How Airtable Works for USO-Metro

Meet the App We Love!

Our team at USO-Metro has been searching high and low for a project management software that would work well for managing our team’s projects, tasks and contacts. Luckily, we found a powerful online database resource that has changed the way our team works! Today, we wanted to introduce to our favorite new online tool, in hopes that it can help get you organized this fall. Introducing Airtable! Why do we love Airtable so much? See below!

Meet Airtable from Airtable on Vimeo.

Our Favorite Features

Fiscal Responsibility. As a small-staffed non-profit, with an immense service population, we are always working to make our operations as efficient as possible. Ever looking to do more with less and keep our administrative costs to a minimum*, Airtable is our new best friend! From managing content to complex fundraising events, Airtable has become our one-stop-shop for flexible data organization.

We have tried other systems before, but until now, we never found quite the right balance of quality to expense; advanced features to usability; live updates to security. Airtable has it all. And more.

Use it for anything. We are able to easily customize field (column) types and functions. The default options cover every type of information we need to track, plus there is a great formula function for more detailed work. This has allowed us to use Airtable as a contact database, project management tool and editorial content schedule, all in our first month. The versatility and customization of Airtable has truly been what has made the application work for our team.

View it as you like. View customization is where Airtable beats out the competition. The “grid” view has a familiar look, similar to excel, so it’s easy for anyone to get started. It also offers additional views to suite user preference and role. It works for both our left- and right-brain staffers alike. One of our favorite features is being able to expand a single row, or “record” into its own window, allowing you to focus on the details of one item. Best of all, you can even save common views and switch back and forth between view options without worrying that you will mess up the data alignment for other users.

Live and sharable. Airtable is smart and will save your changes as you go. It will show live changes across multiple user profiles and allow you to link records between tabs. You can even share specific views with external parties.

Mimics how we work in real life. Airtable has revolutionized our project management by allowing each staff member to see what tasks they are assigned to and stay up-to-date on related tasks and projects. Our team is often spread out over multiple locations, and Airtable has a chat feature that allows users to comment on any record, see who has updated any piece of information, and alert team members of any status changes by tagging or commenting. It eliminates those pesky chains of endless emails and allows you to have the conversation about the data, attached to the data.

And there’s an app! We have edited Airtables from flights, on the beach and walking the dog.

Mission First

In short, Airtable has allowed us to focus on our mission by making the admin stuff much easier, quicker and with better results.

To get started with Airtable, sign up for an account here!

Full transparency, we will receive a non-profit discount for our totally honest review of this product. Another reason we love Airtable: Airtable hearts nonprofits.