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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

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 a relational database management setup in different use cases. As a user who's also part of their alpha-test program, its exciting to see all the changes they made this year. They added blocks which lets you add app-like integrations such as forms, kanban, maps integration, page designer (think of mailmerge for word) etc. I personally have only dabbled in about half the things offered here, but its crazy how many things you can do with airtable. I also wrote a popular excel VBA script for airtable too, for bulk downloading and renaming images found here on their forum. https://community.airtable.com/t/bulk-image-downloader-and-renamer-using-excel-vba/4913/3 https://community.airtable.com/t/bulk-image-downloader-and-r.... Airtable has lots of potential use cases for startup apps as well, I highly suggest reading this article from a philosophical standpoint. http://sirupsen.com/minimum-viable-airtable/ http://sirupsen.com/minimum-viable-airtable/

tootie 9y ago
Can I ask what actual business functions these spreadsheets are for?
- Kagerjay 9y ago
  I use it to manage purchase orders overseas and use it as a traditional product database. Anything that I would use MS-access for I use airtable instead. On this page, https://airtable.com/templates https://airtable.com/templates, there's a database called "Product Catalog". Thats what I use
- themarkn 9y ago
  I find it useful for tracking people who attend music camps I run, whatever they have chosen, paid for, dietary issues etc. It’s very friendly for setting up things like Booleans, formulas, different types of data, without having to know much. It’s easy to use and easy to share with others. It’s not perfect. But it’s nice.
nareiber 9y ago
So if you're going to be putting them in a db, why did you 'port' them to airtable? Wouldn't it be cheaper to store the files on s3 and insert in the db when you get your schema and everything solidified?
- Kagerjay 9y ago
  sorry I didn't mean "port" literally, I meant it as a slang term. I meant "move everything over". Airtable uses s3 to manage the file upload assets (I think). I like using Airtable over a traditional RDBMS since its extremely user friendly and easy to update your db schema. I don't have to memorize anything on the backend (E.g. with MS-SQL, it was always in an uphill battle working with sql-server management studio, figuring out what settings I need to tweaked, etc). Airtable's GUI is super intuitive if your familiar with excel / MS-access. It took me a few days to learn and figure out airtable, MS-Access took me about 3 months+.
  - Y_Y 9y ago
    This and your other comments read like ads. I don't mean to say that you're not being genuine, but when I (and presumably others) read a thread like this and see overly-enthusiastic reviews it raises a degree of skepticism. I wouldn't like to criticise you, especially since you just seem to be trying to inform others about a product you're pleased with, but i think there's a general problem on hn with comments above a certain threshold of complimentariness. Some are obvious shills, but there's a big grey area where it's harder to tell.

tootie 9y ago

Can I ask what actual business functions these spreadsheets are for?

Kagerjay 9y ago
I use it to manage purchase orders overseas and use it as a traditional product database. Anything that I would use MS-access for I use airtable instead. On this page, https://airtable.com/templates https://airtable.com/templates, there's a database called "Product Catalog". Thats what I use
themarkn 9y ago
I find it useful for tracking people who attend music camps I run, whatever they have chosen, paid for, dietary issues etc. It’s very friendly for setting up things like Booleans, formulas, different types of data, without having to know much. It’s easy to use and easy to share with others. It’s not perfect. But it’s nice.

nareiber 9y ago

So if you're going to be putting them in a db, why did you 'port' them to airtable? Wouldn't it be cheaper to store the files on s3 and insert in the db when you get your schema and everything solidified?

Kagerjay 9y ago
sorry I didn't mean "port" literally, I meant it as a slang term. I meant "move everything over". Airtable uses s3 to manage the file upload assets (I think). I like using Airtable over a traditional RDBMS since its extremely user friendly and easy to update your db schema. I don't have to memorize anything on the backend (E.g. with MS-SQL, it was always in an uphill battle working with sql-server management studio, figuring out what settings I need to tweaked, etc). Airtable's GUI is super intuitive if your familiar with excel / MS-access. It took me a few days to learn and figure out airtable, MS-Access took me about 3 months+.
- Y_Y 9y ago
  This and your other comments read like ads. I don't mean to say that you're not being genuine, but when I (and presumably others) read a thread like this and see overly-enthusiastic reviews it raises a degree of skepticism. I wouldn't like to criticise you, especially since you just seem to be trying to inform others about a product you're pleased with, but i think there's a general problem on hn with comments above a certain threshold of complimentariness. Some are obvious shills, but there's a big grey area where it's harder to tell.