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all right welcome back into the built on
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air podcast good to be back with everybody
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ali Kamille and myself Dan back with you
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talk about all things Airtable and keep
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you up to date on all the latest
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increased functionality and features today
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we’re doing another deep dive into
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specific functionality around sandboxes
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and how those work so Kamille’s going to
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walk us through that
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Before we jump into that,
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I was gonna show,
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let me share my screen.
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And.
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So yeah, on the what’s new,
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there was a couple of things added in
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April.
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I don’t know how new these are,
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but they’re at least announcing custom
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elements.
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Did anything change with this?
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Or is this just finally announcing this
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functionality?
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I think it’s a formal release.
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Gotcha.
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Yeah.
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And now when you go, at least in,
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yeah,
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this is what I was about to bring
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up,
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is now when you go to create a
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new interface page,
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that’s like right at the top.
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What I still find frustrating is this will
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create an element on a dashboard only.
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You can’t drive where that will land.
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And it seems to kind of just pick
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the first dashboard or create a new one
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if you don’t already have one.
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But then you can take that code and
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get it into a different,
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you can copy it and paste it into
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a different screen.
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To get to an actual full page custom
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interface,
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the only way I’ve figured out how to
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do that is to start from the data
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layer and open Omni and ask it to
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create a custom interface.
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I can’t do it in another way unless
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anyone has suggestions.
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So when you do this,
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it doesn’t create a full custom?
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No, it creates a dashboard.
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It creates a dashboard element.
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So you can like like a number.
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You know how like there’s numbers, charts,
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lists on a dashboard layout.
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It that’s that’s where this will land.
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At least a few times I’ve tried it.
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Interesting.
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If you don’t use Omni,
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you can create a full page custom
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extension by clicking the custom option,
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but that requires that you code it
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yourself.
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Right, because every time I do that,
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it’s like you don’t have any custom
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extensions and then that’s
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I have not even figured out how to
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get beyond that screen.
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Is that when you have to connect the
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SDK somehow on a different end?
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Yeah,
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you have to have it installed on whatever
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machine you’re on.
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You should be able to create new from
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there.
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And if not,
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that’s interesting user experience.
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There’s a lot about custom extensions for
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interfaces that don’t feel connected.
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Like Ali just said,
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if Omni creates it for you,
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it’s not necessarily counted as your
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custom extension.
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So the next time you try to add
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it,
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it’s not going to recognize that it
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exists.
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You have to copy and paste the code
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from one place to another.
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So you have two different methods of
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reusing a custom extension for interfaces
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and they’re not at all connected.
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And then the first option that they’re
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talking about here,
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creating a dashboard element and not a
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full page custom extension is also an
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interesting choice.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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That’s interesting.
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Okay.
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So that’s,
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So I was going to say,
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I have found reasons for liking the
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dashboard element because then I can have
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it next to, you know,
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other native pieces so that like,
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not only just for checking the data,
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like making sure that the code it wrote
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is pulling the right stuff, but I dunno,
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I often then move it to a full
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page after I’ve done all that,
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but we’ll see.
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Yeah.
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All right, there’s another one.
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They’ve been talking a lot about their MCP
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connector.
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So they released a new MCP a little
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while ago and now they have it integrated
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directly into cloud.
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So you can add it directly into your
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cloud client and use.
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So that’s kind of cool.
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I don’t really use this approach.
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I kind of,
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I have done a lot of like Claude
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scripting with Airtable,
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but if you give it,
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like Claude already knows the API for
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Airtable,
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and so I just have it write scripts
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that just use the API directly.
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I haven’t really found a need to…
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go through the MCP approach.
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It kind of adds an extra layer of
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abstraction and complexity that I don’t
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think is fully necessary.
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So I don’t know.
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But that’s also writing scripts and codes
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and stuff.
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So my world is not as needed.
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I’ve personally I have not used it yet.
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The more I get into writing code with
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Claude,
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the more I’m thinking about where I would
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use this is just so that it can
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easily reference my schema as I’m talking
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about the things I want to change.
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Because often like I’ll say, oh,
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I want to add this and it has
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to come back and ask me for the
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field IDs so that I can write the
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code correctly.
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But if it just knew them,
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that would be good.
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But I’ve had clients and colleagues talk
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about great success using this to get an
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overview on their entire workspace and ask
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it to find where they have holes in
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their data structure and what they can
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improve and optimize.
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And they said they were blown away.
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So that could be cool.
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Yeah, that’s cool.
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Yeah, I could see that.
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Where it’d be interesting…
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I’m really curious to see how Airtable
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approaches the whole AI movement,
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because the MCP is still limited by what
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the AI can do.
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And so I’m hopeful that this whole push
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for AI and MCPs pushes Airtable to enhance
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their API to allow for more interaction,
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more access.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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All right,
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last one looks like a little bit of
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love given to the admin panel users,
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some just kind of UI improvements.
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Yeah, if you’re in a large enterprise,
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loading the users page was painful.
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It’s less painful now, which is good.
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If you go back to the previous screenshot,
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they basically paginated the response,
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which is different from how they’re
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paginating bases.
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I feel like this is the more standard
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approach of just give you literal pages
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and you can define,
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show me fifty at a time or a
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hundred or two fifty or whatever.
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Whereas if you were looking at a
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particularly large view and a base,
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it’s like, well,
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here’s a thousand of those records.
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Hopefully it’s the ones that you’re
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looking for unless you want to view all
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of them.
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There’s no happy medium.
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So I’m wondering if this is kind of
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like them testing the waters of here’s
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some pagination for a large data set of
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some kind.
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Other than what is kind of shown here,
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there’s like minor tweaks,
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like they’ve organized the sidebar for
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navigation in the admin panel with nothing
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in the way of like new features
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necessarily.
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Yeah, yeah.
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That’s good.
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They are thinking about the admin panel.
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All right, with that, close that.
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Okay, Kamille, put your screen on,
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there you go.
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Yeah,
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so we’re going to talk about sandboxes,
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which is a somewhat newer feature for
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Airtable.
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It has been released for a little bit,
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and it was in an extended beta for
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a while before that.
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But it’s not as, I don’t know,
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I don’t really hear too many people
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talking about sandbox all that much,
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even though it’s a useful feature.
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But it does have, I would say,
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quite a lot of gotchas.
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Sandbox is available for business and
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enterprise scale plans.
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So you can’t have it on any lower
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of a plan.
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But the general idea of a sandbox is
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I want to make some changes to the
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schema, the automations, the interfaces,
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the forms of this base,
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but other people are in it.
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So if I start deleting columns and adding
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new tables and really adjusting some
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foundational things about this base,
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I’m going to ruin a lot of people’s
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days.
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So the idea of turning on a sandbox
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is I can enable this other layer,
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thinking of it as a draft mode,
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or if you’re familiar with traditional
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development,
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it’s a lower form of Git where you
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open a branch and you start drafting all
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of the changes that you want to make.
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And when you’re ready,
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there’s a publish button to publish all of
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your changes to the normal base,
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which they call production.
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So how do you create a sandbox?
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Really simple.
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You click on the name of the base.
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If you’re on business or enterprise,
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you should see the sandbox section.
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It’s going to explain to you what the
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sandbox is.
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I’m going to go ahead and create a
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sandbox.
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Depending on how large the base is,
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this might take a minute,
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a couple minutes.
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You see I got briefly that message that
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said this is taking longer than expected,
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so I’m going to get an unnecessary email
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saying that it’s ready.
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I see that it’s ready.
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Visually, not too much has changed.
