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    Airtable workspace and base collaboration overview
    • 28 Nov 2024
    • 6 Minutes to read
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    Contents

    Airtable workspace and base collaboration overview

    • Updated on 28 Nov 2024
    • 6 Minutes to read
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    Article summary

    Plan availability

    All plan types

    Permissions

    Owners

    Platform(s)

    Web/Browser, Mac app, Windows app, and mobile apps

    Related reading

    What is workspace collaboration?

    Collaborating in the Airtable workspaces allows owners to manage which collaborators have access to workspace bases and interfaces shared with them—at a specified permission level.

    Check our our Managing billable collaborators article to learn more about adding workspace collaborators and managing their permissions.

    What is base collaboration?

    Collaborating in Airtable bases allows owners to grant collaborators access to specific bases, while not sharing workspace access—at a specified permission level.

    Check our our Managing billable collaborators article to learn more about to learn more about adding base collaborators and managing their permissions.

    How do workspace and base owners and collaborators work together?

    How do base owners and collaborators share records?

    NOTE

    • Emailing records is limited to 10 email requests per hour, each allowing a maximum of 15 recipients.

    • Free plan owners and collaborators are unable to send records to email addresses on non-Airtable collaborators.

    To send records from a base:

    1. Open your Airtable homepage.

    2. Select and open your preferred base.

    3. Select the record you want to send and right click.

    4. Click Send record.

    5. Enter the email address(es) of the collaborator(s) you want to the share the record with.

    6. Click Send.

    How does commenting and @mentioning in Airtable work for owners and collaborators?  

    NOTE

    • Commenting and @mentioning collaborators are only available for collaborators with Commenter permissions or higher.

    • You will only receive comment notifications if you have verified the email address associated with your Airtable account.

    • When mentioning collaborators, they are automatically notified of additional comments you make on that record, even when they are not directly mentioned.

    • Business and Enterprise Scale customers can also tag user groups in comments and long text fields.

    When an owner or collaborator comments on a record, those comments are visible in a record's activity feed and the record-level revision history when expanded.

    To turn on comment notifications:

    1. Open your Airtable homepage.

    2. Click your account profile photo in the top-right corner.

    3. Click Notification preferences.

    4. Select the checkboxes next to “Mobile push notifications” and “Email.”

    To turn off comment notifications:

    1. Open your Airtable homepage.

    2. Click your account profile photo in the top-right corner.

    3. Click Notification preferences.

    4. Deselect the checkboxes next to “Mobile push notifications” and “Email.”

    To comment or mention a collaborator in a record:

    1. Open your Airtable homepage.

    2. Select and open your preferred base.

    3. Select the record you want to expand and press your spacebar.

    4. Enter your comment in the bottom right.

      1. You can also mention collaborators by typing the @ symbol, followed by their namein the bottom right.

    When you commenting, you can also:

    • React to a message with emojis by clicking the smiley face icon.

    • Create a comment thread by clicking the dialog bubble icon.

    • Delete or edit a comment you previously made, click the ... icon.

    To watch comments in a record:

    1. Open your Airtable homepage.

    2. Select and open your preferred base.

    3. Select the record you want to expand and press your spacebar.

    4. Click the bell icon in the top-right corner.

    5. Select either “Notify me only for @ mentions” or “Notify me about all comments.”

    To turn on watching via the user field

    When a user field type is set up to notify users when they’re added, future collaborators will automatically be added to watch any comments that they are assigned to. Watching via a user field allows you to watch multiple records' comments at one time by copying and pasting a collaborator's information into multiple cells simultaneously.

    1. Open your Airtable homepage.

    2. Select and open your preferred base.

    3. Select your user field.

    4. Toggle on the “Notify users with base access when they're added” option.

    You will receive comment notifications when you:

    • Comment on a record.

    • Are mentioned in a record or comment.  

    • When a collaborator or automation adds you to a user field type with the option to "Notify users when they’re added" turned on before adding new collaborators to records.

    Using AI to summarize comments

    In long comment threads, it can sometimes be difficult to catch up on all of the ideas, changes, or updates that were discussed about a record in Airtable. This is especially true when:

    • You are a leader/manager at your organization and want a high-level, root understanding of a conversation as quickly as possible.

    • Your team has multiple projects or tasks that are being managed and it’s helpful to gain quick insight.

    • You were out sick, on vacation, or on paternity/maternity leave and need to catch up in Airtable.

    Summarizing comments using Airtable AI can help with these types of use cases. For more information about AI billing, visit this support article.

    Summarizing comments with Airtable AI

    You can summarize all of the comments made in a record within a base or an interface.

    From a base:

    1. Navigate to the record of your choice and expand the record.

    2. At the top of the comments section on the right side of the expanded record, click Summarize.

    3. Depending on the number of comments, it may take a moment for the AI to finish summarizing. Once finished you’ll see a text summary appear.

    From an interface:

    1. Navigate to the interface page and record of your choice and click into the record details. Note that not all interface pages allow for record details to be viewed. Additionally, not all record detail pages will have comments enabled.

    2. Click on Add a comment… near the bottom of the record detail page.

    3. Click the Summarize option.

    Regardless of the surface you are using, the AI may take a moment to generate a summary of the comments for you to read, especially when there is a particularly long comment history.

    Note

    Make sure that you are in the “Comments” section. If the dropdown option is on “All activity” or “Revision history” then you will not see the Summarize button appear.

    Deleting AI comment summaries

    1. Click the … icon in the upper right corner of the summary box.

    2. Click the Delete summary option.

    3. After deleting the summary, the Summarize button should reappear.

    Understanding the expected behavior and limitations of summarized comments

    Expected behavior

    • All comments will be summarized

    • Summaries can be seen by other collaborators

    Limitations

    • A subsection of comments cannot be summarized, only the whole feed of comments can be summarized.

    • The Airtable Web API is unable to pull out the metadata of summarized comments

    • When the “Prevent external users from seeing each other” setting is enabled, the ability to summarize comments will be disabled

    FAQs

    Why are base comments visible after downgrading by my Airtable plan?

    Although your workspace's plan limits your revision history, base comments remain visible until manually deleted.

    How do I duplicated a base without comments?

    To create a copy of your preferred base without comments, you can duplicate the base and uncheck the "Duplicate comments" box.

    Why does some records show a number to the left of the record’s name?

    Records with comments are indicated by a visible number to the left of the record's name.

    How do workspace and base owners and external collaborators work together?

    Owners can collaborate with external users by creating forms and allowing those users to add records with their information.

    How do base collaborators remove themselves from shared base?

    To remove yourself from a shared base:

    1. Open your Airtable homepage.

    2. Open the shared base you want to remove yourself from.

    3. Click Share in the top right corner, then Manage access.

    4. Select the checkbox next to your name.

    5. Click Remove 1 collaborator.

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