Getting started with Airtable calendar views
  • 25 May 2023
  • 9 Minutes to read
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Getting started with Airtable calendar views

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Article Summary

If you have at least one date field in your table, you can create a calendar view. Calendar views (as you might guess) allow you to look at your records on a calendar.

Overview

Users on Pro plans have access to a set of advanced calendar features, designed so that teams with calendar-intensive workflows can get extra insights from their records and design extra-powerful calendars. These include the ability to define date ranges, as well as the ability to plot multiple date fields from the same table on a calendar. Record coloring, another Pro plan feature, is also particularly useful in calendar views.

For more information on Airtable Pro plans, please see our pricing page.

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Creating a calendar view

Note
You will need to navigate to a base if one isn't already open or you will need to create a new base in the workspace of your choice to create a calendar view. The steps below assume you are in the base and table (containing at least one date field) where you want to make the new calendar view.

To create a new calendar view open the view sidebar, then underneath the Create heading click the Calendar option. If your view creation section is collapsed, you will need to first expand it.

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You will then be prompted to select one of the table's date fields to use to place dates on the calendar.

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Note that in order to create a calendar view, you must have a date field in your table. If you do not already have one, you will be required to create a new one using the Create a new date field option.

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Once a date field has been selected, your calendar view will populate with the records from the selected date field.

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To change the calendar view's associated date field (or date fields, if you have a Pro plan), click the calendar icon in the view bar. This will bring up the date field picker again.

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Defining a date range

If you have a Pro plan, the date field picker will let you select two date fields in order to define ranges. To define a date range, click the Set an end date field option next to a date field that has already been plotted. This will bring up a dropdown menu of date fields from your table. (You can also create a new field, if you'd like.)

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Records with values in both fields will show up on the calendar as ranges.

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You can click and drag on ranges to move them around, or click and drag on the edges of the ranges to lengthen or shorten them as desired.

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Plotting multiple calendars on a single view

If your workspace is on the Enterprise or Pro plan, you'll see the option to Use an additional date field in the date picker. Click on it to bring up a dropdown menu of the other date fields in your table.

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You can plot up to 20 date fields (or date ranges) onto a single calendar view.

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To remove a date field or range, click the X next to the date field or range you wish to remove.

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If you have multiple date fields or ranges on your calendar, you have the option of giving each field or range a label to help differentiate them. Something short and sweet is usually good. (We also recommend trying emoji.)

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Alternatively or in addition to labels and emoji, you can give each of the multiple date fields or ranges on your calendar a different color using the record coloring feature.

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Using different view modes

Certain tasks require you to look at the big picture, while others require that you take a more granular view. Accordingly, you can adjust your calendar view to one of several modes by clicking the toggle in the upper right corner of your calendar. You can choose from:

  • Month (default)
  • 2 week
  • Week
  • 3 day
  • Day

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Note that if you're in week, 3 day, or day mode, and the date field on which the calendar view is based also contains time values, the calendar view will show a timeline on the left hand side of the screen.

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We do not have an annual/yearly view mode at this time.

Weekday mode

By default, your calendar view will show weekend dates (Saturdays and Sundays). You can minimize the width of weekends in your calendar view to give additional space to your calendar's weekdays. To collapse weekends on your calendar view while in month, 2 week, or week mode, click the Collapse weekends button visible over the Saturday and Sunday columns.

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You can return the weekend dates to their original appearance by mousing over the Saturday or Sunday column headers and clicking (a popup that says "Expand weekends" should appear).

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Creating and editing records

Creating records

To add a new record on a particular date in Month or 2 week mode, you can click the + button that appears when you mouse over a date, or double-click on the date to which you want to add a record.

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To add a new record at a particular time in Week, 3 day, or day mode, double-click on the date/time to which you want to add a record.

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If you have one date field for the calendar, the date field for the new record will be automatically be set to the date that was clicked. If you are on a Pro plan and have multiple date fields and/or date ranges plotted on the same view, clicking the + button or double-clicking will bring up a menu allowing you to specify which date field you want the record card to be plotted to. (The menu will use the labels you defined for your different fields and ranges.)