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It’s going to tell me that, hey,
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there is a sandbox for this space.
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There was that pop up in the top
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right.
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But there’s now this switch between
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production and sandbox.
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There are certain features that are
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immediately disabled from me making any
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adjustments to in the production view,
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which is where I am right now.
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So if I double click description,
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for example,
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I can’t change anything about this field.
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I can’t rename it,
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can’t add a description,
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can’t change its field type,
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can’t do that.
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i can modify views so i can hide
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and show columns i can filter i can
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create new views so i’m just going to
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quickly create a new personal view you’ll
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notice that locked view is missing that’s
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basically because that is considered a
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schema change so airtable is saying you
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can create a locked view but only if
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you’re in the sandbox
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So I’m going to say, KP,
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this is a personal view.
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And you’ll see why I’m making example
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views in a second.
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And I’m going to create a locked view
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preemptively.
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Regular collaborator view,
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and I’m going to lock it once I
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get to the sandbox.
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If I go to automations,
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similar to making schema changes,
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this tooltip says I don’t have permission
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to switch it on.
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What it really means is that Sandbox is
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active,
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which means if I want to turn this
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on, I have to go to Sandbox,
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turn it on, and publish that change.
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I can test automations.
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So if you need to manually run something,
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you can still do as you’ve done before
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and pick test records,
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or you could test the whole thing at
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once as long as there’s not a loop
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in it.
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That still works as expected.
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If I go to interfaces,
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I don’t believe I published any.
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Oh wait, no, I did.
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The UI is just weird.
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I always forget that, um,
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interfaces will behave the way that you
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expect them to.
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Um, but you can’t edit them directly.
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Of course you must edit them in the
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sandbox.
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Same thing with forms.
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So I’m going to go back to the
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data layer and I’m going to switch to
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sandbox now.
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What happens when you’re in a sandbox?
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First of all,
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all I did was switch the toggle.
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If you have a larger base,
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this might take a little bit longer to
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switch back and forth.
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I haven’t noticed it being that bad,
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to be honest,
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for even large bases that have a sandbox
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active.
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I have this sidebar that comes up that
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says sandbox changes.
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As I start making adjustments here,
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it’s going to keep track of what those
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adjustments are so that when I’m ready to
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publish these changes,
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I can submit them all or just submit
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the ones that I’m ready to publish at
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a given time.
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similar to publishing changes to an
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interface,
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but you’ll see it’s a little bit more
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detailed.
[00:13:59]
I’m going to get rid of this because
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I know I’ve already used this before.
[00:14:03]
Something that I want to make very clear,
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when you first create a sandbox,
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it’s basically duplicating the base.
[00:14:12]
All of the IDs that are related to
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this base are the exact same,
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which is great for scripting,
[00:14:20]
except for the base ID.
[00:14:22]
The sandbox has a different base ID than
[00:14:24]
the production base ID, but the table IDs,
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view IDs, field IDs,
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even record IDs are exactly the same at
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the point that you make a duplication.
[00:14:37]
That’s true of basically any method of
[00:14:39]
duplicating a base.
[00:14:41]
The difference is if I go in and
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I add a brand new field, new field,
[00:14:52]
And I publish this change.
[00:14:53]
Production is going to have the same field
[00:14:55]
ID for this.
[00:14:56]
That is not true if I just duplicated
[00:14:58]
a base.
[00:14:59]
The new field in base A and base
[00:15:02]
B would have different field IDs.
[00:15:04]
They have the same field ID in sandbox.
[00:15:06]
So solid choice there.
[00:15:08]
It keeps things consistent from a schema
[00:15:10]
perspective.
[00:15:13]
But when it’s duplicating the base at,
[00:15:16]
you know, when you enable sandbox,
[00:15:20]
it does not keep your records in sync.
[00:15:23]
And in fact,
[00:15:24]
sandbox does not consider changing records
[00:15:27]
to be a change that can be published.
[00:15:30]
So if I go in and I delete
[00:15:32]
two of these records in this table,
[00:15:37]
and I review my changes,
[00:15:38]
Airtable is going to think real hard about
[00:15:40]
what I’ve done and it’s going to say,
[00:15:42]
well,
[00:15:42]
you added a new field and there’s no
[00:15:44]
reference to the data.
[00:15:47]
This is a completely separate set of data.
[00:15:53]
It’s the schema,
[00:15:54]
the automations and the interfaces that
[00:15:57]
are being carried over.
[00:15:59]
Nothing about the data.
[00:16:01]
that is a specific weakness that we’ll
[00:16:05]
talk about later.
[00:16:07]
Right now,
[00:16:07]
I’m just giving a high-level overview of
[00:16:09]
what even is Sandbox.
[00:16:11]
But there are very specific gotchas that
[00:16:15]
are unique to Sandbox that you wouldn’t
[00:16:17]
find in some other standard methods of
[00:16:21]
drafting development.
[00:16:25]
So I can do other things,
[00:16:26]
like I can turn this automation on.
[00:16:29]
I can say…
[00:16:32]
rename an existing automation.
[00:16:34]
I could go into my interfaces and this
[00:16:36]
is where stacking changes starts to get a
[00:16:39]
little confusing because interfaces still
[00:16:42]
have a published section,
[00:16:44]
which is a layer of,
[00:16:47]
before you publish the changes out of
[00:16:50]
Sandbox.
[00:16:51]
So if I wanted to go to this
[00:16:54]
page, for example, and I said,
[00:16:57]
I don’t need this whole section of this
[00:17:03]
interface anymore, I have to delete that.
[00:17:06]
And then I have to publish the change
[00:17:08]
to the interface like normal.
[00:17:10]
But then I have to go back to
[00:17:12]
the data and then review the changes and
[00:17:15]
then publish that change to production.
[00:17:20]
So you’re publishing twice for interfaces.
[00:17:24]
And it’s the same thing for forms.
[00:17:26]
So this pop-up is letting me know that
[00:17:29]
now that I have a couple more changes
[00:17:31]
in my review changes panel,
[00:17:34]
I don’t have to publish all of these
[00:17:36]
changes at once.
[00:17:37]
I can pick and choose which changes I
[00:17:39]
want to submit.
[00:17:41]
and all of these changes were done today
[00:17:42]
but if this were a longer development
[00:17:45]
period it would be grouped by the day
[00:17:48]
that the changes were made so if you
[00:17:50]
happen to know i was working on stuff
[00:17:53]
earlier in the week monday all of that
[00:17:55]
stuff is ready but the changes i made
[00:17:57]
today not quite ready you can select
[00:18:00]
everything that was in monday you can also
[00:18:03]
filter i’m just going to click through
[00:18:05]
this so i can click
[00:18:07]
You can also filter by who made the
[00:18:09]
change.
[00:18:10]
So if there were multiple people in this
[00:18:12]
base making adjustments, I can say, well,
[00:18:14]
I know my stuff is ready.
[00:18:16]
Just show me my changes and I’ll publish
[00:18:18]
those and I’ll leave everyone else’s
[00:18:21]
changes here until they’re ready to
[00:18:23]
publish.
[00:18:26]
Something to note,
[00:18:28]
a lot of pieces of Airtable can have
[00:18:31]
overlapping changes.
[00:18:33]
Like if I delete a section on that
[00:18:37]
interface page and Ally goes in and adds
[00:18:40]
a section of that interface page,
[00:18:43]
it’s only one publish.
[00:18:45]
So I can’t publish my things without also
[00:18:49]
publishing Ally’s change to that
[00:18:51]
interface.
[00:18:52]
that is different from some other
[00:18:54]
adjustments.
