Airtable project management: Easy-to-use project management tool

[.blog-callout]

TL;DR

• Learn how to use Airtable's relational structure and views (Kanban, Gantt, Calendar) to track project progress.
• Address native tool limitations like basic permissions and lack of custom dashboards or in-app chat.
• Discover how to turn your project data into a secure portal with roles, workflows, and dashboards using Softr. [.blog-callout]

Whether you're on a small in-person team or an international remote one, a good project management tool is the best way to track your team's work and streamline how it gets done.

But too often, the task of onboarding a new app, training your team, and transferring project data keeps teams from taking the plunge.

That's why it helps to find project management software with a user-friendly interface, a fast ramp-up time, and the option to connect the tools you already use.

Airtable is a flexible, cloud-based platform that helps your team manage projects and tasks without the usual complexity.

In this article, we'll walk through how Airtable handles project management, and how a tool like Softr turns your Airtable data into a secure, full-stack project tracker your whole team can actually use.

Examples of Airtable's project management features

Airtable's relational database and spreadsheet app enables teams to access information and monitor project data.

Airtable allows you to create and share relational databases to organize and manage projects in various views including Calendar, Gantt, and Kanban.

But that's only the beginning of how you can use the powerful tool to track your progress.

Here are the most popular ways that small and remote teams are using the project management solution.

• Centralizes your data
• Customizes views
• Automates recurring tasks
• Has a robust API and extensions, formerly apps, that allow for numerous integrations

Let’s take a deeper look into how these key features support Airtable project management.

1. Centralize your data

Airtable automates relationships between tables so that you have a central hub for all your information. Easily create custom views to gain valuable insights across different project management tasks.

Because of the tool’s relational nature, you can easily link different tables together, and any changes made to either dataset will automatically update in all the right places.

💡 For example: Let’s say you’ve divided your data into projects, and their related tasks.

Imagine you have a "Social Media Marketing" project with a task called "Sharing Brand Identity."

If you change the status for that task from “in progress” to “Behind,” you’ll immediately see that change reflected in the overall project.

Image source: Airtable Universe

Airtable can store between 2GB to 1,000GB of data per base or project, depending on your plan, including

• Photos and videos
• PDF files
• Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets files

2. Customize and create different views

Airtable offers custom view options for your team to view information in whatever format suits them best.

This gives team members further visibility so that you can streamline workflows and easily track progress.

Common Airtable views include:

• Grid view is the default view in Airtable. It looks just like a classic Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
• Calendar view displays records on the calendar to help the team meet due dates consistently.
• Gallery view highlights visual attachments, showing your data as a large card.
• Kanban board is a popular dashboard view style used by Trello and ClickUp. It's ideal for a project team that tracks project status step by step. In Kanban, tasks are shown as stacked cards.
• Gantt Chart view is perfect for complex, multi-step initiatives. Here, tasks are shown across the x-axis, and a timeline showing tasks' duration to completion is displayed along the y-axis.

A Kanban board is often the most intuitive of these for day-to-day work. Dragging a task between status columns is far easier for most team members than reading and editing a status cell in a grid.

💡 For example: Check out the video below by Gareth Pronovost from GAP Consulting to get a better view on improving your workflow with Airtable's flexibility.

3. Automate recurring tasks

Airtable saves you further time and decreases the risk of manual errors by allowing you to automate recurring project management tasks.

This key feature lets us create custom workflows and templatize our projects and tasks.

💡 For example: Let's say you need to manually create a new record for your team’s recurring weekly sprints. You can easily set up Airtable to automatically create triggers and actions for you.

All you need to do is set a "Condition" and "Trigger."

For example, you might set a "Condition" for when someone marks the sprint project status as "Complete," and a "Trigger" for Airtable to create a new record for you.

4. Do more with a robust API and extensions

Airtable’s robust API allows you to integrate with over 1,000 websites and apps.

There are several ways to take advantage of these integrations, like building an Airtable front-end to share different views with various stakeholders, or connecting to your own product data.

💡 For example: You can integrate your project data with Github, so your team members can access Airtable data directly from Github and vice versa.

This allows for a seamless data flow system between tools and database solutions.

You can also integrate blocks (mini-apps) and extensions (previously called apps.) For example, you can add a time-tracking block to boost your productivity, or integrate Loom to help you better communicate asynchronously with your team members and stakeholders.

How to use Airtable for project management

Airtable’s familiar spreadsheet-like interface, paired with powerful database capabilities and a strong API, makes it the perfect solution for basic project management.

Let’s go over some of the basic steps of how to use Airtable as a project management tool.

