Supercharge Your Productivity by Integrating Airtable and Make

Airtable is an incredibly flexible database platform that allows you to manage your business data in a customizable spreadsheet interface. With its intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can build Airtable bases to track everything from sales leads to product inventory and team projects. But to truly unlock Airtable’s potential, integrating it with a powerful automation tool like Make can transform your workflows.

Make, formerly known as Integromat, is designed for automating workflows and connecting apps together. With just a few clicks, you can build scenarios in Make to connect Airtable to over 1,000 other services, set up triggers based on events in Airtable, automatically transfer data between apps, and create custom integrations. Combining Airtable’s versatility as a database with Make’s workflow automation delivers huge productivity gains.

By syncing your Airtable bases bi-directionally with tools like CRMs, email, calendars, and more, you ensure data consistency across your entire tech stack. Make’s triggers can initiate multi-step processes every time a record is added or updated in Airtable. You can also pull data from outside sources to enrich Airtable records with more context. The end result is powerful, event-driven automation that allows your team to focus on high-value tasks instead of manual busywork.

In this post, we’ll explore some of the ways Make supercharges Airtable by eliminating repetitive manual work, improving team collaboration, and helping you build custom solutions tailored to your unique needs. Let’s dive in!

Sync Data Between Apps

One of the most powerful features unlocked by integrating Airtable with Make is automatic two-way syncing between Airtable and other apps in your workflow (Make.com, 2022). This enables seamless data sharing between systems without any manual work required.

For example, you can set up Make to instantly sync new Airtable records over to tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Sheets, QuickBooks, and Slack. Whenever data is added or updated in your Airtable base, it will automatically flow into the connected apps to maintain consistency. And changes made externally can sync back to update Airtable in real time.

Bidirectional sync eliminates data silos and gives all teams a single source of truth. Sales reps stay up-to-date with the latest prospect details, finance sees the newest invoices, and service agents get customer information as it’s captured. This streamlined data flow powers more aligned, informed decision making across your organization.

With Airtable’s native sync and Make’s integrations, you can build a flexible data pipeline tailored to your stack. Say goodbye to manual data entry and double entry errors. The future of your workflows is automation.

Trigger Workflows from Airtable Events

One of the most powerful features unlocked by integrating Airtable with Make is the ability to trigger automated workflows based on events and changes within your Airtable bases. Make offers incredibly flexible options to initiate workflows when specific criteria are met in an Airtable base.

For example, you can set up a Make scenario to automatically send Slack notifications, update Salesforce records, generate documents, or kickoff approval processes whenever a new record is added to a table. Make scans your base continuously in the background, so as soon as the triggering event occurs, your workflow will spring into action.

Beyond new records, you can also base triggers on record edits, deletions, field value changes, or date/time criteria. If a deadline is approaching, a checklist is completed, a status changes, or any other predefined event happens in Airtable, Make can instantly respond by executing your desired follow-up actions.

This unlocks countless possibilities to streamline your workflows and ensure critical processes initiate automatically when key events occur in Airtable. You can customize triggers and actions to perfectly fit your use cases. As described in the Make integration guide, “workflows that would take hours to manage manually can be automated in minutes.”

For example, you could set up an automation to notify assignees when a new task is created in your Airtable, automatically update invoice status in QuickBooks when paid in Airtable, or add Airtable contacts to Mailchimp when they hit a certain lifecycle stage. The options are virtually endless!

Enrich Airtable Data from External Sources

One powerful capability unlocked by integrating Airtable with Make is the ability to enrich your Airtable records with data pulled in from external apps and APIs. This allows you to augment the data you have in Airtable with additional details and context from other best-of-breed SaaS tools you use.

For example, you could set up a scenario in Make that automatically fetches contact details from LinkedIn to populate fields in your Airtable CRM base. When a new contact record is added or updated in Airtable, Make could call the LinkedIn API to pull in supplemental info like the contact’s full profile, current position, education history, skills, and more. This extra context can help your sales team better understand leads and prospects.

