With the wrong tools and approach, it's easy to get bogged down in data, slowing down decisions and actions. That's why “relational databases” like Airtable came into existence. This is to make it easier for teams to act on the data they have in different contexts.
Branded as an evolution from traditional spreadsheets, the tool allows users to create their own connected apps to suit their unique needs and workflows. In this review, Head of Partnerships Lisa Chomet looks at how well Airtable is working for charity teams.
in one word
intuitive! It's very user friendly and easy to create dashboards and import records. You can build it as you go.
Purpose
Marketing campaign tracking
All marketing campaigns you run with your partners should be tracked. For example, you should be able to see:
- Elements that make up a campaign
- What month is it held?
- Is there a related product list?
- All topics that need to be associated
- The type of content they are working on with us.
Airtable allows you to organize different views for different people, so your colleagues can see the right information at the right time in an easy-to-understand format without having to resort to too many filters.
customer relationship management
We also use it to process leads, so all interactions with your charity's leads are locked and tracked. Again, it is very easy to create different views and apply relevant filters. This allows one person to quickly and efficiently see what needs to be done and when.
We also used Airtable's automation capabilities to automatically send reminders to leads who haven't re-engaged for a long time. This is a huge time saver and allows your team to focus on other more pressing tasks.
Check in with the team
I also use Airtable to check in with my colleagues every week. We use this as a form to allow people to enter a “snippet” to say the task we're working on and share that information with your organization. I'll also share what I had fun with last week.
Everyone receives a weekly report on everyone's responses. This is an interesting way to understand what teams are working on across your organization.
Features
The most notable feature is the ability to create different views and apply filters. This allows you to display as many different views as you want on one dashboard, for example, making it much easier to use than an Excel spreadsheet.
It also includes different types of fields and the ability to add numbers and create totals, making it a great tool for extracting simple reports. There are also a number of extensions, such as pie charts, which are very useful.
learning curve
The learning curve wasn't too steep when using this product for the first time. Everything was smooth and intuitive. I started by importing a large Excel spreadsheet, and it was easy to find the right columns and identify the most common fields.
Moving from Excel to Airtable to sort and understand data was easy. I also like the fact that the categories come in a variety of colors, making it easy to use even for visual people like me.
The only downside is that when I previously imported information that included dates, the formatting was not very helpful. It was a little difficult to fix. However, I think it's mainly due to the format of the original file.
value for money
Airtable has free, paid, and enterprise plans. Different levels of paid versions offer a certain number of records, autoruns, attachments, and other features.
Therefore, it is a good value for money, especially if you have a small number of dashboards and multiple views on each dashboard.
Airtable Pros and Cons
I think the appeal of Pro is that it's intuitive, easy to use, and very flexible when importing files from other platforms.
However, Con has a limited number of extensions and the fact that the information can be difficult to read if you try to use Airtable as a mini customer relationship management system.
final score
I give this product a score of 8 out of 10. I think this is a great way to manage lots of records and understand data using great analytical tools, even if you're not a CRM expert.
Lisa is Head of Partnerships at Charity Digital. She drives the growth and development of strategic partnerships with organizations working in the philanthropic sector.