[00:18:55]
Like if I go to automations earlier,
[00:18:58]
I’m just going to close that.
[00:19:00]
I renamed this automation to just cool,
[00:19:04]
but I can also add a new step
[00:19:08]
to the automation.
[00:19:09]
And if I go back here,
[00:19:12]
what it should do, yeah,
[00:19:14]
it
[00:19:17]
counts those as separate changes.
[00:19:19]
So sometimes you can be very selective
[00:19:22]
about what piece of this change is being
[00:19:26]
published at any given time,
[00:19:28]
but other times, mostly with interfaces,
[00:19:31]
you have to publish all of the changes
[00:19:33]
at once.
[00:19:34]
So I could say the only thing I
[00:19:37]
want to do is rename that automation to
[00:19:39]
cool.
[00:19:40]
So I just click that checkbox.
[00:19:43]
I’m applying one change.
[00:19:44]
The number of changes that you make is
[00:19:47]
going to affect how long this process
[00:19:50]
takes.
[00:19:52]
um it is now done so if i
[00:19:54]
do view apply changes it’s just a summary
[00:19:57]
of whatever you did that just got pushed
[00:20:00]
i’m going to go back to production and
[00:20:03]
those records that i deleted are still
[00:20:06]
here in production again record
[00:20:08]
information does not change from sandbox
[00:20:10]
to production if i go to my automations
[00:20:14]
that create record step is not there but
[00:20:16]
the automation is renamed to cool
[00:20:19]
So pausing there,
[00:20:21]
any questions or comments?
[00:20:24]
Awesome so far.
[00:20:26]
One question I just thought of is if
[00:20:29]
you had created two steps in that
[00:20:32]
automation, two new steps,
[00:20:34]
edited one and created a new one,
[00:20:36]
would that still appear as just one
[00:20:37]
change, edited actions in this automation?
[00:20:40]
It would.
[00:20:40]
Okay.
[00:20:41]
So from memory,
[00:20:43]
the changes to an automation that are
[00:20:45]
separate are renaming slash updating the
[00:20:49]
description.
[00:20:51]
So I’m just going to keep editing the
[00:20:52]
same one to see all of the changes
[00:20:54]
together.
[00:20:55]
Edit description.
[00:21:00]
Um, the trigger is a separate thing.
[00:21:03]
So if I just add a couple more
[00:21:05]
days and then this was already there of
[00:21:08]
create a new record,
[00:21:09]
but I’m going to delete this action here.
[00:21:16]
So now if I look at my review
[00:21:18]
changes,
[00:21:20]
edit actions and edit trigger are
[00:21:24]
different.
[00:21:26]
It doesn’t seem to recognize that I’ve
[00:21:29]
updated the description,
[00:21:30]
although that might be hidden in either of
[00:21:34]
those.
[00:21:34]
So we’ve come across our first gotcha.
[00:21:38]
How do I not publish?
[00:21:41]
it being redescribed as test.
[00:21:43]
I don’t know.
[00:21:45]
And there’s also no real undo.
[00:21:48]
You can’t like click on this change and
[00:21:52]
be like, actually get rid of that,
[00:21:54]
revert it back to production.
[00:21:56]
The only real way to revert this back
[00:21:58]
to production is to delete the sandbox and
[00:22:00]
start over.
[00:22:02]
So since I just mentioned that,
[00:22:05]
how do you do it?
[00:22:06]
um you can go to this drop down
[00:22:10]
if you’re in sandbox you could go and
[00:22:11]
delete sandbox and what that will do is
[00:22:16]
it will kick you out and say that
[00:22:18]
sandbox is no longer available um the
[00:22:21]
changes that i didn’t publish are lost to
[00:22:23]
the sands of time sometimes it’s a good
[00:22:25]
thing if you’re if you’ve made a critical
[00:22:28]
error in the sandbox and you’re like i
[00:22:30]
don’t want that to carry over at all
[00:22:33]
So it’s still named cool because it’s the
[00:22:35]
one thing that I did publish,
[00:22:36]
but the other changes to this automation
[00:22:38]
were not done.
[00:22:40]
And the interface is going to be the
[00:22:41]
same before I touched it.
[00:22:43]
If I ever want a sandbox again,
[00:22:45]
I would go in and I would create
[00:22:46]
a sandbox.
[00:22:47]
It’s going to do so.
[00:22:49]
That sandbox is going to have a different
[00:22:51]
base ID than the original sandbox.
[00:22:54]
It’s always going to be a different base
[00:22:56]
ID.
[00:22:57]
So if you have environment variables for
[00:23:01]
your make configurations or for your
[00:23:03]
coding projects,
[00:23:05]
you’re going to have to keep updating the
[00:23:07]
sandbox ID.
[00:23:10]
So I’m back in Sandbox.
[00:23:13]
Now it’s a kind of fresh install.
[00:23:15]
You’ll notice it recopied all of the
[00:23:18]
records.
[00:23:18]
So I’m back to five at this table.
[00:23:20]
I think originally I deleted three and
[00:23:22]
four.
[00:23:25]
Something to note about like,
[00:23:29]
what are the differences between how I
[00:23:32]
would
[00:23:33]
make changes in Airtable.
[00:23:35]
If there’s a sandbox active versus there’s
[00:23:36]
not,
[00:23:37]
there’s certain things that I would not
[00:23:40]
recommend you make part of your, uh,
[00:23:44]
configuration.
[00:23:45]
So I’m going to go, I don’t know,
[00:23:48]
maybe tasks as an example,
[00:23:51]
here’s what I wouldn’t say.
[00:23:54]
I would say, well,
[00:23:56]
actually I want to go somewhere else.
[00:23:57]
Everything is linked to the same event.
[00:24:02]
but maybe that’s a good thing.
[00:24:04]
Here’s what I don’t necessarily want to
[00:24:07]
do.
[00:24:09]
I don’t want to have like anything in
[00:24:15]
Airtable that is specifically looking at
[00:24:17]
an exact record.
[00:24:20]
and I’ll explain why in a second.
[00:24:22]
So if I say you could link to
[00:24:25]
an event, attendees can link to events,
[00:24:30]
but only if that event, let’s see,
[00:24:35]
if that task has any of one of
[00:24:37]
these, I would not recommend you do that.
[00:24:40]
What this is doing is saying only let
[00:24:43]
them link if that thing is associated with
[00:24:46]
this exact record, because remember,
[00:24:50]
The data in Sandbox is copied at the
[00:24:53]
time that you turn on the Sandbox.
[00:24:56]
And from that point forward,
[00:24:58]
the record IDs are not guaranteed to match
[00:25:00]
between production and Sandbox.
[00:25:02]
So if I went in,
[00:25:04]
I’m gonna cancel out of that.
[00:25:06]
If I went and said, brand new task,
[00:25:10]
That task does not exist in production and
[00:25:13]
it never will.
[00:25:14]
So if I go back and try and
[00:25:16]
do what I did before,
[00:25:18]
only link where task has any of
[00:25:24]
brand new task.
[00:25:26]
I’m going to save.
[00:25:27]
It’s exactly what I want.
[00:25:28]
I’m going to review my changes.
[00:25:31]
I’m going to apply these changes.
[00:25:33]
Airtable is not going to warn me that
[00:25:35]
the condition I’ve just set is impossible.
[00:25:38]
So I should never be able to link
[00:25:40]
to another event again.
[00:25:42]
So I’m going to click done.
[00:25:44]
I’m going to close out of here and
[00:25:46]
I’m going to go to production.