Make can also connect to company databases like Crunchbase to automatically append info like funding details, investor names, acquisition history, and more to company records in your Airtable. This gives you a 360-degree view of accounts right within Airtable that can aid in opportunity analysis.

Other sources you could potentially tap via Make to enrich Airtable include:

• Product data from Shopify or Amazon to supplement inventory/catalog info
• Project details from Asana to link tasks to Airtable records
• Support ticket metadata from Zendesk to enhance customer profiles
• Social media stats from Buffer to track engagement

The ability to bring in data from virtually any external API unlocks limitless possibilities for taking your Airtable records to the next level with richer, more actionable information.

As this Make article explains: Using Airtable with Make

Build Custom Integrations

One of the most powerful capabilities unlocked by integrating Airtable with Make is the ability to build custom integrations with APIs and webhooks. For apps and services that don’t have native connectors, Make provides the tools to create your own tailored integrations.

Using Make’s API and webhook tools, you can connect Airtable to virtually any external system or data source. You can build integrations to sync data, trigger actions, and automate workflows between Airtable and other apps and services in your tech stack.

For example, you could use Make to set up an integration between Airtable and a proprietary internal system or database using APIs. Whenever a record is added or updated in Airtable, Make could push that data into the internal system via API. The integration could also pull data from the internal system into Airtable on a scheduled basis.

Webhooks allow you to trigger actions in Make whenever something happens in an external app. You could configure a webhook so that when data is added to a third-party SaaS tool, it automatically adds a record in Airtable. The possibilities are endless.

This flexibility to create custom integrations ensures Airtable can connect and sync data with all of your business systems. It future-proofs your tech stack, allowing you to adapt it to your evolving needs. No longer limited to just the out-of-the-box integrations, you can build the exact connections you need to supercharge your workflows.

As experts in workflow automation, the team at Make are available to help build and support custom integrations between Airtable and other apps. Get in touch to discuss your integration needs: https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/justinadamski

Eliminate Manual Work

One of the biggest benefits of integrating Airtable with Make is eliminating repetitive, manual work. According to this Make community post, automation can reduce the need for manual data entry and setup in Airtable, cutting down on errors and tedious work.

For example, you can set up automation recipes in Make to automatically populate Airtable records from forms, APIs, and other sources. This avoids the need to manually enter data from multiple places into Airtable. Make can also auto-generate Airtable bases and tables according to your specifications, skipping the manual setup process.

Automating repetitive tasks allows you to focus your efforts on more high-value work. The time savings quickly compound when automating workflows across large datasets or multiple Airtable bases. As this Airtable community thread discusses, Make filters can prevent duplicate records and ensure accuracy as data flows into Airtable.

Overall, integrating Make eliminates drudgery while improving efficiency, data quality, and productivity when using Airtable.

Notifications and Approvals

One of the most powerful uses of integrating Airtable and Make is setting up automatic notifications and approval workflows based on activity in your Airtable bases. For example, you can configure Make to send an email notification to your team whenever a new record is added or a field value changes in Airtable. This keeps everyone in the loop without any manual messages needed.

You can also require approvals before key actions occur. For instance, you could build a workflow where submitting a new project request in an Airtable base automatically sends an approval email to the manager. The manager can then click “Approve” or “Reject” right in the email, logging their decision back to the Airtable record. This creates an audit trail and ensures no steps are missed.

As explained in this Airtable blog post, you can use Make to automatically send approval emails by linking a status field to email triggers. The video from Jason Staats also provides a great overview of how to automate approvals in Airtable using Make.

Setting up notifications and approvals takes the busywork out of managing workflows and keeps everyone accountable. Make’s integration helps Airtable become the central hub for managing business processes from end-to-end.

Automatically Generate Documents from Airtable Data

One incredibly useful automation you can set up is generating documents like PDFs, invoices, reports, and more straight from your Airtable data. The Document Automator integration allows you to connect an Airtable base to Google Docs and create templates that pull in information from Airtable to dynamically populate documents.

For example, when a new customer record is added to your CRM Airtable base, you can automatically generate a personalized welcome PDF by merging their name, address, account details, etc. into a template document. The PDF can then be emailed out right away without any manual work.

