Am I reading your website correctly that this extension is $10/base/month? Is it necessary to purchase a license before using the extension? Do you offer a trial version or limited functionality for free? (I believe that used to be a requirement that Airtable had. It would be good to know if Airtable dropped that requirement for third-party marketplace extensions.
That’s correct. I tried to keep the pricing as simple as possible. You don’t have to purchase a license before using it. You get to use one ‘Configuration’ in the extension free.
A Configuration works like this:
- Select a Table
- Select a Linked Record field
- Select one of two modes for updating the Linked Record field
- Linked Record Selector: Select a record from the table associated with the selected linked record field and update the field with the selected field
- Match to Existing Field: Select another field to ‘match’ to the linked record field whenever it updates. For instance, I use Single Select fields often. I like how they look and function better than Linked Record fields, especially for client bases. When the Single Select field is updated, that new value is added to the Linked Record field
- Choose whether to Append the selected record to what already exists in that Linked Record field, or Overwrite it.
- Turn it on.
(sorry for the long-winded explanation, I just thought it would paint a clearer picture)
Is your extension designed to be always open?
I’m assuming this is the case, as frankly, I’m not sure it’s possible to operate an extension without it being ‘open’. I just developed under the assumption that this had to be the case.
I suppose I could consider some sort of server ping to ‘wake’ the base and extension, but I haven’t considered it before now.
Is there a setting to do a faster one-shot update?
It depends on what Airtable ultimately allows me to do. I’ve considered batch-updates, but I’m relatively new to Airtable extension development, so I’m not entirely certain what’s allowed or possible.
I’ve toyed with the idea of unlocking faster updates when you purchase the subscription, alongside some other additional features. That way free users can still access the extension and the free Configuration, but the subscription is made more attractive.
What happens if there is no matching record in the target table? How does your extension handle that situation? Will it create a record, show a message, make the link whenever a matching record in the target table is created, or something else? What if the primary field value of the target table changes? Will existing links be changed?
The plugin updates by record ID. Based on the selected record (or, matched record), a record ID is found and updated with that record ID. So, if the primary field changes, it shouldn’t (theoretically) break the extension.
If I’m being 100% brutally honest, I coded the extension for myself and while I was rather proud of it, I didn’t know how much people would like it, so it’s versatility was limited. For instance, the ‘Match to Existing Field’ function only works with single select and date fields. It does - technically - work with Short Text and Long Text fields, and even some formula fields, but those are not offically supported.
It’s turning out to be surprisingly popular, so I will probably develop it further, but I mostly wanted to see if people were interested at all.
Thank you for the thoughtful questions, @Kuovonne. I hope this wasn’t too long-winded of a reply.
I have quite a few projects going on, but depending on this extension’s popularity, I may devote more resources to it.