Anyone can create a floor plan using AI. But who would want to live in a home with a tiny bedroom, no closets, and 3 mudrooms! Not to mention the dining room is at the opposite end of the house from the kitchen. This is just a terrible design!
Creating an Airtable database is similar to building a new home. There is a design phase where the blueprints are drawn based on the homeowner’s needs. You wouldn’t watch some YouTube videos to build your house from scratch. You’d hire an architect.
While Airtable is a very user-friendly and flexible tool, it does require strategy and expertise to work as a business scales. We’ve helped many clients who have started building their Airtable base from scratch and got stuck after a month, a year, or 3 years. Here are some of the common headaches clients who have DIY’ed their system have experienced:
- Duplicative records
- Unreliable automations as a result of over-complicated implementations
- Rigid systems with no room to grow
- An excessive number of Airtable bases due to the poor initial architecture design that did not support scalability
So how do Airtable consultants ensure they build a system with scalability in mind? Drawing on our experience from over 200 projects, here’s what expert consultants focus on.
1. Designing a Strong Base Architecture
Before building anything, a good consultant will take the time to understand your needs, your current workflows, and your future goals.
Once a consultant understands the needs of your business and workflows, they can help you optimize your current processes and start designing a system that can scale. Consultants help you reduce the amount of time you might spend trying to use ChatGPT, Google, and forums to piece together a solution you think might work, only to realize that key features are missing or are not supported by the architecture you created.
At Claribase, we’ve seen how working with us helps clients reduce time spent on research and implementation, which gets them closer to their goals more efficiently. We’ve seen hundreds of systems and know what will or won’t scale before clients commit.
When a consultant is designing your solution, they prioritize the following:
- Building with future expansions in mind. What is the future vision you have for your system?
- Having the relevant knowledge about your industry. This means they have likely built a system with similar requirements to yours.
- Building with confidence and clarity. They are transparent on whether they can build a solution that meets and scales with your business needs.
- Helping clients assess Airtable fit. Consultants are third parties who work with Airtable as a tool and can help you evaluate your business processes and advise on which features in Airtable would support or hinder your build.
- Being a strategic thought partner. Seasoned consultants focus on helping clients think critically to make aligned decisions and avoid common pitfalls.
Tip: Find consultants and teams that have worked on similar use cases that you are trying to build.
At Claribase, our focus is on building what clients actually need to achieve their goals, not just what they initially request.
2. Advising on Using Automations Efficiently
Consultants can work with you to understand what aspects of your process or system could benefit from automations. Sometimes it’s better to use Airtable features, scripting, integrations, or AI fields, and consultants can advise on this kind of decision-making so your system is manageable as you scale.
Claribase often helps clients reduce their automations simply by restructuring their base or leveraging native Airtable features they didn’t know existed. We often find that people overuse automations as a band-aid for suboptimal architecture.
3. Planning for Record Limits, Archiving, and Base Size
Skilled consultants will take into consideration the future expansion of your system. They build systems with record limits, archiving, and base size in mind so that the system can be used for years to come.
Consultants take into consideration the number of records you currently have and anticipate having in the future, how long you plan to keep records in your system, data archiving procedures for your use case, the complexity of your architecture, etc., and can help you determine the best route to building a scalable system that meets those needs.
Claribase designs systems with longevity in mind, building in archiving strategies, expansion pathways, and predictable base performance.
4. Documenting Procedures
A scalable system isn’t just about architecture, it’s also about maintaining it over time. Consultants provide documentation and training to ensure teams can use and sustain the system efficiently once it’s implemented.
At Claribase, we provide client-specific documentation and office hours, so your team is able to use (and maintain!) the system effectively.
5. Testing to See That the System Can Handle Usage
Consultants can test your system to see how it handles future growth. A consultant would likely test a variety of common and edge use cases of a system. This ensures that a system satisfies its current requirements but can also handle cases that are less likely but could occur as growth happens.
At Claribase we run tests as we build and implement workflow demonstrations to show how a feature can be used in practice, validating that the system won’t break as your business grows.
Conclusion
Building a scalable Airtable system requires more than just creating tables. It’s about strategic planning, thoughtful design, and expert guidance. By addressing architecture, automations, growth planning, documentation, and testing, consultants help businesses create systems that can evolve with their needs.
If you’d like to start your Airtable project the right way, with experts leading the way, then book a free introductory call to see how Claribase can support you in building a scalable system with clarity.