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Airtable base structure [clean-base system part 2]

A standardized structure of your airtable base is what will enable you to have a solid softr app. This article will detail how to make it happen.

Joachim BrindeauJoachim Brindeau

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clean-base systemairtablesoftr
Airtable base structure [clean-base system part 2]

Table of Contents

Category
clean-base system

Creating view sections

Without airtable pro plan:
The naming convention we previously discussed is meant to be clean but also flexible.
Which is why we don't rely on view sections to understand the data.
If one day the database is downgraded, the structure needs to keep making sense.
You'll see below that the structure still makes sense even without view sections.
Just make sure you order your views correctly.
With an airtable pro plan:
You can create view sections and I will guide you through each of them.

Records

The Records section will group views directly relating to the Records held in the current table.
There should be no lookup fields in there (or maybe just one to quickly see who created the listing).
If it's a job board you're building, in the jobs table, you'll only find views containing information about the job itself.
Here is a screenshot of the Records section in unlock-softr.com’s users table.
notion image

Relations

The Relations section will group views containing information relating to another table.
For a job board, in the jobs table, this section will group views relating to the company hiring, the user who created the job, the applicants, etc.
Here is a screenshot of the Relations section in unlock-softr.com’s users table.
notion image

Technical

Building with SOFTR can very quickly turn into a mess. As such, I recommend creating a section to group views that only have a technical purpose.
This was already introduced in the naming section of this guide (part 1).
The first one will group all your SEO and social fields, the second one will group all fields that are only useful for technical reasons.
Here is a screenshot of the Technical section in unlock-softr.com’s users table.
notion image

Creating mandatory views

Here, we will create views that I consider to be mandatory to every SOFTR build (or even Airtable build in general).
💡
Of course you’ll create more views to accomodate your needs but the following airtable views are needed for a clean foundation.

Records section

There, we should have some mandatory views.
✅
records - information
  • Goal: This view will let us find data about a specific listing.
  • Filtering: There should be no filtering at all here.
  • Sorting: Sorting should be done by name from A to Z to allow any user to quickly find what they look for.
 
✅
records - activity
  • Goal: We'll use this view to track the activity in your base.
  • Filtering: There should be no filtering here.
  • Sorting: Sorting should be made according to the updated field.

Relations section

Depending on your app, you will have different views here. We will dig further into that when setting up the basic structure for a softr app table by table.
For example, when creating the listings table to hold all listings created by your softr users, you will create a view named users - created to list all information about the users who created each listing.

Technical section

✅
technical - seo
  • Goal: This view will let us find metadata as well as Open Graph data about a specific listing.
  • Filtering: There should be no filtering here.
  • Sorting: Sorting should be done by Name from A to Z to allow any user to quickly find what they look for.
✅
technical - workflow
  • Goal: This view will let us find columns that only have a technical function. They do not contain new data but fields necessary to the workflow of your app.
  • Filtering: There should be no filtering here.
  • Sorting: Sorting should be done by Name from A to Z to allow any user to quickly find what they look for.
➡️
Go to the next part of the clean-base system: setting up airtable for softr users
 
Joachim Brindeau

I’m a lawyer who likes to tinker with no-code on his free time.

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