[00:25:47]
What is helpful
[00:25:49]
while I’m about to be negative,
[00:25:50]
what is helpful is that it knows to
[00:25:52]
send you back to the same view and
[00:25:54]
table back and forth between production
[00:25:56]
and sandbox.
[00:25:56]
So that’s nice.
[00:25:58]
But if I create a brand new attendee,
[00:26:02]
there’s,
[00:26:02]
it’s impossible for me to link to a
[00:26:04]
record, uh, the warning in the field.
[00:26:08]
No, it has no way of knowing that,
[00:26:11]
uh,
[00:26:13]
It’s hidden condition.
[00:26:15]
So if you look,
[00:26:16]
it’s going to act as though it’s a
[00:26:19]
task that was deleted.
[00:26:21]
So that’s not necessarily an error from
[00:26:25]
Airtable’s perspective,
[00:26:27]
but you’ve now crippled your base.
[00:26:31]
And there’s also, there’s no indication,
[00:26:33]
if I go back to Sandbox,
[00:26:35]
there’s no indication,
[00:26:36]
I think I was in the task table,
[00:26:38]
that these records exist in production,
[00:26:42]
but this one doesn’t.
[00:26:43]
You would just have to know that.
[00:26:45]
And that’s not something that’s,
[00:26:49]
you’re not going to keep track of that
[00:26:50]
for every table, for every record.
[00:26:53]
You’re simply not going to do that.
[00:26:57]
That’s wild.
[00:26:59]
Yeah, it’s a good idea,
[00:27:01]
but there’s specific things that you just,
[00:27:04]
you simply cannot do that.
[00:27:06]
So what I would recommend instead is I
[00:27:09]
would say events have tasks,
[00:27:14]
I would say
[00:27:17]
I don’t know,
[00:27:19]
maybe it’s all determined by task type.
[00:27:21]
I would say if you want to do
[00:27:23]
what I was doing before,
[00:27:24]
limit that selection down,
[00:27:26]
not by the specific task,
[00:27:28]
but that task type is something that is
[00:27:33]
concrete,
[00:27:34]
like a single select option because those
[00:27:36]
are the same and those carry over.
[00:27:38]
If I do this,
[00:27:40]
now it’s no longer strictly impossible.
[00:27:45]
A lot of times when I’m using that
[00:27:47]
feature of only allow selection if the
[00:27:51]
selection is a specific record,
[00:27:54]
it comes up more often actually in
[00:27:56]
automations where I’m
[00:27:59]
I have like a conditional step based on
[00:28:01]
a specific linked record value.
[00:28:04]
Um, I,
[00:28:06]
I just find that I’m often able to
[00:28:09]
associate the records with like a single
[00:28:14]
select option,
[00:28:15]
or sometimes it’s like a utility checkbox
[00:28:18]
field that only I can edit that says,
[00:28:20]
yeah,
[00:28:20]
this is the one special record that gets
[00:28:23]
special treatment or whatever.
[00:28:25]
Um,
[00:28:27]
all of that to say it’s one of
[00:28:30]
those those very specific gotchas that um
[00:28:34]
oftentimes trips me up but what is still
[00:28:37]
available if i go back and i do
[00:28:39]
tasks if i change this to dynamic and
[00:28:42]
say i don’t have any options here but
[00:28:44]
say tasks that are relevant to this
[00:28:47]
attendee that is still fine to do relative
[00:28:51]
choices dynamic choices are still fine
[00:28:54]
it’s specific it’s
[00:28:56]
specifying a specific record that doesn’t
[00:29:01]
necessarily exist in production and
[00:29:03]
sandbox.
[00:29:05]
I mean,
[00:29:05]
that’s probably good practice to avoid in
[00:29:07]
general too.
[00:29:08]
Just like, I mean,
[00:29:10]
I do it all the time,
[00:29:11]
but I think about it now as I’m
[00:29:14]
doing it, I’m like, ooh,
[00:29:15]
if somebody ever accidentally deletes this
[00:29:17]
record or like whatever,
[00:29:20]
then things are just gonna be broken.
[00:29:21]
So I think it’s smarter to do it
[00:29:23]
the way that Kamille was just describing
[00:29:25]
by using an ancillary field in some other
[00:29:27]
way,
[00:29:28]
rather than relying on specific record and
[00:29:31]
record ID.
[00:29:34]
Yeah.
[00:29:34]
You’re going to run into some headaches
[00:29:37]
anyway, doing it the first way around.
[00:29:39]
But this, you know,
[00:29:41]
saves you a little bit of headache that
[00:29:43]
is sandbox specific.
[00:29:45]
So it’s really like the first and to
[00:29:48]
me,
[00:29:49]
one of the most major things that’s not,
[00:29:52]
it’s not as obvious,
[00:29:54]
but something that is
[00:29:58]
very unfortunate, at least to me, um,
[00:30:02]
is how syncing behavior works with a
[00:30:04]
sandbox.
[00:30:04]
So right now I don’t have any synced
[00:30:06]
tables in, um,
[00:30:10]
In this space right now.
[00:30:13]
And again,
[00:30:13]
the idea of having a sandbox where the
[00:30:16]
data isn’t necessarily one-to-one to
[00:30:18]
production is that I can make test
[00:30:20]
records.
[00:30:21]
So this is an event planning base.
[00:30:25]
I can test out the like signup form
[00:30:28]
and send it out to all of my
[00:30:29]
friends and have it fill in this fake
[00:30:32]
place and not pollute my real list of
[00:30:35]
attendees.
[00:30:36]
That’s a good thing,
[00:30:37]
but when you have a synced view.
[00:30:41]
In sandbox,
[00:30:42]
even if the synced view is coming from
[00:30:44]
a base that also has a sandbox,
[00:30:46]
you’re going to be looking at production
[00:30:48]
data no matter what.
[00:30:50]
That’s a little harder to conceptualize.
[00:30:52]
So I’m going to attempt to quickly spin
[00:30:56]
up a synced view to sort of make
[00:30:58]
this make sense.
[00:31:01]
So let’s see how quickly Airtable is going
[00:31:03]
to let me create actually.
[00:31:09]
In the meantime,
[00:31:13]
Any other questions or questions?
[00:31:16]
Yeah, go ahead.
[00:31:18]
So in a normal base,
[00:31:21]
if you’re like in an automation and you’re
[00:31:23]
updating a single select field with a
[00:31:26]
value that’s not in the dropdown,
[00:31:28]
it automatically creates it for you.
[00:31:31]
But now in the sandbox,
[00:31:33]
you can’t modify that list in the
[00:31:36]
production.
[00:31:37]
Would it still automatically create a new
[00:31:42]
value?
[00:31:43]
Nope.
[00:31:43]
So I’m going to throw together an example
[00:31:48]
just so people can see.
[00:31:52]
When matches conditions,
[00:31:59]
which has a single select attendees.
[00:32:03]
When attendees, when your name contains X,
[00:32:08]
we’re going to update that same record.
[00:32:12]
attendees and we’re going to say the
[00:32:17]
attendee category is test an option that
[00:32:22]
is not there.
[00:32:23]
And I’m going to turn this on and
[00:32:26]
I’m going to, uh, publish.
[00:32:30]
Oh,
[00:32:31]
this is also something that I didn’t
[00:32:33]
necessarily, uh,
[00:32:35]
show before I created a new automation and
[00:32:38]
I turned it on.
[00:32:40]
If I say we’ll turn on the automation,
[00:32:43]
it has to also create the automation.
[00:32:45]
So Airtable sandbox changes sidebar is
[00:32:50]
pretty good at recognizing all of the
[00:32:52]
dependent changes that also must be
[00:32:55]
published in order to publish what you
[00:32:57]
want.