You can build templates in Google Docs using merge tags that reference specific Airtable fields. When Make detects a new or updated record in Airtable that matches your criteria, it will create a new Google Doc, swap in the actual data for those merge tags, and convert it to a PDF. This opens up endless possibilities for automated document generation.

Other potential use cases include:
– Invoices generated from order records
– Weekly/monthly reports pulling data from multiple bases
– Personalized sales proposals for prospects
– Custom contracts with client information merged in
– Bulk printable flyers, labels, coupons generated from campaign data

By fully automating these repetitive documentation tasks, you can eliminate many hours of manual work for your team each week. The integration keeps the document output in sync with the latest data in Airtable automatically, ensuring consistency and accuracy.

Check out Make’s guide here for step-by-step instructions on setting up Google Docs integration with Airtable: Document Automator Setup

Update Related Records

One powerful feature unlocked by integrating Airtable and Make is the ability to automatically update related records across linked tables. Airtable’s relational data model allows you to connect records using linked fields, but updating these connections manually can be tedious.

With Make, you can configure automations to cascade changes across related records. For example, when a record is updated in one table, Make can automatically pull the linked record IDs, query the related table, and apply updates to those matching records. This keeps your cross-table data in sync without any duplicate effort.

As this Airtable community user describes, setting up these cascading updates with Make is straightforward, but does require carefully structuring your Make scenario to loop through IDs and update records systematically:

“I am trying to use Make to automatically update record links, based on a generated primary key. I am mainly using this because I am importing data from an API and want to link records without having to manually create the links after the import.”

With some planning, you can build Make automations to propagate changes across related Airtable records automatically. This keeps your cross-table data integrity high and avoids the need for manual updates every time a change occurs.

Enhanced Data Analysis

One of the most powerful uses of integrating Airtable with Make is the ability to easily export Airtable data into Google Sheets for enhanced analysis and visualization. With just a few clicks, you can set up an automation in Make that regularly pushes your Airtable records into a Google Sheet.

Having your data in Sheets unlocks a whole new world of possibilities. You can leverage the full power of Sheets to slice and dice your data, create pivot tables, build charts and graphs, run calculations and formulas, and more. This gives you the ability to spot trends, identify issues, and extract key insights that may be difficult to see directly in Airtable.

For example, you could analyze sales trends by region over time, track product margins, forecast future revenue, rank sales reps by performance, and much more. The options for data analysis are virtually endless in Sheets.

By scheduling regular syncs from Airtable to Sheets, you ensure that your analysis is always up-to-date with the latest data. This helps drive better decision making across your organization by putting robust analytics capabilities in the hands of anyone on your team. The flexibility to visualize and interact with Airtable data in Google Sheets is an invaluable benefit of integrating with Make.

As this article highlights, blending data between Airtable and Google Sheets enables enhanced analysis capabilities and new ways to derive value from your data.

Slack Notifications

One great way to enhance team collaboration and visibility into Airtable activity is to send notifications to Slack whenever certain events occur in your bases. The Airtable Slack integration makes this a breeze to set up.

You can configure rules to post to a Slack channel whenever a record is created, updated, or deleted. You can also notify when collaborators are added or removed from a base. Whenever the specified events happen in Airtable, your team will be instantly notified in Slack so everyone stays in the loop.

According to Airtable’s integration page, you can even set up approvals workflows where Slack messages allow your team to quickly approve or reject actions in Airtable bases. This takes collaboration to the next level.

Posting Airtable activity to Slack channels taps into Slack’s strengths as a communication hub. Your team gains visibility into important base updates without having to constantly check Airtable. This is great for morale, awareness, and productivity.

CRM Integrations

One of the most powerful ways to utilize the Airtable and Make integration is to sync your Airtable contact data with CRM platforms like Salesforce. According to the Airtable website, you can connect your Airtable bases to Salesforce in just a few minutes using tools like Zapier.

