Airtable upgrade for Resource Directory Data Management

[Welcome to the blog Drew Whatley, lead resource specialist of the Whatcom Opportunity Council!]

Since 2018, members of Open Referral’s community of practice have been using Airtable to develop user-friendly, HSDS-compatible resource directory databases. 

I oversee management of the Whatcom Resource Information Collaborative’s resource data system in Airtable, and we’ve continued to build new capacities for managing directory information – so I’m excited to share our updates back with the community. 

Airtable is a web-based, no-code tool for managing data – like a spreadsheet with super-powers. Essentially, Airtable enables relatively non-technical people to deploy and use relational databases for free or low-cost. (Though Airtable does charge premium fees for high-volume, complex use cases.) Think of Microsoft Excel – but with more user-friendly features for linking tables to each other, formatting for consistency and precision, designing formulas and automations, and other methods for managing complex information that wouldn’t fit nicely into a typical spreadsheet. Plus, content managed in Airtable can also be accessed by third-party systems via an on-demand API. 

For smaller scale users, this combination of flexibility, usability, portability and price makes it an appealing solution for any community-oriented effort to manage resource information.

So I’m thrilled to share an upgraded database format that leverages Airtable’s advantages into a format that makes developing and maintaining a community database easier than ever. Building off the work developers like Sarapis have done adapting the standard HSDS format to Airtable, we’ve built a streamlined format that structures information in an HSDS 3.1 compliant manner, but includes user interface improvements, importing features, and even a simplified publishable directory.

Just a few of these custom built improvements include…

• Easy onboarding: Users can add their data as a single spreadsheet row, and automatically transform that single row into structured, relational, standardized data. This makes it easy to transition a directory from Google Sheets or Excel – or even unstructured text documents.

• Simple Embeddable Directory Functionality: Utilizing Airtable’s custom Interfaces, this updated implementation enables a simplified directory tool to be embedded in a pre-existing web page. This enables data managers to add, edit, and delete resources displayed to the public without having to edit the webpages themselves.

• Data Management Interfaces: Most information contained within the database can be managed from a designed interface with a UI tailored to the workflow of a resource data manager, so that data stewards do not have to operate entirely within a basic spreadsheet view. 
• Increased Granularity for Complex Information: By managing information about organizations, services, and locations as structured “relational” data, data managers can specify that particular details (say about points of contacts, or service accessibility) are linked to specific records (say about a given service at a specific location) and displayed with precision to end users. For instance, Airtable’s built-in formula fields are leveraged to generate titles for the resource records, but also allow for an override expression so data managers can fine tune presentation to their liking.
• Integrated Verification Recordkeeping: Whatcom’s Airtable expands on HSDS’s schema for information about record verification – enabling logs of both rapid, simple quality assurance processes to be generated and linked to records alongside records of more complex verification workflows that are used for longer-term data management. 

You can check out this new template, or download and use it yourself from the Airtable Universe here.

We have also published our documentation for the system here as a living document.

I was recently invited to the BuiltOnAir podcast to discuss our pioneering use of Airtable for resource information management in Whatcom and beyond. Catch the video of this podcast here (specifically minutes 19-40 for my segment). 

Whatcom is now working alongside a network of Early Learning Coalitions, as part of Washington Communities for Children to put this template into action, developing a series of locally-focused community resource databases across the state of Washington. Web developer Connect211 has also prototyped tools to enable these local Airtable databases to recognize the same shared statewide records, sharing their local data with statewide partners like 2-1-1 that operate different information systems. Bringing this kind of information out of siloed spreadsheets and into an online, API accessible, unified format is an early step toward federating resource data, where resource information is up to date, widespread, and comprehensive. Stay tuned for more insights into this promising path toward resource directory federation.

These are just some ways in which Airtable can be used for social services and resource management. Mutual Aid NYC also uses Airtable for mutual aid resource tracking, including implementing Sarapis’ ORServices for a front-end display resource directory website. Simplified directories were quickly implemented during the LA Fires just a few months ago. Whatcom even uses Airtable as the data backend for a community populated event calendar. 

Try out the templates and links that I’ve shared here for a sense of the possibilities– and join us in the Open Referral Community Forum to discuss with others who are using Airtable. I’m also happy to chat about ways to make Airtable work for important non-profit work like this, feel free to reach out!