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How to connect Airtable and WordPress

Are you looking for a way to manage your WordPress content from Airtable? In this article we’ll take a look at some of the options available.

Airpress

Great for: Showing Airtable records on WordPress sites

This free plugin is available from the WordPress plugin repository, and allows you to connect your Airtable account. You can then easily embed the content within your posts using short-codes for displaying, formatting and looping through your base’s fields.

Data is cached, helpfully allowing you to reduce the impact of Airtable’s strict API rate limits. It can also be retrieved from multiple bases.

Perhaps one of the more powerful capabilities is the ability to create virtual posts for your records.You can map a URL pattern to an Airtable table, and when a request is made that matches Airpress will attempt to retrieve the record from Airtable.

You can specify a custom template page that is used to respond to requests if a matching record is found. If no record is found that matches the URL pattern, then a 404 ‘Not Found’ error is shown.

One potential issue with this plugin is its ongoing support. The plugin hasn’t been updated in almost 2 years, and hasn’t been officially tested with the latest 3 major versions of WordPress.

Posts on the support forums are also going unanswered – so while it may work today, it’s unclear what the future holds.

Zapier

Great for: Flexible workflows between WordPress and Airtable

One of the benefits of Zapier is the large number of integrations available. In this case, the integration with WordPress means that you can create some powerful workflows between Airtable and WordPress.

This includes doing things like copying comments made on your posts on WordPress into an Airtable base, or archiving your WordPress posts into a base.

Similarly, you could create WordPress posts for new records when they are added to Airtable views.

Integromat also offers similar functionality if you’re already using it, or would prefer to not use Zapier.

Of course one of the limits you’ll run into with this integration is the cost. It can quickly add up if you’re running lots of Zapier tasks – at the time of writing, you’ll need to start paying if you are triggering more than 100 tasks per month with plans ranging from $19.99USD to $599 USD per month, billed annually.

Meet Google Tables – Google’s Airtable competitor

Google – through its incubator Area 120 – recently announced its own Airtable competitor, Tables. In this post we’ll take a look at how you can get started with Tables.

Meet Google Tables

What is Google Tables?

Think of Tables as a lightweight spreadsheet, similar to Microsoft Access database, or a competitor to Airtable. Using bots, you can create automations that do everything from emailing people when rows are added or changed, to modifying other rows or posting to a webhook.

Google Tables beta, available now in the United States.

Is Tables free?

Yes, there’s a free plan available. However it limits the number of rows you can have in a table to 1000, and you can only have 100 tables in total.

The paid plan ups that to 10,000 rows across 1000 tables, as well as providing more generous attachment sizes and actions.

Why use Tables instead of Google Sheets?

At this point Sheets are far more advanced than Tables. If you’re after functionality like formulas, you’ll want to stick to Sheets.

Tables really shines for lightweight data, like form responses and datasets that you might otherwise look to store in a database.

Be sure to check out Tables pricing too, as Sheets might be able to meet your needs for free.

Also note that Tables is still a part of Google’s incubator Area 120. As such it’s essentially still classified an experiment unlike Sheets, which is a fully-fledged Google product. This means there is no guarantee of Tables continued availability – particularly given Google’s history of losing interest in its experiments.

What other features does Tables have?

Tables allow you to create forms to allow anyone to input data into your tables. The form title, description and submission message can be customised, as can the layout of fields on the page. Each field maps to a field in your table, and can be hidden or marked as required.

The other powerful feature of Tables is automations via Bots. Bots allow you to perform various actions based on a set list of triggers, which include insertion or deletion of rows, column value changes, and cron or time-based.

What’s the difference between a workspace and a table?

A workspace is a collection of tables. Each table stores a particular set of data, organised into columns and rows. Workspaces can be shared with other people.

Where is Tables available?

Officially at the moment only those located in the United States can use Tables. But if you’re still keen to try it out, follow these steps to get access from anywhere.