• Narrow down your specific needs and expectations
• Create your collaborative workspace
• Create a base from scratch or choose a template
• Populate your template or your base with data
• Add your team

Step one: Narrow down your specific needs

Be clear about your goals and expectations before you get started.

This will ensure you take advantage of the variety of templates and collaboration features. It will also give you the chance to check out which integrations can help boost your workflow.

Ask yourself, are you looking to:

• Manage your team's performance?
• Track progress against milestones?
• Reduce errors in standardized workflows?
• Share valuable insights on project success with stakeholders or clients?

💡 For example: If you’re a social media manager, you could need Airtable to help you:

• Create brand hashtags;
• Interview industry experts;
• Create Instagram posts;
• Write Tweets;
• Meet with the marketing team.

All of these different needs can become tasks, subtasks, or full-on projects in later steps.

Step two: Create your collaborative workspace

When you first log in to your Airtable homepage, you’ll see all the workspaces you’re part of.

Chances are that if you’re a new user, you’ll see “My First Workspace” already created for you.

Workspaces house your bases so you’re more organized.

To create another workspace, just go to Workspaces on the lower left-hand corner of the screen, click on Add a workspace, and give it a name. Now you can go ahead and create a base.

Step three: Create a base from scratch or choose a template

If you're new to Airtable, we recommend you start by looking at the variety of templates available for free.

Airtable offers various templates for project management, so you don’t have to start from scratch. But if you’re an Airtable wiz, or up for a challenge, you can start from zero.

To create a base, head over to your Homepage>Add a base. Here, you can choose to either import your previous data, check out some templates, or start from scratch.

Check out the video below for an in-depth tutorial.

Step four: Populate your template or base with your data

After finalizing your template, start populating it with your own data. To import data from a CSV file or another spreadsheet, open your base, and click on Import data on the top left-hand corner of your screen.

To import your data, open your base, then click Import data.

Step five: Add your team

Lastly, invite your other team members to begin collaborating on your new project.

On the top right corner of your screen, click share. From here, you can either invite your team members through an email invite or create and share a link to the base.

When you're ready to invite your team members, click Share in the top-right corner of your screen.

Turn your project data into a real project tracker app with Softr

Airtable is a great place to structure project data, but a base on its own isn't a project management app. Your team still has to learn the Airtable grid, everyone tends to see everything, and there's no polished interface for clients or stakeholders.

This is where Softr comes in. Softr is a full-stack platform for building business apps without code, so you can put a secure, branded project tracker on top of your data. You can build on Softr Databases for native speed and higher limits, or connect your existing Airtable base along with 17+ other data sources. On top of that data, you get a visual interface builder, granular users and permissions, native Softr Workflows, and AI built into every layer.

"It only took a couple of days to build the entire portal, including permission leveling and custom workflows. The setup was very easy. We were up and running in just a couple of hours." - Casey H., Advisor (Small Business), G2 review

The fastest way to build: describe it to the AI Co-Builder

The quickest path is to describe what you need and let Softr's AI Co-Builder build it for you. Tell it something like "a project tracker where managers see all projects and team members only see tasks assigned to them," answer a couple of clarifying questions, and the AI generates a complete app: database tables with relationships, pages, Kanban boards and dashboards, and user groups with the right permissions.

Prefer a head start with a proven structure? You can also begin from our free project management template, or build from scratch with full visual control. Whichever path you pick, everything the AI creates stays fully editable, so you're never locked into prompting.

Start with the right data structure

Success in Softr is 80% data structure, so start with your tables before building any pages. A simple project tracker usually needs a Projects table, a Tasks table linked to it, and a Users table for your team. You can build this schema visually in the database editor, or describe your data structure to the Database AI Co-Builder and it generates the tables, fields, and relationships for you.

If your project data already lives in Airtable, you can import the whole base into Softr Databases for faster performance, or keep it in Airtable and build the interface on top.

Give every role its own secure view

Airtable's permissions are basic, but Softr lets you decide exactly who sees what. Using user groups and global data restrictions, a manager can see every project while a team member only sees their own tasks and a client only sees their own deliverables. These rules act as a global firewall, so data stays isolated even if you forget a filter on a single block.

"Once you get used to Softr's logic, it becomes quite fast to build complex interactions between databases and automatic reports. I use Softr for building a combined tool that manages internal and external workflows. It solves the problem of sharing data with user restrictions." - Michael W. B., Director of Sales and Operations (Small Business), G2 review

Add dashboards, automations, and AI

Once your pages are in place, add a dashboard with KPI cards and charts so managers can see open tasks, overdue work, and progress at a glance. You can build these blocks manually or ask the AI Co-Builder to add them for you.