This enables you to automatically push contact records from Airtable into Salesforce, keeping both systems up-to-date without any manual duplication of work. As explained in the Airtable support documentation, the platform’s native Sync integration establishes a bi-directional flow of data between the two services.

So any contacts added or updated in Airtable will sync to Salesforce, and any changes made in Salesforce will flow back to Airtable. This ensures consistency across both platforms and gives sales and marketing teams a single source of truth for contact data.

According to Zapier, setting up an Airtable-Salesforce integration only takes a couple minutes and requires no coding. This enables teams to spend less time on data entry and more time building relationships and driving growth.

Inventory Management

Keeping your Shopify inventory synced with Airtable is critical for efficient order fulfillment and inventory tracking. The AirPower app provides seamless integration to automatically sync product inventory levels between Airtable and Shopify in real-time.

Whenever inventory is updated in Shopify, AirPower will instantly push those changes to the connected Airtable base. Likewise, any inventory adjustments made in Airtable will sync to Shopify. This bi-directional sync ensures your inventory data is always up-to-date across both platforms.

With AirPower, you can manage inventory right within Airtable while still having full visibility in Shopify. Bulk edit inventory counts, track stock levels, and get notified when variants are running low. No more logging between apps to check inventory – Airtable becomes your central source of truth.

Plus, AirPower supports syncing inventory for all product types including simple, grouped, and variable products. Whether you have a handful of SKUs or thousands, Airtable and AirPower can handle it.

According to the AirPower app page, key features include:

• Real-time syncing of inventory counts and availability
• Bulk editing of variant inventory levels in Airtable
• Inventory tracking by warehouse/location
• Low stock alerts and notifications

With streamlined Shopify/Airtable inventory sync powered by AirPower, you can efficiently manage stock levels while eliminating duplicate data entry. This helps optimize order fulfillment, minimize overselling, and provide accurate visibility into what variants are available to sell.

Asana Task Sync

One of the most powerful ways to integrate Airtable and Asana is by syncing tasks between the two platforms. This allows you to manage tasks in Airtable while automatically syncing them with Asana projects for seamless collaboration.

With the official Airtable + Asana integration (https://www.airtable.com/integrations/asana), you can set up one-way or two-way syncing between bases in Airtable and projects in Asana. When you create, update or complete tasks in Airtable, they will instantly sync to the connected Asana project. Likewise, any changes made to synced tasks in Asana will update the Airtable base in real-time.

This integration eliminates duplicate data entry and ensures tasks stay up to date across both systems. Your team can take advantage of Airtable’s database flexibility for task management while still getting Asana’s collaboration features like task comments, assignments, due dates, and more.

For even more control, you can use Zapier (https://zapier.com/apps/airtable/integrations/asana) to customize which task fields sync between Airtable and Asana. You can also filter tasks, set up conditional logic, and trigger automations based on task activity.

Syncing tasks is just one way Airtable and Asana work better together. This powerful integration boosts productivity by streamlining your team’s workflow and keeping critical task data synchronized in real-time.

Limitless Possibilities

One of the most powerful aspects of integrating Airtable and Make is the sheer flexibility it provides to adapt your workflows over time as your business evolves. With Make’s visual workflow builder, you can easily modify automations, add new steps, and tweak triggers without code.

For example, you may start with a simple automation to add new Airtable records to your CRM. But later as your needs change, you can expand the workflow to also notify the sales team via Slack, generate a PDF report, and sync inventory data – all with a few clicks and no limitations. The drag-and-drop interface makes it simple to customize workflows to match your requirements.

This agility to easily change and expand automations is invaluable. As you identify new ways to optimize processes, you don’t have to start over from scratch. With Airtable and Make, you can iteratively improve your workflows over months and years to stay ahead of business needs. There’s no telling just how much you can accomplish with enough creativity and the power to make your ideas a reality.

As Angie Hanna from Airtable said, “It’s really limitless – with the integrations and automations – what you can build.” The possibilities are endless when you connect Airtable with Make’s flexible workflow automation platform.

To learn more about building agile workflows that evolve with your business, schedule a consultation with me at https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/justinadamski.