Airtable

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Basics

Airtable is a highly functional spreadsheet tool that functions similarly to a relational database. In fact, many young companies use Airtable as their sole source of truth at first!

With Bracket, you can sync any Airtable base with

1. Any SQL database
2. Any NoSQL database, and/or
3. Notion/Google Sheets

We can sync whole tables or specific columns within those tables.

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Supported and partially supported fields

The following Airtable field types are currently supported:

• Single line text
• Long text
• Date
• Phone number
• Email
• Currency
• Multi-select
• Single select
• Collaborator
• Checkbox
• Number
• Last modified by
• Created time
• URL
• Percent
• Duration
• Autonumber*
• Rollup*
• Count*
• Formula*
• Linked record**
• Lookup***

*: Bracket can sync the data as a number or string, but full functionality with the paired tool is not guaranteed and syncing will only be unidirectional. For example, a lookup field in Airtable can sync to Postgres, but updates in that same field in Postgres will not sync back to Airtable.

**: support is in development.

***: support depends on the underlying field type. For example, if a lookup references text fields, Bracket can support the lookup, but if the lookup references attachment fields, Bracket cannot support it.

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Unsupported fields

The following Airtable fields are not yet supported:

• Attachment
• Button
• Barcode
• Rating

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Dates and times

We recommend formatting your date fields in Airtable with the following settings before Bracket starts syncing:

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Supported sync configurations

We know everybody has a different use case for Bracket, and we want to help you achieve it! To that end, we support a number of possible syncing configurations.

Property	Support
Number of Airtable tabs and number of linked databases	We can link any number of Airtable tabs to any number of database tables/collections. Many:1, 1:many, many:many, and 1:1 are all supported.
Number of fields within an Airtable tab synced	We can sync any full set or subset of fields within an Airtable tab to corresponding fields in the database(s).
Bidirectional vs. unidirectional syncs	Of the synced fields, we can define each as unidirectional or bidirectional. That is, an Airtable field can solely read, solely write, or read and write. This helps teams establish implicit permissions over database write access.
Filtering data to stay within Airtable row limits	You can set logic such that Airtable is only reading and writing data within specific parameters, e.g. the last 7 days’ worth of data from the linked database. This helps teams leverage Airtable without hitting row limits.

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Schema changes

There are several possible schema changes you can make in Airtable. Below, we cover whether these changes break syncing for the entire table and how to handle these changes with a Bracket-connected Airtable.

Type of change	Will this break syncing?	What to do
Adding field that does not need to be synced (i.e., an Airtable-only field)	No	Nothing
Deleting a field that is not synced	No	Nothing
Changing the name or field type of a field that is not synced	No	Nothing
Changing order of fields	No	Nothing (note that this will not change the order of the rows or documents in the linked database).
Adding an option to a multi-select or single select field	No	Nothing - this new option will be added to the paired database when used for the first time.
Adding a field you would like to sync	No	The field will not sync until you let us know to start syncing it with the paired database. Ping us on Slack and we’ll set it up right away!
Changing name or case of existing synced field	Yes	Notify the Bracket team via Slack. We will update the connection immediately. If a team member unknowingly makes a change that breaks syncing, we will notify you via Slack to confirm the new schema, then update the connection.
Changing field type of existing synced field (e.g., single line text -> multi-select)	Yes	Same as above
Deleting a synced field	Yes	Same as above

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Row changes

When you change rows in a linked Airtable, certain changes happen in the paired database. Below we list out the default outcome of changes to rows in a synced Airtable tab. To customize any of these default outcomes, just tell us on Slack.

Type of change	Default outcome	Customizable?
Adding row	1. Creates new row in spreadsheet 2. Creates new row in SQL database 3. Creates new document in NoSQL database Note: the document is created as soon as a new record in Airtable is created, not when fields are populated. If you create a new empty row, it will generate an empty document in the database.	Yes
Editing row	If edits are made in a synced field, then edit is pushed to the paired database. Otherwise, the edit only exists in Airtable.	Yes
Deleting row	This does not delete the equivalent row or document in the paired database.	Yes