BuiltOnAir

Welcome to BuiltOnAir, a podcast and video series about all things Airtable. Each episode, we talk with someone active in the Airtable community to discuss their experiences and showcase an interesting way they’ve used Airtable in their work.

Our guest on the podcast today is Cherry Yang, automation pro and developer. Cherry started using Airtable a couple of years ago while working in an operations role, and quickly saw its potential. She and a couple of colleagues put together their first base, a product information database, and before long the entire company was using it.

Ever since then, Cherry says she feels like she’s told every single person in her life about Airtable, including her mom (editor’s note: for the record -  this is something I can totally relate to). Today, she’s an Airtable consultant, working on projects on her own as well as with GAP Consulting. 

The project Cherry shares with us today is an event planning base she created for a music festival in Portland, Oregon. With Airtable, she is able to track stages, event times, and volunteer work. This base is complete with all the bells and whistles, including an email function to send volunteers detailed information about where they need to be, and when. 

Cherry also shares with us a serendipitous story about how she came to start working on this project; it’s worth the listen!

Learn more about Cherry’s Airtable consulting here. 

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BuiltOnAir is sponsored by Openside. 

Openside's newest product, On2Air Forms, is the Airtable forms solution you've been looking for. For a limited time, get On2Air Forms FREE when you purchase the On2Air Actions Zapier connector at openside.com. 

Welcome to BuiltOnAir, a podcast and video series about all things Airtable. Each episode, we talk with someone active in the Airtable community to discuss their experiences and showcase an interesting way they’ve used Airtable in their work.

Today on the BuiltOnAir podcast we travel to France to chat with Ambroise Dhenain: start-up cofounder, CTO, developer, and more. Ambroise has always had a passion for technology and worked for years as a front-end/full-stack developer before co-founding his start-up, Unly.

Unly focuses on providing access to education to students, and among many of his roles with the company, Ambroise heads up the technology team as CTO. He says he was introduced to Airtable by another non-profit organization, and immediately saw the potential in it’s easy to understand and intuitive interface. They didn’t dig in until a couple of months later, but soon they were using it regularly for everything from risk assessment to time tracking.

One thing that Ambroise, and many Airtable users alike, grew frustrated with, was the lack of capabilities with regards to backing up data. In an attempt to fill some of that gap, Ambroise and the team at Unly released an open source software for managing Airtable backups. He demos his product for us today, showing us how a little technical knowledge can help you set up timed backups that will capture entire bases, at whatever time increment you set.

Check out the show notes to learn more about Ambroise, Unly, and their backup software!

Find Ambroise’s Community Forum Post about their software here: Unly Releases an Open Source Software for Airtable Managed backups

Check out Unly

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View the video demo from this episode | https://youtu.be/4C0U7pfNgNU 

BuiltOnAir is sponsored by Openside. 

Openside's newest product, On2Air Forms, is the Airtable forms solution you've been looking for. For a limited time, get On2Air Forms FREE when you purchase the On2Air Actions Zapier connector at openside.com. 

Welcome to BuiltOnAir, a podcast and video series about all things Airtable. Each episode, we talk with someone active in the Airtable community to discuss their experiences and showcase an interesting way they’ve used Airtable in their work.

In this episode, we talk to Abdul Alzanki, a mobile app developer at Khan Academy hailing from the Bay Area who has developed a series of no-code feature extensions for Airtable called miniExtensions. As a long-time Airtable user, Abdul discusses his path toward developing software, and his goal to make Airtable even more accessible to beginners and experts alike. He explains how doing a simple coding exercise for his brother expanded to developing the now 18 extensions he provides on his website to the greater public, with even more on the horizon. Anything from downloading attachments in-bulk to even machine learning is now possible thanks to his work. Abdul demos for us several of his tools in action, showing just how quickly you can add long-awaited features to your bases for a fraction of the cost of developing a custom webapp from scratch.

See Abdul’s website here.

Sign up for the BuiltOnAir newsletter!  

View the video demo from this episode 

BuiltOnAir is sponsored by Openside. 

Openside's newest product, On2Air Forms, is the Airtable forms solution you've been looking for. For a limited time, get On2Air Forms FREE when you purchase the On2Air Actions Zapier connector at openside.com. 

Welcome to BuiltOnAir, a podcast and video series about all things Airtable. Each episode, we talk with someone active in the Airtable community to discuss their experiences and showcase an interesting way they’ve used Airtable in their work.

In today’s episode, we speak with Abby Spyker: Co-Founder and CEO of Northwest Media Collective, an award-winning web and marketing agency based in Vancouver, WA.

With a degree in Photography and Digital Media, Abby followed her passion for problem-solving and founded Northwest Media Collective to help others to find simple solutions to their digital needs. With an emphasis on understanding the big picture, Abby and her team develop in-depth scopes of work for their clients; and Airtable has been a big help.