[00:32:58]
So it’s got this little icon in the
[00:33:01]
bottom right corner that says,
[00:33:02]
this is a dependent change.
[00:33:03]
You have to have the automation exist for
[00:33:06]
me to turn it on.
[00:33:08]
So I’m going to apply those two changes.
[00:33:17]
It’s a lot of saving changes and going
[00:33:21]
back.
[00:33:21]
But this is a very light base.
[00:33:23]
It doesn’t take too, too long.
[00:33:26]
And then I believe, oh, okay.
[00:33:33]
Oh.
[00:33:36]
It worked.
[00:33:36]
Oh, wait, no.
[00:33:37]
I’m in sandbox.
[00:33:40]
No, okay.
[00:33:40]
So I have to, hold on.
[00:33:43]
Test two.
[00:33:46]
I was about to say, I was like,
[00:33:48]
oh, they fixed it.
[00:33:48]
Amazing production.
[00:33:50]
That test won’t be there.
[00:33:51]
Well, now it will be, well,
[00:33:55]
you know what?
[00:33:56]
No,
[00:33:56]
because the configuration hasn’t been
[00:33:58]
published yet.
[00:33:59]
So that’s a good point.
[00:34:00]
If I go back and if I look,
[00:34:04]
oh man, it doesn’t let you scroll.
[00:34:06]
It’s I’m expecting this to fail.
[00:34:07]
Okay.
[00:34:11]
Oh my god, it worked.
[00:34:13]
Did they fix it?
[00:34:14]
Because this is something that was like
[00:34:16]
legitimately a problem for me.
[00:34:20]
So let me Yeah,
[00:34:23]
I’ve now just test two,
[00:34:25]
which is still not an option yet.
[00:34:29]
So I’m going to publish and I’m going
[00:34:30]
to remember to go back to production and
[00:34:32]
try this again.
[00:34:34]
In production.
[00:34:38]
Okay, cool.
[00:34:40]
Production.
[00:34:43]
And we’re going to make a new one.
[00:34:44]
I was going to say.
[00:34:52]
Yeah, before you create the X,
[00:34:54]
see if it’s in the dropdown if you
[00:34:56]
click select.
[00:34:59]
It shouldn’t be.
[00:35:00]
So what I’m going to do is I’m
[00:35:01]
going to create a brand new select field.
[00:35:04]
Or you know what?
[00:35:04]
No.
[00:35:05]
I’m going to delete all of these options
[00:35:07]
just so we can see.
[00:35:09]
First of all, this is what it is.
[00:35:14]
Uh-oh.
[00:35:14]
You lost her.
[00:35:23]
Kamille, you’re on mute.
[00:35:28]
I don’t know if you… Now you’re back.
[00:35:29]
You’re on mute.
[00:35:31]
There you are.
[00:35:33]
Can you hear me?
[00:35:34]
Yeah.
[00:35:35]
Can you hear me?
[00:35:36]
If you create the option in production and
[00:35:40]
not sandbox,
[00:35:42]
sandbox doesn’t recognize it as a option.
[00:35:47]
So
[00:35:49]
If I go in and call this test
[00:35:51]
two,
[00:35:52]
that is not the same test two that’s
[00:35:55]
in production.
[00:35:56]
So if I hit save and I hit
[00:36:00]
confirm, and then I’m going to refresh,
[00:36:04]
so it recognizes.
[00:36:19]
OK,
[00:36:19]
and then we’re going to go to production,
[00:36:20]
and then we’re going to look at this
[00:36:22]
field.
[00:36:23]
There are two tests and two test twos.
[00:36:27]
And the reason is, test and test two,
[00:36:30]
one set of those came from Sandbox that
[00:36:33]
were published down.
[00:36:35]
And then another set were created in
[00:36:38]
production by force,
[00:36:40]
basically from the automation.
[00:36:43]
Because the change happened in production,
[00:36:46]
Sandbox has no knowledge of them.
[00:36:48]
So production has a different list of
[00:36:51]
single select options than Sandbox does.
[00:36:56]
And since Sandbox is the way you edit
[00:36:59]
this, I can’t get rid of these.
[00:37:02]
The only way to do that is to
[00:37:05]
delete the Sandbox.
[00:37:06]
So this is loose and free.
[00:37:09]
Delete the ones I don’t need anymore and
[00:37:10]
then turn Sandbox on.
[00:37:14]
How does this affect like adding via the
[00:37:17]
scripting extension, adding new options?
[00:37:20]
Does that just fail?
[00:37:21]
It doesn’t fail.
[00:37:22]
It would do the same thing.
[00:37:25]
Okay.
[00:37:25]
I would do that.
[00:37:25]
Okay.
[00:37:27]
Well,
[00:37:28]
I actually don’t know because automations
[00:37:31]
is acting as like a,
[00:37:33]
as the system adding a new option versus
[00:37:36]
the scripting, uh,
[00:37:39]
extension is acting as you.
[00:37:41]
So it might recognize that you do not
[00:37:43]
have permissions to create new options.
[00:37:46]
So yeah,
[00:37:49]
that this one’s a doozy because which test
[00:37:52]
two is correct.
[00:37:54]
I don’t know.
[00:37:56]
Right.
[00:37:58]
They have different IDs under the hood.
[00:38:03]
Do they start the same?
[00:38:06]
What do you mean?
[00:38:09]
In the sandbox,
[00:38:09]
they still have the same prefix.
[00:38:11]
They do.
[00:38:14]
Interesting.
[00:38:17]
Yeah, that’s my other complaint.
[00:38:22]
The one I’ll go back to now, though,
[00:38:24]
is synced tables or synced tables in
[00:38:28]
general.
[00:38:28]
This is more relevant, I think,
[00:38:31]
if you’re syncing Airtable to Airtable.
[00:38:34]
But this is also true if you’re syncing
[00:38:37]
Salesforce to Airtable, for example.
[00:38:39]
I’m going to sync from here.
[00:38:46]
And then, um,
[00:38:48]
something that is a little bit different.
[00:38:50]
Um, if I didn’t have the sandbox on,
[00:38:53]
I could say sync all of the fields,
[00:38:54]
uh,
[00:38:55]
no matter what that are in this view.
[00:38:57]
But if I.
[00:39:01]
go and add a new field in the
[00:39:03]
original view,
[00:39:04]
it would automatically add the same field
[00:39:07]
synced down into this table.
[00:39:09]
When you have sandbox on,
[00:39:12]
you have to manually say,
[00:39:14]
add these fields to this table.
[00:39:16]
It’s not going to automatically update as
[00:39:19]
it would without the sandbox.
[00:39:20]
So I’m going to do that.
[00:39:23]
I’m syncing the base that I’m syncing
[00:39:29]
from.
[00:39:30]
Let me just move that to this window.
[00:39:33]
Can you guys see this ABC?
[00:39:35]
Yeah.
[00:39:37]
Okay.
[00:39:39]
I’m syncing from there to there.
[00:39:42]
If I were to turn a sandbox on
[00:39:48]
in here,
[00:39:58]
I cannot
[00:40:03]
sync sandbox data anywhere.
[00:40:06]
So instead of this being one ABC,
[00:40:10]
maybe I want this to be one, two,
[00:40:13]
three.
[00:40:14]
And ideally in like traditional
[00:40:17]
development,
[00:40:17]
you would have a lower environment,
[00:40:19]
a dev or a UAT or something where
[00:40:23]
if I’m looking at the sandbox of event
[00:40:26]
planning,
[00:40:27]
I wanna look at the sandbox data from
[00:40:30]
sync source.
