have started using it for all sorts of stuff. Its a great middle ground between an excel file and building a custom app for things. Super flexible with very little learning curve. Girlfriend and I even use it to track which wines we've tried, like, and ratings and stuff for them.

vongomben 9y ago
I discovered airtable not long ago, and planned to give it a try soon. What frightened me was exactly that middle ground though, my processes are too tied to the mail think products like streak meet it better. I will definetly test it
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jpster 9y ago
  I've had success using Airtable with an email flow for an applicant tracking system. I: -posted a job ad with a specific reply-to email address -every time an applicant wrote to that email address, a row would automatically be added in an Airtable base -I would review their application and if I wanted to pass them on to a next step, I would select a pre-defined drop-down value in their row in the Airtable base to mark them as something like "Go" or "No go". -This would trigger Zapier to send an email to the applicant with instructions on how to take our screening questionnaire in SurveyGizmo -Depending on the results of the questionnaire, I would select another drop-down value, triggering another email, etc. It wasn't perfect but it did help me to automate what had been a very painful process.
  - yoshyosh 9y ago
    This sounds like a very interesting idea as a cohesive product. A normal user wouldn't be able to set this up themselves.
    - jpster 9y ago
      Could be. I haven’t researched it but my impression is that off the shelf ATS is quite expensive.
fiatjaf 9y ago
Would you use a spreadsheet for that? I'm asking sincerely, since most of open examples I see of people using Airtable and Fieldbook and other similar software is for these simple use cases -- in fact for tracking wines or whatever, a spreadsheet is maybe much better. Now when I tried to use Fieldbook for a somewhat complex bunch of data that gets currently added, 5 tables with references between them it has quickly bloated and become slow to the point of not being usable anymore. So I'm left with the impression that people mostly use these apps for simple use cases where a spreadsheet, or a Trello board, or even a text file would be better; and that complex use-cases are not supported at all -- as they wouldn't be in a spreadsheet.
- abakker 9y ago
  Maybe look at Anaplan for those more complex workflows/processes.
- porker 9y ago
  > Now when I tried to use Fieldbook for a somewhat complex bunch of data that gets currently added, 5 tables with references between them it has quickly bloated and become slow to the point of not being usable anymore. I've had the same experience, glad it's not just me. It was a few months ago so I don't remember the exact details, but I could not model the complex relationships I wanted in Fieldbook (which I've used before) or Airtable (my first time). I didn't gel with the Airtable UI either.
  - nojvek 9y ago
    Care to elaborate what kind of complex data modelling you wanted to do?
- chenster 9y ago
  Excel still is excellent for the most tasks for most of us. It's not going away any time soon. Google certainly has tried with google sheets. They all might just co-exist in harmony fulfill each individual niche even with some overlap.

vongomben 9y ago

I discovered airtable not long ago, and planned to give it a try soon. What frightened me was exactly that middle ground though, my processes are too tied to the mail think products like streak meet it better. I will definetly test it

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jpster 9y ago
I've had success using Airtable with an email flow for an applicant tracking system. I: -posted a job ad with a specific reply-to email address -every time an applicant wrote to that email address, a row would automatically be added in an Airtable base -I would review their application and if I wanted to pass them on to a next step, I would select a pre-defined drop-down value in their row in the Airtable base to mark them as something like "Go" or "No go". -This would trigger Zapier to send an email to the applicant with instructions on how to take our screening questionnaire in SurveyGizmo -Depending on the results of the questionnaire, I would select another drop-down value, triggering another email, etc. It wasn't perfect but it did help me to automate what had been a very painful process.
- yoshyosh 9y ago
  This sounds like a very interesting idea as a cohesive product. A normal user wouldn't be able to set this up themselves.
  - jpster 9y ago
    Could be. I haven’t researched it but my impression is that off the shelf ATS is quite expensive.

fiatjaf 9y ago

Would you use a spreadsheet for that? I'm asking sincerely, since most of open examples I see of people using Airtable and Fieldbook and other similar software is for these simple use cases -- in fact for tracking wines or whatever, a spreadsheet is maybe much better. Now when I tried to use Fieldbook for a somewhat complex bunch of data that gets currently added, 5 tables with references between them it has quickly bloated and become slow to the point of not being usable anymore. So I'm left with the impression that people mostly use these apps for simple use cases where a spreadsheet, or a Trello board, or even a text file would be better; and that complex use-cases are not supported at all -- as they wouldn't be in a spreadsheet.

abakker 9y ago
Maybe look at Anaplan for those more complex workflows/processes.
porker 9y ago
> Now when I tried to use Fieldbook for a somewhat complex bunch of data that gets currently added, 5 tables with references between them it has quickly bloated and become slow to the point of not being usable anymore. I've had the same experience, glad it's not just me. It was a few months ago so I don't remember the exact details, but I could not model the complex relationships I wanted in Fieldbook (which I've used before) or Airtable (my first time). I didn't gel with the Airtable UI either.
- nojvek 9y ago
  Care to elaborate what kind of complex data modelling you wanted to do?
chenster 9y ago
Excel still is excellent for the most tasks for most of us. It's not going away any time soon. Google certainly has tried with google sheets. They all might just co-exist in harmony fulfill each individual niche even with some overlap.