For automation, Softr Workflows is the native engine. Because workflows are triggered directly by UI actions and database changes, you can do things like notify a team member in Slack the moment a task is assigned, or run an AI step to summarize a project's activity. You configure these visually, or describe the automation to the Workflow AI Co-Builder and it builds the logic for you.

For anything that doesn't exist as a standard block, like a custom timeline or a specialized calculator, the Vibe Coding block generates a custom component from a plain-language prompt. It inherits your app's theme, connects securely to your data, and respects your permissions, so you get custom UI without the risk of breaking the rest of your app.

Airtable project management benefits

There are quite a few advantages to using Airtable for project management. Some of these advantages are:

• Pre-built templates;
• Highly adaptable;
• Easily integrates with other database solutions.

Let’s take a closer look.

1. Pre-built templates

One of Airtable’s most useful features is its pre-built project management templates. This is perfect for smaller teams and startups who are looking for fast and easy ways to start optimizing their workflows, and don’t need tons of customization.

Airtable’s pre-built project management templates are perfect for newer users, or smaller teams who are looking for fast and easy ways to get started.

2. Adaptability

Airtable is a highly adaptable tool because:

• Its familiar spreadsheet-like interface makes it easy for any user, with any amount of tech-savviness, to get started.
• Its free plan allows smaller teams and startups to get their business off the ground with minimal costs. Not many tools offer a free plan, especially one with features that are actually helpful. Just look at Airtable vs. Smartsheet.
• It easily integrates with third-party plugins, apps, websites, and platforms like Softr to help you optimize your workflow. An integration with Softr also means having the option to add a team wiki or knowledge base on top of your project management platform if you ever need it.

Connect Airtable to a no-code app builder like Softr to adapt and scale your project management as your team grows.

3. Easy to integrate with other database solutions

If you’ve been working with other spreadsheet tools or database solutions like Microsoft Excel, or Google Sheets, you can easily transfer your data to Airtable.

Easily import your previous data to Airtable from a CSV file, Microsoft Excel, or Google Sheets.

And, if your project requires you to go back and forth between Excel and Airtable, you can also integrate the two tools so once new data is entered into Excel, a new record will automatically be created in Airtable.

Airtable project management challenges

Airtable provides useful functionality for project management, like automations and customizable views, but it does have a few drawbacks worth knowing about.

• No complex communication capabilities;
• Higher learning curve compared to other tools;
• No granular user permissions;
• Only available in English.

1. No complex communication capabilities

When making other tool comparisons, like looking at Airtable vs. Monday.com, Airtable falls short of complex collaboration capabilities. For example, while Airtable allows users to put comments on a row, it doesn’t have an in-app chat function that can give context to a discussion, like Monday.com does.

Softr fills this gap for Airtable users by offering an instant messaging integration that enables peer-to-peer, in-app, communication.

Softr offers users the peer-to-peer Atom Chat integration to make up for the lack of real-time communication tools in Airtable.

2. Higher learning curve compared to other tools

Airtable is a highly complex tool that allows for a variety of use cases. But this complexity also means it takes longer to set up initially. However, there are many Airtable templates available to get you started. And if you have a specific use case you can’t find a template for, there’s always Airtable Universe, a platform filled with bases created by Airtable expert users.

Airtable Universe is a collection of bases created by expert Airtable users and can help specific projects get off the ground more quickly.

3. Lack of granular permissions

Airtable does have certain permissions levels like

• Workspace owner;
• Workspace collaborator at the editor level;
• Workspace collaborator at a commenter level;
• Base collaborator at the editor level.

However, these permissions are pretty basic and no different from a normal Google Doc, for example.

Luckily, you can easily integrate the cloud-based platform with a third-party integration tool to get so much more out of the spreadsheet app.

Softr elevates Airtable by offering granular permissions that make sure users only see the information that’s relevant to them.

For example, a marketing employee won’t be able to access the same tasks or documents as a team leader. This reduces information overload and increases data integrity.

With Softr, you can add roles and conditional permissions to make sure only the appropriate team members can access certain information.

4. Only available in English

Right now, Airtable is only available in English, which makes it harder for international teams to manage projects effectively.

Take Airtable project management to the next level

Airtable is a great place to structure project data, but on its own it stays a base, not the secure, easy-to-use app your team and clients deserve.

The fastest way to close that gap is to describe your project tracker to Softr's AI Co-Builder and let it build the pages, Kanban boards, dashboards, and permissions for you. If you'd rather start from a proven structure, grab our free project management template and make it your own.