Airtable and Bubble integration - multiple bases for multiple companies?
Hi all,
I’m building an internal tool using Bubble that I may want to scale out to other businesses in the future. In order to handle record limits in Airtable, I’m planning to set up a separate Airtable base for each company that uses my tool.
My question is, would it be possible to have multiple Airtable bases (for example, 10 bases, one for each company) sending data to Bubble repeating groups, and only load the data relevant to each company in the group, without causing any significant performance issues?
I’d appreciate any feedback or advice on this approach, or suggestions for alternative strategies to manage data across multiple companies in Airtable and Bubble.
Thanks in advance!
Pretty sure you can have multiple bases linked to your app. Out of curiosity, why go through the hassle of linking Airtable like this?
What you are describing is giving me ‘PTSD’ and
even scarier; you want to link multiple bases. Have you tested what it’s like linking with Airtable? Did you know that everytime you add/delete fields in Airtable you’ll need to reinitialize the links?
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Hi, thanks for your response! Haha, I apologise for the PTSD. Currently, I’m using Airtable to manage data at firm where I used to work. I contacted them to provide a data management service, digitising all their project data into Airtable. To give the team a better user experience, I’ve built a front-end in Bubble for the team to view all the live data in a nice-looking app that also includes some basic CRUD features. Still, the primary data is added in the backend in Airtable by myself. So far, everything is working great, and they seem happy. I find Airtable very user-friendly and quick to use for data input, so I only see the need to switch to another tool if there is something more suitable that you might recommend.
However, I’m now considering offering this service to other companies. I’m exploring providing a separate white-label front-end app with domains for each company or one central app with multiple linked bases.
Ultimately I’d like to keep it as a single app as it keeps any updates contained to a single app and overall easier to manage. The only reason I’m suggesting separate bases for companies is that Airtabe has a limit of 50k records which would fill up pretty fast if all Companies are sharing.
I have considered using XANO, but for adding and editing the data in the backend, it’s much slower to do than in Airtable and missing features like views. Before I go down this route with Airtable and multiple bases, I wanted to make sure that Bubble could handle it performance-wise or if anyone had any thoughts about doing this another way.
I’d appreciate any suggestions you have on managing data across multiple companies while maintaining the ease of use I have now with Airtable. Thank you!
note I’m aware of the challenges associated with adding and deleting fields in Airtable reinitialize the links, but since the template with set fields in Airtable won’t change once it’s set up, I don’t think this will be an issue.
Hi,
May I ask what was the outcome? Can Bubble work with several Airtable databases/tables for several companies (with each company having access to its own data)? I started to build an analytical solution I’d like to use for several companies (it was an internal tool before; now, I’d like to scale it), but I’m still unsure if it’s feasible with Bubble.
If the above isn’t possible, is there any alternative? E.g. keeping the data in one database and restricting it for unauthorised users?