[00:40:32]
I cannot do that.
[00:40:33]
I’m always looking at the production data,
[00:40:37]
whether I’m in sandbox or production from
[00:40:39]
the sync source.
[00:40:41]
So if you’re trying to line things up,
[00:40:43]
this is actually not possible.
[00:40:46]
So another reason why you can’t say pick
[00:40:51]
specific records to be the basis of like
[00:40:54]
your link conditions or your automations,
[00:40:56]
because
[00:40:58]
These records will exist in both sandbox
[00:41:01]
and production,
[00:41:02]
but if you’re testing the flow from base
[00:41:04]
to base, they’re not going to exist here,
[00:41:07]
or they’re not necessarily going to exist
[00:41:09]
here.
[00:41:10]
These are different records.
[00:41:12]
So it’s very…
[00:41:16]
This one, I think,
[00:41:17]
causes me the most headache just because
[00:41:20]
the enterprise that I’m in,
[00:41:22]
we have so many bases that are so
[00:41:24]
tightly connected together.
[00:41:27]
And if you want to test that connection,
[00:41:29]
you just got to hope.
[00:41:31]
You hope and pray that you set it
[00:41:32]
up right because you can’t test really the
[00:41:35]
flow from this base to this base from
[00:41:38]
a sandbox perspective.
[00:41:42]
Right.
[00:41:44]
You change, let’s see.
[00:41:48]
Can you change the source view?
[00:41:53]
Can you switch it to a different?
[00:41:59]
OK, yeah, change source.
[00:42:00]
OK, let’s see.
[00:42:01]
It’s going to force you to be from
[00:42:03]
the same table.
[00:42:06]
Also,
[00:42:06]
you’ll notice I can’t add another source.
[00:42:09]
Multi-source syncing is disabled.
[00:42:13]
If I didn’t have a sandbox and made
[00:42:16]
a synced table and added two, three,
[00:42:19]
four more syncs to this same table,
[00:42:22]
and then turn on the sandbox,
[00:42:23]
it would remain,
[00:42:25]
but I wouldn’t be able to add more
[00:42:27]
syncs on top of it.
[00:42:31]
Interesting.
[00:42:32]
What about in production,
[00:42:33]
you don’t even have the option to change?
[00:42:36]
Because I was thinking,
[00:42:36]
could you have one view go to the
[00:42:38]
sandbox and then a different sync view and
[00:42:41]
the same table go to production?
[00:42:43]
Wouldn’t that be nice?
[00:42:45]
And no, you can’t do that.
[00:42:46]
There is a workaround that I’ve been
[00:42:51]
testing with using managed apps where you
[00:42:56]
can have two different managed apps and
[00:42:59]
deploy an instance of both of them and
[00:43:03]
have those sync to each other and then
[00:43:06]
deploy a different set.
[00:43:07]
So you have like one set is your
[00:43:09]
lower environment and one set is your
[00:43:11]
production environment.
[00:43:13]
You’re able to pair those up and have
[00:43:15]
their syncs flow between each other.
[00:43:17]
You can’t do that with Sandbox.
[00:43:19]
That’s harder to explain,
[00:43:23]
but I don’t have managed apps is only
[00:43:30]
for enterprise.
[00:43:31]
And so I wouldn’t be able to necessarily
[00:43:33]
demo that on the show.
[00:43:35]
But what we’re looking at now is I’m
[00:43:36]
now in production and this is that synced
[00:43:39]
table.
[00:43:40]
What’s annoying to me, I can’t,
[00:43:43]
see the sync source.
[00:43:46]
Oftentimes,
[00:43:47]
I don’t want to make any changes.
[00:43:48]
I just want to click on the shortcut
[00:43:51]
that would take me to the sync source.
[00:43:54]
Can’t do that.
[00:43:55]
You have to go into Sandbox and then
[00:43:59]
click it so you can see where it’s
[00:44:01]
coming from.
[00:44:01]
You can force the manual sync, though.
[00:44:04]
That is still there.
[00:44:07]
Yeah,
[00:44:07]
how do sandboxes play with managed
[00:44:10]
components or managed apps?
[00:44:11]
Can you have an instance of a managed
[00:44:13]
app and then take a sandbox of that?
[00:44:15]
Yes, you can.
[00:44:17]
Interesting.
[00:44:20]
So if you’re familiar with managed apps or
[00:44:23]
managed components,
[00:44:24]
you make changes in what’s called a
[00:44:25]
development base.
[00:44:27]
The development base cannot have a sandbox
[00:44:29]
because it is the sandbox more or less.
[00:44:32]
But once you deploy it somewhere,
[00:44:35]
wherever you’ve deployed it,
[00:44:36]
that thing can have a sandbox.
[00:44:42]
I have a question that’s very specific,
[00:44:46]
but I think has broad impact.
[00:44:51]
Something that I’ve worried about with
[00:44:53]
like doing something like how we were
[00:44:56]
talking last week about how easy it is
[00:44:58]
to like accidentally trigger a million
[00:45:00]
emails.
[00:45:02]
Theoretically,
[00:45:03]
Sandbox would help you avoid that,
[00:45:05]
but I’m guessing there’s still easy
[00:45:07]
mistakes you could make.
[00:45:09]
Like for example, if I, so for now,
[00:45:14]
if I make a change to an automation
[00:45:16]
that says, you know,
[00:45:17]
trigger when this box is checked and that
[00:45:20]
automation is on,
[00:45:22]
I already have records that have that box
[00:45:23]
checked because the automation is already
[00:45:26]
on and the boxes were already checked.
[00:45:28]
It’s not going to trigger on those when
[00:45:31]
I make this change because they were
[00:45:33]
already checked.
[00:45:34]
But if you’re publishing that change now,
[00:45:38]
like,
[00:45:40]
Is there,
[00:45:41]
are there any gotchas around that?
[00:45:42]
I lost track of what I’m trying to
[00:45:44]
articulate.
[00:45:44]
Yes.
[00:45:45]
And I’m glad you brought it up because
[00:45:47]
what I’ve just done,
[00:45:48]
I was trying to follow along as you
[00:45:49]
sort of said, there’s, I have a checkbox,
[00:45:54]
right?
[00:45:56]
That checkbox does not yet exist in
[00:45:58]
production.
[00:46:00]
I’m going to say when record matches
[00:46:01]
conditions,
[00:46:03]
grid view and the condition is done equals
[00:46:05]
yes and what it should do is send
[00:46:08]
an email.
[00:46:08]
You’ll notice an immediate change into
[00:46:11]
what the automation panel looks like and
[00:46:15]
I’ll explain that in a moment.
[00:46:17]
But what I’m about to do is make
[00:46:20]
an email automation that runs when the
[00:46:22]
checkbox is checked.
[00:46:24]
You have to be very careful about how
[00:46:27]
you publish these changes.
[00:46:30]
Now,
[00:46:31]
if this field already existed in
[00:46:33]
production,
[00:46:34]
that’s when you have to be careful.
[00:46:36]
Right now,
[00:46:37]
I don’t have to be careful necessarily
[00:46:39]
because I’m saying when it’s checked and
[00:46:41]
when I publish this change of create this
[00:46:44]
field in production,
[00:46:46]
none of them are going to be checked.
[00:46:48]
But if it was already checked and you
[00:46:52]
publish the automation,
[00:46:54]
I forget exactly what combination I did.
[00:46:59]
but the publishing of the automation and
[00:47:02]
whatever,
[00:47:02]
like the trigger I was looking for at
[00:47:04]
the same time, sent all of the,
[00:47:07]
all of the emails.
