What is Airtable?

Organize anything with Airtable, a modern database created for everyone. Airtable is a fast and flexible way to create tables to keep track of anything, from sales leads to vacation planning to inventory management.

Connect Airtable to Draftbit

Setup steps in Airtable

If you don't have an Airtable account, create one here. To get familiar with Airtable, check out their handy guides.

Before you start in Draftbit, make sure you have an Airtable Base created. To create a new base:

• From your Airtable dashboard, click + Add a Base
• You can start from scratch, or start from a template.

For this guide, we will use an Airtable create a Base from scratch. Identify your Base URL and API key — you'll need them in the next step.

📘

Maintain good Field hygiene!

The names you use for your fields will be used directly in your code so it's recommended that you use camelCase

Get your Base URL:

• From your Base, click the Help in the top right corner.
• Then click the API Documentation tab.
• Navigate to the Authentication tab from the left-navigation bar.
• Your base URL should look something like https://api.airtable.com/v0/<YOUR_BASE_ID>/<YOUR_TABLE_NAME>

Get your API key:

• From your Base, click user avatar in the top right corner.
• Navigate to the Account tab > Overview`.
• In the API section, a personal API key is already generated to be used.

Setup steps in Draftbit

To add the Airtable Base URL to your Draftbit app:

• Open the Data tab on left-navbar.
• From the Add a service menu, click on Rest API.
• Enter a name for your REST API.
• Paste your Base URL (from the previous section) into the Base URL field.
• Click Save.

Your Airtable Base requires authorization to access the data. To authenticate your Draftbit app with Airtable:

• Open the Settings tab on left-navbar.
• In Project Settings, navigate to Global Variables.
• Enter a key to access the API Key and the value for it.
• The Authorization API KEY value requires you to enter a Bearer token. The syntax is Bearer <YOUR_API_KEY>.
• In place of paste your own <YOUR_API_KEY> (from the previous section) and then click Add.
• Click Save.

Now, you are able to access the Authorization global variable as Header:

• Click the + from the Headers section to add a new Header.
• Type Authorization for the Key.
• Select the Global Variable for Authorization (from the last step).
• Click Save.

Using Airtable with Draftbit

Fetch all records from an Airtable base into a List in Draftbit

This recipe will show you how to:

• Create a simple Fetch-List in Draftbit
• Populate that Fetch-List with data from a simple Airtable base

To a blank screen in Draftbit, add a nested Fetch component, List component, View component and a Text component so that your Layer Tree looks like this:

Inside of the View component, you can place as many Text you would like to be rendered for each entry in your data set.

The next step is to create an endpoint. Let's try fetching the data using GET request:

• Click Create new endpoint.
• Click the 'Test' button next to the Endpoint input to make sure you've successfully connected to your Base.
• Once everything looks right, click Save to close the modal.

• Select the Fetch component in the Layer Tree and select the Service you have created.
• Select the Endpoint you want to fetch the data from.
• Here is also a Preview mode is shown on how the data is fetched from the service API.

• Select the List component in the Layer Tree.
• Change its Mapped Value to data.records under the Data Tab.
• Now you can configure a Mapped Value on each Text and Image component you have inside the View of your Fetch component.

Fetch records by using query parameters in a Draftbit app

The Airtable REST API allows you to fetch data by using query parameters. These are optional parameters to use but could depend on the way you want to fetch the data for a particular screen. The sort parameter overrides the default view of how the objects in the list of data are fetched. Each sort object has a field key that specifies the name of the column in the table. There is also an optional key on the sort object that is passed and is called direction. It accepts either asc or desc as its value.

Here is the general syntax to sort items. The {{COLUMN_NAME}} in the below syntax is the key of the column from the table and the {{DIRECTION}} is the order to sort records.

/?sort%5B0%5D%5Bfield%5D={{COLUMN_NAME}}&sort%5B0%5D%5Bdirection%5D={{DIRECTION}}

To sort the order of records from Airtable, you'll have to specify a field with a key as the name of the column from the table and the direction with a value of desc when fetching them in the Preview mode.

• Click Create new endpoint.
• Enter a name for this endpoint.
• Add /?sort%5B0%5D%5Bfield%5D={{COLUMN_NAME}}&sort%5B0%5D%5Bdirection%5D={{DIRECTION}} as a path in Add Path & Params.
• Add a Test values for the {{COLUMN_NAME}} and {{DIRECTION}}.
• Click the Test button next to the Endpoint input to make sure you've successfully connected to your Airtable REST API.
• Once everything looks right, click Save to close the modal.

Airtable REST API allows using other query parameters as well. To fetch a max number of records in the list use the maxRecords parameter along with the following syntax as the path in Add Path & Params where {{NUMBER}} is the test value of records you want to fetch.