Abby shares a few sample bases that truly demonstrate the versatility of Airtable. Not only does she use it for the day-to-day operations of her business, but in her home life as well. She first shares with us her Babysitting Tracker, where her babysitter can submit via an online form her hours spent babysitting, and how many kids she was watching. Abby is then able to easily see how much she owes at the end of each week.

Next, Abby shows us her High/Low Estimator, where she has emulated the estimating tools found in some project management systems such as LiquidPlanner. She is able to enter the low and high ends of a time frame for a particular task and calculate the price for each scenario.

Last, we check out an example of a project plan Abby created using Airtable’s page designer blocks. She works around the one-page limitation by using one block for each page and ends up with a beautifully laid out scope of work.

Learn more about Abby and Northwest Media Collective here. 

Sign up for the BuiltOnAir newsletter!  

View the video demo from this episode  

BuiltOnAir is sponsored by Openside. 

Openside's newest product, On2Air Forms, is the Airtable forms solution you've been looking for. For a limited time, get On2Air Forms FREE when you purchase the On2Air Actions Zapier connector at openside.com. 

Welcome to BuiltOnAir, a podcast and video series about all things Airtable. Each episode, we talk with someone active in the Airtable community to discuss their experiences and showcase an interesting way they’ve used Airtable in their work.

In today’s episode, we speak with Jordan Walker; product designer and start-up founder of an exciting new app, YAC Chat. Jordan is a partner at SoFriendly, an entrepreneurial design team in Orlando, and has worked with businesses and startups from large to small to help them create experience-driven products with his designs.

After noticing how much time his team at SoFriendly was spending simply trying to schedule a meeting, Jordan was wishing for an easier way to communicate. Thus, YAC Chat was born. In a world where emails and texts have virtually replaced the phone call, YAC Chat is shaking things up again by emphasizing the power of spoken communication. The app conveniently sits on your desktop or smartphone and allows you to quickly record and send a voice snippet to your colleagues.

Jordan says the time it has saved their team is invaluable, and other businesses are noticing. You can now request access to try it out at yac.chat with a free or pro plan. Check out the show notes for links.

Jordan and his team utilize Airtable for most of their day-to-day operations: investors, user lists, development hours, and more. Today, Jordan shares with us a sample of his development hours tracker, where he can track task assignments and the time spent for each. By using the single-select field for his task names, the base looks beautifully laid out, complete with a splash of color. He also makes use of Airtable’s Form View to capture weekly assessments from his team; allowing him to gauge what tasks are taking the longest and least amounts of time.

Learn more about YAC Chat here. 

Learn more about SoFriendly here. 

Sign up for the BuiltOnAir newsletter!  

View the video demo from this episode  

BuiltOnAir is sponsored by Openside. 

Openside's newest product, On2Air Forms, is the Airtable forms solution you've been looking for. For a limited time, get On2Air Forms FREE when you purchase the On2Air Actions Zapier connector at openside.com. 

Welcome to BuiltOnAir, a podcast and video series about all things Airtable. Each episode, we talk with someone active in the Airtable community to discuss their experiences and showcase an interesting way they’ve used Airtable in their work.

In this episode, we talk to Jonathan Shyman, a web designer and life coach. Although these may seem like two very different jobs, Jonathan shares with us that he uses a similar approach for both types of his clients. He helps people talk through their needs in order to find the best approach or solution to a healthier thought pattern through life-coaching or a better online presence through web design. 

Later, Jonathan walks us through his prototype Airtable base that tracks the progress his life coaching clients make across their sessions. As we go over the base, Jonathan explains the ins and outs of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a method of counseling which aims to help clients identify and avoid self-defeating thoughts in order to become more confident in their everyday lives. Jonathan designed the base to log clients’ thoughts, summarize previous sessions, and prepare agendas for upcoming client meetings using Airtable’s form views and rollup features.

See Jonathan’s web design business here.

See Jonathan’s life coaching business here.

Sign up for the BuiltOnAir newsletter!

View the video demo from this episode.

BuiltOnAir is sponsored by Openside. 

Openside's newest product, On2Air Forms, is the Airtable forms solution you've been looking for. For a limited time, get On2Air Forms FREE when you purchase the On2Air Actions Zapier connector at openside.com. 

Welcome to BuiltOnAir, a podcast and video series about all things Airtable. Each episode, we talk with someone active in the Airtable community to discuss their experiences and showcase an interesting way they’ve used Airtable in their work.

In today’s episode, we speak with Karl Hughes: start-up enthusiast and software engineer. After Karl started speaking at conferences in 2017, he noticed how difficult it was to find a good resource on applying to, and tracking the dates of, the many speaking opportunities that come up each year. Thinking this might be a gap he could fill with his experience in tech, he set off to build CFP Land.

CFP stands for Call for Proposal. When an event is scheduled, a Call for Proposal goes out to invite speakers to apply. CFP Land catalogues data from hundreds of events, worldwide, for conference speakers to access in one place.

In his own words, Karl has long been an advocate for building digital products with off-the-shelf tools, so Airtable was an obvious choice for the first iteration of CFP Land. In today’s episode, he shows us how he manages the back-end of CFP Land in Airtable, and blends in his own programming skills to create one sleek, smooth-functioning site.

