Learning Airtable

Chapter 2. Working with Records and Fields

As mentioned in Chapter 1, Airtable bases have three sections: Data, Automations, and Interfaces. This Data section is where almost all of the configuration of an Airtable database happens. (Once the database is set up, we can then do things like design Automations and configure interfaces.)

A relational database, like Airtable, is made up of tables that contain records. For those unfamiliar with databases, each table represents a certain type of entity, such as a task, project, or person. Each separate instance of an entity in every table is a record (e.g., every task in a table of tasks is a record).

For each table representing a group of things (e.g., tasks, appointments, and contacts), there are fields that each represent a property or attribute of each thing (or record). For instance, a field might hold a start time for the appointments in a table of appointments. In a table of project management tasks, there might be a text field with the name of each task and a number field to note how many weeks each task is expected to take. Fields can also perform a calculation, reference data in other tables, and more.

Depending on the field type, the data may be formatted in a specific way. The different types of fields and their properties are easier to digest if we break them down into two main categories: input fields and calculated fields.

Before field types, we’ll start this chapter by looking at records in more detail. Then we’ll consider ...