/?maxRecords={{NUMBER}}

The pageSize parameter allows fetching records in each request. The syntax for it in the Add Path & Params is as follows where {{NUMBER}} is the determined number of records returned in each request along with an offset that can be used to fetch the next page of records.

/?pageSize={{NUMBER}}

The fields parameter is used to fetch only the records that are specified by a field name. The {{COLUMN_NAME}} in the below syntax is the key of the column from the table for each record. This parameter can help you reduce the amount of data to be fetched.

/?fields%5B%5D={{COLUMN_NAME}}

The filterByFormula parameter is used to filter the records. It evaluates each record. Here is the syntax with an example of fetching records that do not have any empty fields. The {{COLUMN_NAME}} in the syntax below is the key to the column from the table for each record.

/?filterByFormula=NOT%28%7B{{COLUMN_NAME}}%7D%20%3D%20%27%27%29

Fetch single record in a Draftbit app

To a blank screen in Draftbit, add a nested Fetch component, View component, and a Text component so that your Layer Tree looks like this:

To fetch a single post from Airtable, you'll have to specify a record ID which is found when fetching data in the Preview mode.

• Click Create new endpoint.
• Enter a name for this endpoint.
• Add the /{{ID}} in Add Path & Params.
• Add a Test value for the {{ID}}.
• Click the Test button next to the Endpoint input to make sure you've successfully connected to your Airtable REST API.
• Once everything looks right, click Save to close the modal.

• Select the Fetch component in the Layer Tree and select the Service you have created.
• Select the Endpoint you want to fetch the data from.
• Add the value for the ID in the Configuration section. This value is used to fetch the single record.
• Now you can configure a Mapped Value on each Text component to fields.title you have inside the View of your Fetch component.
• Here is also a Preview mode is shown on how the data is fetched from the service API.

POST data from a Draftbit app to an Airtable base record

You need to use a component that:

1. accepts user input and
2. has a Field Name prop to POST data to an Airtable base.

Examples of these include:

• Text Input
• Text Area/Text Field
• Checkbox
• Slider
• Radio Button Group

Once you have the necessary component(s) on your screen, you'll need to create a new endpoint in your Airtable service.

In the new endpoint you'll need to:

• Enter a name for the Endpoint.
• Change the Method to POST using the dropdown.
• Adding the Table name (if it differs or if you want to add data to different tables) in the Add Path & Params input. [Optional]
• On the right-hand side of the modal, click the Body Structure tab and insert the request of the body. This will differ depending on the Fields you have in your Airtable.

• Check the Create records tab back in your Airtable API documentation to get an idea of how your request should be structured.

Below is a general breakdown of what the request will look like. You're able to add multiple fields to a request, just make sure you include a comma after each field.

{
  "records":
    [
    {
    "id": [value of the id of a specific field],
    "fields": 
      {
        "[THE FIELD NAME IN AIRTABLE]": {{the value of the Field Name prop in Draftbit}}
        }
    }
  ]
}

• Using a Touchable component, you can add the endpoint to for the POST request.

To trigger the action, tap the Touchable component and the data added in the Body Structure tab is added to the Airtable base record.

PATCH data from a Draftbit app to an Airtable base record

The PATCH request is used to update the single entry in the Airtbale base record. It accepts similar input components as mentioned in POST request and the request is triggered using a Touchable component.

For example, once you have the necessary component(s) on your screen, you'll need to create a new endpoint in your Airtable service. In the new endpoint you'll need to:

• Enter a name for the Endpoint.
• Change the Method to PATCH using the dropdown.
• Adding the Table name (if it differs or want to add data to different table) in the Add Path & Params input. [Optional]
• On the right-hand side of the modal, click the Body Structure tab and insert the request of the body. This will differ depending on the Fields you have in your Airtable.

Below is a general breakdown of what the request will look like. You're able to add field to a request, just make sure to include the id of a particular field to update it.

{
  "records":
    [
    {
    "id": [value of the id of a specific field],
    "fields": 
      {
        "[THE FIELD NAME IN AIRTABLE]": {{the value of the Field Name prop in Draftbit}}
        }
    }
  ]
}

DELETE data from a Draftbit app to an Airtable base record

The DELETE request is to the Airtable base record with an item's ID to remove that particular record from the table.

For example, once you have the necessary component(s) on your screen, you'll need to create a new endpoint in your Airtable service. In the new endpoint you'll need to:

• Enter a name for the Endpoint.
• Change the Method to DELETE using the dropdown.
• Adding the id field to delete in the Add Path & Params input. [Optional]

Using a Touchable component and an Icon component, you can add the endpoint for the DELETE request.