Any Plan On Adding Something Similar to Block In Airtable
Since you don't have a public roadmap, I'd like to know if there are any plans on adding something similar to Blocks in Airtable?
Airtable Blocks allow users to add special functionality to bases (same as Podio Apps) in Airtable. For example, they have a time tracker block that tracks time and adds it to a record. They also have Google Hangouts, Clearbit, translate function, and various import/export options.
The ability to easily add extra functionality to various apps/records in Podio would be a big move and help you compete against the Airtables of the world.
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I love the potential of Airtable. It has a lot going for it and I keep regular track of the new features and capabilities. Airtable blocks are pretty interesting, but in general Airtable Blocks barely scratch the surface of what's possible with Globiflow and/or 3rd party Podio extensions.
Here's just one example of the unfulfilled promise of Airtable Blocks: when Airtable Blocks first came out, I started experimenting with the Block for SMS/Twilio. With this Block you can bulk-send an SMS to a contact list. This seemed great, until I discovered that Airtable has no way of collecting the responses to the SMS from the recipients, into the contact records. (You can't even do this with Zapier and Airtable). It's a frustratingly incomplete solution, unlike this http://www.globiflow.com/blog/sending-sms-text-messages-with-podio.php, or this: https://podio.com/market/packs/148859-twilio-2-way-sms-text-messaging
Airtable has two significant deal-breakers today:
- No ability to link tables across different bases within the same Airtable workspace. This is a HUGE limitation, as it means you can't have any sort of centralized table, such as a contact list, that can be referenced across multiple bases. The only workaround is to duplicate the data across each base. (this limitation is discussed extensively in the Airtable community forum: https://community.airtable.com/t/link-to-other-base/107/342
- No webhooks to enable "if this, then that" automation (a la Globiflow). Right now, Airtable has no capability in the platform to trigger other events based on a record change (only on a record create) This means Airtable really has no workflow automation capability and is purely a tool for organizing data. (This is discussed in the Airtable community forum: https://community.airtable.com/t/webhooks-for-records/1966/84I expect that Airtable will eventually address these limitations, but until that point I see Podio as a far superior solution.
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