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If you add a record with a date range, the date you clicked will set the start date.

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Editing records

You can edit records directly from the calendar by clicking on a card. This will bring up a mini-editor from which you can edit the primary field or the associated date field being used for scheduling. Clicking on the "Edit details" button will bring up the expanded record view; clicking on the "Delete" button will delete the record.

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You can also edit a record by clicking on a card in the side bar, which will open up that record's expanded view.

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Note
To choose which field information shows up in each calendar record, you'll want to customize the calendar labels

Changing record dates

Clicking and dragging a card on the calendar will also reschedule the event, editing the value in its date field. Dragging a record card from the sidebar onto a date on the calendar will also change an event's date. If you drag a record to the sidebar, that will clear the value in the date field, "unscheduling" it.

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Please note, that like all changes made in any view, the changes you make on a calendar view will also be reflected in the date field in all other views!

If you have a Pro plan and have plotted any date ranges, you can click and drag on them to move them around just like the single-field cards, or click and drag on the edges of the ranges to lengthen or shorten them as desired.

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View events in a record list

As mentioned in Changing record dates, you can use the sidebar listing your records to schedule or reschedule events by clicking and dragging records to and from the sidebar. You can also use the find record box to search through your records—it'll search through all fields for your query, not just the names of the records.

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You can also click the dropdown arrow next to "All records" to instead view only records with dates (arranged in chronological order), or to view only records without dates.

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You can also use the record list to jump directly to a record's position on the calendar by right-clicking on a card and selecting the Go to date option.

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To hide the record list and just see the calendar, you can click the X button in the top right corner of the record list. To bring the record list back, you can click the Show record list button.

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Calendar integrations

You can integrate an Airtable calendar view with your favorite third-party calendar app by getting an iCal link from a shared calendar view. For more specific instructions on how to do this, please see this article on integrating Airtable with external calendar applications.

Customizing labels

The "Customize labels" button can be found in the calendar view toolbar.

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Clicking this option will reveal a menu of options to customize the appearance of the events in your calendar. You can:

  • Add a cover image from an attachments field connected to that record. There's an additional toggle to "fit" or "crop" images.
  • Bold, italicize, and/or underline field names.
  • Move around the field order.
  • "Hide all" or "Show all" fields in the view.

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Note

When using the cover field image option, only the first image that shows in a corresponding attachment field will appear in the calendar view record.


Deleting a calendar view

To delete a calendar view, simply click on the ellipsis button in the view bar and select the "Delete calendar" option.

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FAQs

Can I reorder the way records are displayed on a day/week/year within the calendar view?

Records in the calendar view are always displayed by age, with the oldest record on top. We do not currently support the ability to change this ordering.

Can I hide fields within calendar view?

You can hide fields in a calendar view by expanding a record and toggling the field visibility once the record is expanded.

Which fields are visible in calendar view does not affect how records appear. Instead, hiding fields in a calendar view determines which fields are visible in expanded records for calendar view share links.

My calendar view is showing empty brackets next to event records, what might be causing this?

Likely, you have fields that are showing that don’t have values. In these cases, they will show as (empty). This can be adjusted with the “Customize labels” menu which includes the “Hide all” toggle which will result in hiding these empty brackets.

Can I print a calendar view?
I can't seem to get the current month to load in my calendar view. How can I have it default to show the current month?

When a calendar view is opened for the first time (this applies whether it's opened within a base or a shared view), it will open to the nearest month/week/day that contains events. This means that if the nearest events are in a past month, then that past month will be displayed. Additionally, if the nearest events are in a future month, then that future month will be displayed.

For the calendar to open in the current month, there either needs to be:

  • Events in the current month OR
  • Events in both past and upcoming months, with the current month landing in the middle.

In a calendar shared view, it's possible to specify a default calendar timescale and default to a specific date, but there's no way to always show the current month regardless of the distribution of events.


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