Check out Karl’s Blog Here 

Check out CFP Land Here 

Catch CFP Land on Twitter @cfp_land

Sign up for the BuiltOnAir newsletter! 

View the video demo from this episode 

BuiltOnAir is sponsored by Openside. 

Openside's newest product, On2Air Forms, is the Airtable forms solution you've been looking for. For a limited time, get On2Air Forms FREE when you purchase the On2Air Actions Zapier connector at openside.com.

Welcome to BuiltOnAir, a podcast and video series about all things Airtable. Each episode, we talk with someone active in the Airtable community to discuss their experiences and showcase an interesting way they’ve used Airtable in their work.

In today’s episode, I speak with Andrew Poon: tech guru and software engineer. Andrew started his career at Google, working on projects like AdWords and Google Shopping, before becoming VP of Product at Yahoo, and eventually heading out on his own to start his own company. Andrew is now co-founder of Clockworks a company focused on making complex approvals easy to set up and manage.

After noticing a trend in software as a service, Andrew put on his thinking cap and set out to create a platform to put the power of software in the hands of the consumer, and Airtable seemed to be the perfect place to start. He recently launched Clockworks Approvals for Airtable; an easy to use plug-in that allows you to configure detailed approval flows for anything from digital or print assets to wholesale products. In conjunction with the release, he also published three bases to the Airtable Universe which demonstrate how powerful Clockworks can be.

In today’s episode, Andrew demos Clockworks’ Approval system for us. After the initial set-up, a formulated link is added to your Airtable base. Upon clicking the link, the user can send emails directly from their base to the people who need to approve the items in question. Clockworks tracks all activity in a beautifully simple interface; allowing you to see the history of approvals, denials, and comments.

More information on Clockworks here.

Universe Bases:

Clockworks Asset Tracker

Clockworks Approvals

Clockworks Approvals for Buyers

Sign up for the BuiltOnAir newsletter!

View the video demo from this episode

BuiltOnAir is sponsored by Openside. 

Openside's newest product, On2Air Forms, is the Airtable forms solution you've been looking for. For a limited time, get On2Air Forms FREE when you purchase the On2Air Actions Zapier connector at openside.com.  

Welcome to BuiltOnAir, a podcast and video series about all things Airtable. Each episode, we talk with someone active in the Airtable community to discuss their experiences and showcase an interesting way they’ve used Airtable in their work.

Today, we travel to Germany to chat with Tobi Troendle; a strategy consultant and business developer. Having worked for both international corporations and local startups, Tobi is well equipped toward helping entrepreneurs achieve their goals. After discovering Airtable, Tobi wanted to spread the word across Europe and help others to harness the power that it can provide. So, he set to work and created The Airtable Academy: a comprehensive online course that teaches users the ins and outs of Airtable, and how to use Zapier to automate workflows.

In this episode, Tobi shares a creative and easy way to pull excel files out of Airtable, using an app called Parabola. As Tobi demonstrates, Parabola allows you to pull all the data from a table at once, and manipulate your fields so that only the columns you want remain. You can even reorder the columns before exporting. His workflow includes an added bonus for European users: European currency formatting!

Get a discount on Tobi’s Udemy course, The Airtable Academy, with our BUILTONAIR VOUCHER here! 

View Tobi’s website here. 

Sign up for the BuiltOnAir newsletter!  

View the video demo from this episode 

BuiltOnAir is sponsored by Openside. 

Openside's newest product, On2Air Forms, is the Airtable forms solution you've been looking for. For a limited time, get On2Air Forms FREE when you purchase the On2Air Actions Zapier connector at openside.com. 

Welcome to BuiltOnAir, a podcast and video series about all things Airtable. Each episode, we talk with someone active in the Airtable community to discuss their experiences and showcase an interesting way they’ve used Airtable in their work.

In this episode, we talk to Jeremy Taylor, a CNC machinist, and programmer. Jeremy has designed and manufactured components for everything from cake decorators to aerospace companies. He recently launched his own company called Defiant CNC, which focuses on providing machine shops with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system customized to meet their needs, using Airtable of course. 

After Jeremy gave us a run-through of a day-in-the-life-of a machinist, he tells us how Airtable has helped him and his clients with their everyday work tasks. Jeremy walks us through the ERP system he made for his machine shop, which he built using Airtable and Zapier.  He and his team were able to use the Airtable-powered system to manage workflows, facilitate requests for quotes (RFQs), to schedule machining jobs, and to track inventory. 

See Jeremy’s company Defiant here

Follow Jeremy on Social: @defiantcnc

Sign up for the BuiltOnAir newsletter!

View the video demo from this episode 

BuiltOnAir is sponsored by Openside. 

Openside's newest product, On2Air Forms, is the Airtable forms solution you've been looking for. For a limited time, get On2Air Forms FREE when you purchase the On2Air Actions Zapier connector at openside.com.