Airtable

Learn how to build an app in Noloco around your Airtable base

Overview

If you're storing data in Airtable, you can easily connect your Airtable base(s) to your Noloco apps and allow your team or customers to read, update and create records in Airtable directly from your Noloco app.

Connect your Airtable account

1. Start the connect flow from your integration settings Go to your app settings and open the Integrations & API keys page, from there find the Airtable integration and click Connect.

2. Grant Noloco access to all of the bases you want to be shared. Select all of the bases that you want Noloco to have access to and then click Authorize. There are a couple of important things here to note:

• If you have previously connected Airtable bases with your personal API key and sharing link (i.e. the legacy Airtable integration) you must select all of these bases in addition to new bases you are adding. Failure to do this will stop these old bases from being synced.

• One option to avoid not having access to future bases is to select "All current and future bases in this workspace", however if you do this just be aware that Noloco does then have access to all of your bases in the workspace.

3. Review the accessible bases on your integration settings in Noloco. Here you will see a list of bases that you have shared with Noloco over OAuth along with any bases connected to Noloco already. Any bases that are connected to Noloco with a Permission Level of none are not being synced and you should grant Noloco access to them via your third-party integration settings on airtable.com.

Connect your Airtable base

1. Add your Airtable data source Navigate to the data tab in your Noloco app and click to add a new data source. From the list, choose Airtable.

2. Name your data source It's best practice to call the data source the same name as your base to help you keep track.

3. Find and select your base from the dropdown All of the bases you have shared with Noloco via OAuth will be in this dropdown, if any are missing go to your third-party integrations on airtable.com, find Noloco and grant it access to the required bases.

Once you've entered all this information from Airtable, click 'Next'.

What happens next?

Noloco will analyse the data in your Airtable base and will automatically create tables and views in your app around your data from Airtable.

For example, if you have a table with Properties data in Airtable, we'll automatically create a collection list view, record view to edit individual records and a form to add new Properties data. You can then use our App Builder to configure the display, add filters and set user access levels (i.e. which users can see and update what information).

Supported field types

The field types in Airtable can be broken down into the types that we fully support, types that we support reading (but not updating) and types we do not support and exclude from syncs.

Fully supported field types

The following field types are fully supported by Noloco, both to display in your app and be updated by it.

Field Type	API Name(s)
Attachment	multipleAttachments
Checkbox	checkbox
Currency	currency
Date	date, dateTime
Duration	duration
Email	email
Link to another record	multipleRecordLinks
Long text	multilineText, richText
Multiple select	multipleSelects
Number	number
Percent	percent
Phone number	phoneNumber
Rating	rating
Single line text	singleLineText
Single select	singleSelect
URL	url
Created by	createdby
Last modified by	lastModifiedBy
Collaborator	singleCollaborator, multiplecollaborators

Field types supported only for reading

These field types will be imported into your Noloco app to be displayed, but cannot be updated by your app.

Field Type	API Name(s)
Autonumber	autoNumber
Count	count
Created time	createdTime
Formula	computation, formula
Last modified time	lastModifiedTime
Lookup	lookup, multipleLookupValues
Rollup	rollup

Field types that are not supported

Any types that do not appear in one of the two sections above are not supported by Noloco. These fields will never be imported into your apps. A summary of these fields follows but please note that it may be non-exhaustive if Airtable adds new field types in the future.

Field Type	API Name(s)
Barcode	barcode
Button	button

If you are using Airtable user fields in your base and want to import these to Noloco, we would recommend setting up a user table which has a single user per-row and information about the user in field types which are supported by Noloco. You can then import this table as a user list.

FAQs

How often does my data get synced?

When your app users update data from Noloco, it will be reflected instantly in your Airtable base.

If an update is made to your Airtable base directly (e.g. via an automation), the updated data should be reflected in Noloco in less than 2 minutes.

Can I connect multiple Airtable bases to my one Noloco app?

Yes - you can connect multiple Airtable bases to the same Noloco app. You can also mix and match with other data sources as well (e.g. Noloco Collections or Google Sheets).

Why isn't my Airtable base appearing in the dropdown to connect?

This is caused by one of two scenarios:

1. Your base is already connected to this app. You can check this by going to your data page and looking for the base, or by going to your project integration settings and reviewing the accessible bases modal which will show you the bases which are connected from your account.

2. Noloco doesn't have access to this base from your OAuth integration. To fix this you can check the bases that Noloco has access to by going to your project integration settings and opening the accessible Airtable bases modal. If your base does not appear in this list you have not given Noloco permission to access it. You can grant permission by going to your Airtable third-party integration settings and adding the base to your Noloco integration.

How do I grant Noloco access to particular bases from within Airtable?

Follow these steps to get to your third-party integration settings in Airtable and to ensure Noloco has access to the relevant Airtable base(s) on your account.

1. Click on your account icon in the top right corner

2. Click on Integrations and choose 'Third-party integrations'

3. Click into the Noloco integration and review the Workspaces and Bases that Noloco has access to.

4. If necessary, you can 'Add a base' to ensure that Noloco has sufficient access to a particular Airtable base for your app.

Why won't one of my fields sync?

If you have tried doing a manual sync of your Base's schema but one of your fields still won't appear in Noloco this can mean one of two things:

• We don't support that type of field See the section above on which field types are and aren't supported.

• The name of the field clashes with a previous name of an existing column If you ever renamed a column and now the new field has the same name as that older column we will not be able to sync that field to Noloco until the older, existing field is deleted, or the new field's name is changed (in any way).

Why is my formula field being synced as the wrong type?

Sometimes Airtable will choose different default formatting to Noloco for formula fields. For instance a formula field that is formatted as an integer in Airtable may appear as a decimal when synced to Noloco.

If this happens to one of your fields there is a simple fix to force Airtable to tell us about how we should format the field:

1. Open up the type configuration for your formula field in Airtable

2. Navigate to the formatting options

3. Click save Make sure to save the settings even if the selected format is what you currently see on Airtable; this will make Airtable explicitly tell Noloco how to format your field.

Why is my lookup field being synced without its formatting?

If your lookup field is based on a multi-relationship field (either many-to-many or one-to-many), when we sync it into Noloco we will convert it to a TEXT field and sync its contents as a comma-delimited list of values. The reason for this is that Noloco does not support array or collection types, except for relationships. At the same time we want to make sure that you can see all data for a field displayed in it. To achieve this balance we convert these fields to comma-delimited lists and store the raw data from Airtable inside them, meaning you won't see your formatting applied.

Lookups based on single relationships (one-to-one or many-to-one) will be synced as their underlying type with any formatting brought along. If you need formatting to be applied to a multi-lookup we recommend you look at your data model to see if you can use relationship or single-lookup fields instead.