[00:47:09]
I wish,
[00:47:11]
I wish I could remember the exact steps
[00:47:15]
that I followed that caused that to
[00:47:17]
happen.
[00:47:18]
But it’s like, if I,
[00:47:21]
if I did it the other way around,
[00:47:23]
and maybe this is more obvious when done
[00:47:26]
is not checked,
[00:47:29]
If I publish these at the same time,
[00:47:33]
all of the records in production are going
[00:47:35]
to be not checked.
[00:47:36]
That is them meeting the condition.
[00:47:39]
So what you would want to do is
[00:47:41]
publish the field first and then publish
[00:47:46]
the automation.
[00:47:47]
Or what you could do is you could
[00:47:49]
publish this automation off
[00:47:52]
and then turn it on and then publish
[00:47:54]
it, then it won’t trigger.
[00:47:56]
But it’s a good point that you’ve brought
[00:47:59]
up that there’s a order of operations and
[00:48:01]
I wish I could give you a little
[00:48:03]
bit more specifics as to what that order
[00:48:06]
should be.
[00:48:09]
Well,
[00:48:09]
I think it’s like if you’re publishing the
[00:48:12]
automation
[00:48:14]
on, it’s like, there’s,
[00:48:16]
there’s a difference between having a
[00:48:18]
field that exists in a stale state and
[00:48:20]
like adding new and having the automation
[00:48:23]
on at the same time.
[00:48:25]
Um, yes, that was all articulated at all.
[00:48:28]
It’s so hard to explain this, but yes,
[00:48:32]
you’re understanding what I’m trying to
[00:48:33]
get at the order matters.
[00:48:34]
And if you did it both at the
[00:48:36]
same time,
[00:48:37]
it’s going to think those are newly
[00:48:40]
records that have newly met the condition.
[00:48:41]
Yeah.
[00:48:41]
Okay.
[00:48:45]
We’re back in the automation panel.
[00:48:47]
And what I wanted to show is depending
[00:48:51]
on what actions you have in your
[00:48:54]
automation,
[00:48:55]
it’s going to automatically behave a
[00:48:57]
little bit differently.
[00:48:59]
As soon as I added a send an
[00:49:01]
email step and I’ll get rid of it
[00:49:03]
and it’ll immediately go away.
[00:49:06]
I can add a create record.
[00:49:08]
Things are normal.
[00:49:09]
Update record.
[00:49:10]
Things are normal.
[00:49:12]
It’s sending emails automatically.
[00:49:14]
and scripts that will give you this
[00:49:18]
language up at the top that never goes
[00:49:20]
away.
[00:49:21]
And the toggle at the kind of top
[00:49:24]
of the automation that says skip actions
[00:49:26]
in Sandbox.
[00:49:27]
The reason why they put that here is
[00:49:29]
because
[00:49:31]
if I had like a daily digest email
[00:49:34]
that’s supposed to go out to my
[00:49:36]
stakeholders,
[00:49:37]
I don’t want to annoy them about sandbox
[00:49:39]
data.
[00:49:40]
It’s not real.
[00:49:41]
And it often times the data is wrong
[00:49:44]
on purpose to test for things.
[00:49:46]
So in Airtable’s mind,
[00:49:49]
they want you to be able to say
[00:49:51]
this automation should be on when I
[00:49:53]
publish it,
[00:49:55]
but I don’t want to actually send the
[00:49:57]
emails in sandbox because
[00:50:01]
For scripts, it’s a little bit different.
[00:50:05]
I think the reason why they have that
[00:50:07]
same behavior when you add a script to
[00:50:10]
an automation is because what if you’re
[00:50:11]
calling an API of some kind?
[00:50:14]
Well,
[00:50:14]
you don’t necessarily wanna be calling a
[00:50:16]
production API from sandbox.
[00:50:19]
Like imagine it’s like,
[00:50:20]
bill my customers in Stripe.
[00:50:22]
I don’t want to bill them twice,
[00:50:24]
once in production and one in sandbox.
[00:50:26]
So from their perspective, it’s like,
[00:50:29]
well, you might want to turn this off.
[00:50:31]
What is a little bit un, you know,
[00:50:35]
I don’t like necessarily about this
[00:50:37]
implementation is that I can’t really say,
[00:50:40]
send this email, but not that email.
[00:50:43]
All emails get skipped or all scripts get
[00:50:46]
skipped.
[00:50:48]
So I’m going to
[00:50:52]
Uh, go really quickly.
[00:50:57]
Um, and just do that.
[00:50:59]
I’m going to get rid of this cause
[00:51:02]
I don’t need it.
[00:51:03]
And I’m going to speed through this.com
[00:51:14]
test.
[00:51:16]
Test.
[00:51:17]
So this is a valid email that let’s
[00:51:20]
just say should go out, um, in production.
[00:51:23]
I can’t turn off the skip behavior.
[00:51:25]
So it behaves exactly how you expect in,
[00:51:29]
um, production and turn this on.
[00:51:36]
And if I click this checkbox,
[00:51:38]
I should see a task record get created.
[00:51:44]
Oh, wait, no.
[00:51:45]
Because I flipped the condition.
[00:51:49]
Whoops.
[00:51:50]
So blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:51:55]
Now I flipped it.
[00:51:57]
A new test record was created.
[00:51:59]
I’m listening for my email notification.
[00:52:03]
I got it.
[00:52:05]
Now I want to go in and skip
[00:52:09]
actions in sandbox.
[00:52:11]
There’s no…
[00:52:13]
update automation after doing that.
[00:52:16]
Like it didn’t say, oh,
[00:52:17]
update or publish or anything.
[00:52:19]
You just directly toggle.
[00:52:21]
If I go back and I do this
[00:52:24]
again, it doesn’t create that test record.
[00:52:31]
So even though the change that I’m trying
[00:52:35]
to necessarily avoid in Sandbox is sending
[00:52:39]
the email, all of the actions get skipped.
[00:52:43]
which is not necessarily what I would
[00:52:46]
want.
[00:52:47]
Personally,
[00:52:48]
I would prefer if each individual action I
[00:52:52]
was able to say, skip this in Sandbox.
[00:52:55]
But instead it’s like, well,
[00:52:56]
the automation’s on and it’s not gonna do
[00:52:59]
anything.
[00:53:01]
Interesting.
[00:53:01]
That is quite interesting.
[00:53:06]
Does that error message go away when you
[00:53:07]
toggle it off?
[00:53:09]
No, of course not, Dan.
[00:53:11]
Why would it go away?
[00:53:14]
actions will be skipped even if you have
[00:53:17]
the thing turned off i’ve reported this
[00:53:19]
before and it’s still here because i for
[00:53:25]
me reading that i thought it just referred
[00:53:28]
to the email so that it would do
[00:53:30]
everything else except the email or you
[00:53:32]
could say don’t do anything by toggling it
[00:53:36]
Yeah, that would be logical.
[00:53:39]
It’s not what happens.
[00:53:40]
So, um,
[00:53:42]
everything I’ve just sort of shown for
[00:53:43]
email is the same for, uh,
[00:53:45]
if you had a script instead of a
[00:53:46]
send email,
[00:53:47]
I will say that like the alternative to
[00:53:51]
skipping actions is sandbox is
[00:53:56]
depending on what you’re doing and how
[00:53:58]
you’re pulling in the emails,
[00:54:00]
maybe you could have it pull from sandbox
[00:54:04]
data.
[00:54:05]
So like maybe in, maybe in production,
[00:54:08]
all of these people are real people and
[00:54:11]
these are real email addresses,
[00:54:12]
but in sandbox,
[00:54:13]
I clear out it and it’s just my
[00:54:16]
name over and over in my email.
[00:54:18]
And if I’m pulling from this table,
[00:54:21]
then I can be safe in sandbox.
[00:54:24]
having the send email action turned on and
[00:54:27]
not skipped in Sandbox because I know it’s
[00:54:29]
not going to email real people.
[00:54:30]
It’s only going to be emailing basically
[00:54:33]
me.
[00:54:33]
But that’s a cleanup step that you just
[00:54:35]
need to remember to do.
[00:54:37]
When you create the Sandbox,
[00:54:38]
it’s going to copy your real attendees.
[00:54:41]
So you want to go in and you
[00:54:42]
want to delete them and replace them with
[00:54:44]
yourself, basically.
[00:54:45]
Gotcha.
[00:54:50]
If you had a production base that is
[00:54:54]
pretty complex and whatnot,
[00:54:56]
is there any risk of turning a sandbox
[00:54:59]
on that production base?
[00:55:03]
Not necessarily.
[00:55:06]
I mean,
[00:55:06]
if you have a lot of people,
[00:55:08]
like I work as part of like an
[00:55:11]
Airtable development team.
[00:55:12]
So sometimes more than one person is
[00:55:14]
modifying a base at a given time.
[00:55:16]
That can get really confusing and you can
[00:55:19]
kind of lock yourself into saying, well,
[00:55:21]
if we both have to edit the same
[00:55:23]
automation,
[00:55:23]
I have to wait for Jan to be
[00:55:25]
done.
[00:55:26]
before I can start making my changes
[00:55:28]
because they’re going to start
[00:55:29]
conflicting, things like that.
[00:55:31]
That tends to come with the territory of
[00:55:33]
having a complex base.
[00:55:35]
But if you had a bunch of tables,
[00:55:38]
a lot of records,
[00:55:39]
if you had multi-source synced,
[00:55:41]
as long as you’re not trying to add
[00:55:43]
another source, you’re relatively fine.
[00:55:46]
And something that’s not necessarily
[00:55:48]
communicated…
[00:55:51]
um i am yeah it’s it’s set up
[00:55:53]
at the top every time you push changes
[00:55:56]
from sandbox to production it does take a
[00:55:58]
snapshot beforehand so just in case
[00:56:01]
something goes terribly wrong there is a
[00:56:03]
snapshot taken um and like i said before
[00:56:08]
if you start making changes and you’re
[00:56:09]
like whatever i just did broke something
[00:56:14]
I don’t know how to fix it.
[00:56:15]
I don’t know how to go back.
[00:56:17]
You could just delete the sandbox and
[00:56:19]
start over.
[00:56:20]
So you have a layer of protection.
[00:56:24]
It’s not necessarily going to hinder you,
[00:56:28]
but there are specific
[00:56:29]
things about how sandbox works that makes
[00:56:32]
it like,
[00:56:33]
maybe you’re not gaining much by having it
[00:56:37]
turned on in the first place.
[00:56:39]
This is something I would recommend for
[00:56:41]
like, I need to test form submissions.
[00:56:44]
I need to test.
[00:56:47]
a sweeping major change to the underlying
[00:56:50]
schema.
[00:56:50]
I have to delete a whole table.
[00:56:52]
Those are the things that I would
[00:56:53]
recommend turning a sandbox on for so
[00:56:55]
you’re not immediately bricking the base.
[00:56:58]
But if you’re going in and you’re renaming
[00:57:01]
stuff,
[00:57:02]
if you’re just trying to update a filter,
[00:57:05]
sandbox is going to deeply irritate you.
[00:57:09]
Yeah.
[00:57:10]
I mean,
[00:57:10]
one approach is even if you just take
[00:57:14]
a sandbox of your production base and then
[00:57:18]
implement something to see if it works and
[00:57:22]
then don’t publish it back,
[00:57:24]
just turn off the sandbox and then
[00:57:26]
recreate those changes like that might be
[00:57:29]
a middle ground.
[00:57:32]
Yeah, you could do that.
[00:57:33]
That’s a good way of testing.
[00:57:36]
And another thing,
[00:57:37]
which again is not super obvious,
[00:57:39]
the people who are invited to the base
[00:57:43]
or specific interfaces do not necessarily
[00:57:46]
match the people invited to the sandbox or
[00:57:50]
the sandbox versions of those interfaces.
[00:57:53]
Similarly, if I publish a form,
[00:57:56]
the sandbox and the published version of
[00:57:58]
the form are going to have two different
[00:57:59]
share settings.
[00:58:01]
unless you set them to be the same.
[00:58:03]
That is important when it comes to like,
[00:58:07]
if your sandbox is strictly for testing,
[00:58:09]
I don’t want my regular stakeholders in
[00:58:11]
there because then they’re going to get
[00:58:12]
confused.
[00:58:12]
They’re going to be like,
[00:58:13]
what happened to all my attendees?
[00:58:16]
In the early days of sandbox,
[00:58:18]
sandbox would turn gray,
[00:58:20]
but nowadays it’s the same color as the
[00:58:23]
regular base.
[00:58:23]
So there’s not…
[00:58:25]
Anything that will immediately tell you
[00:58:26]
that you’re not looking at the real base
[00:58:28]
unless you look at the top right.
[00:58:31]
Also, if you’re not a creator,
[00:58:33]
I don’t think you even see this.
[00:58:36]
So it’s not clear.
[00:58:38]
So the idea of separating things out
[00:58:42]
strictly for testing,
[00:58:43]
it’s a good use case for Sandbox,
[00:58:45]
but you just need to remember to re-invite
[00:58:48]
folks back to wherever they need access
[00:58:52]
to.
[00:58:53]
And two more things before I forget.
[00:58:56]
If you have a sandbox enabled,
[00:58:58]
you cannot move the base into a different
[00:59:00]
workspace.
[00:59:01]
I don’t understand why.
[00:59:03]
And the second is,
[00:59:05]
you know how you can go in and
[00:59:07]
say edit table permissions and you could
[00:59:10]
set it to specific users?
[00:59:13]
Again,
[00:59:13]
the specific users may or may not have
[00:59:17]
access to both production and sandbox,
[00:59:19]
but you’re editing sandbox,
[00:59:21]
which means it’s only going to let you
[00:59:22]
select people who have access to sandbox.
[00:59:26]
So if you need to edit these settings,
[00:59:28]
you have to invite the stakeholders to the
[00:59:31]
sandbox so that you can say they can
[00:59:34]
edit it in prod.
[00:59:35]
All right.
[00:59:42]
Very cool.
[00:59:42]
Awesome.
[00:59:42]
Deep in the sandboxes.
[00:59:44]
I’ve got more questions,
[00:59:45]
but we’re up on our hour.
[00:59:47]
And that’s awesome.
[00:59:48]
Thank you, Kamille.
[00:59:49]
that’s really great yeah i’m debating if i
[00:59:53]
want to start using sandboxes or not a
[00:59:56]
little scary i use them i find them
[00:59:59]
helpful but it’s every single time i’m
[01:00:02]
like why there’s a specific thing that i
[01:00:06]
run into every single time and i’m like
[01:00:08]
this i wouldn’t have done it this way
[01:00:10]
yeah yeah awesome cool thank you for that
[01:00:15]
and we will be back next week
[01:00:18]
Everybody have a great week.
[01:00:19]
Take care.
[01:00:19]
Thank you.