How to create a form in Airtable

Airtable is a spreadsheet-database hybrid tool that helps teams collaborate and stay on top of their projects.

It brings together some of the best features of the tools already in your toolbelt, like Kanban boards and sleek, automatically populated spreadsheets.

It’s a highly versatile product, with one feature that makes it even more unique: form building. Airtable forms allow you to collect your data and organise it neatly in your tables, all from one place, without lifting a finger.

Let’s get into how to make one for yourself.

How to create a form in Airtable?

Whether you are a business owner, a project manager, or a freelancer, creating an Airtable form helps you collect the information you need and keep it organised.

Step 1: Open your Airtable base and add a form

(Image Source: Airtable)

Head to Airtable and open up the base where you’d like to add your form. Click the pink form icon from the navigation menu on the left.

Select your desired editing conditions, and click the Create new view button. Label your form, and add any description you need in the textbox below the title.

Step 2: Edit the fields

If you’re creating a form in an existing table, the fields in that table, like name or date, will automatically be added as form fields. These fields will populate in the table each time your form is submitted.

If you want to add any additional questions to your form, go ahead and click Add fields to my table. Choose your field type from the 18 options in the dropdown menu.

Airtable may not be a dedicated form builder, but it supports most of the fields you might need, like email, multiple choice, and open-text. You can also drag and drop fields into the editor to add them to your form.

Step 3: Customise your form

(Image Source: Airtable)

Once you're happy with the content of your form, it’s time to make it look snazzy. But, you’ll need to be an a paid Airtable plan to do so. Only Plus, Pro or Enterprise users can remove Airtable branding and make use of the available design options.

If you’re on one of these plans, you can click on the prompts to add a cover image and logo. Unfortunately, there aren’t a tonne of choices regarding fonts, colours, and background images.

Adding fields is a little easier: just click Add a field. You can adjust the layout of your form easily by dragging and dropping your fields anywhere in the editor. To alter any field, just double click it and tinker away in the contextual editing menu.

Step 4: Share your form

Preview your form by clicking on the Open form icon at the top of the editor. If you like what you see, click the Share form button to adjust your sharing settings and release your form into the wild.

You can choose to embed your form directly onto a website or share it via a private link. Regardless of how you share it, your form will populate your base with every form submission, so you can be sure your data stays organised every time.

Make beautiful forms that connect with Airtable

For creating a simple, custom form that connects to your Airtable projects, the form building feature is great. It’s got conditional logic to create advanced forms, and plenty of supported automations to set manual processes on auto-pilot.

If you’re looking to make branded forms, though, it may not be the best fit. The customisation options are pretty limited. If you need additional fields, more font and colour options, or the ability to add images or video, you may find yourself reaching for a different form solution.

Only Plus, Pro, and Enterprise plans support custom, non-branded form building too. Free users will need another way to create digital forms.

And that’s where Paperform comes in. Thanks to our integration with Airtable, you can create branded, powerful forms that connect with your Airtable projects automatically.

Just head to the Integrations & Webhooks menu from the Paperform Editor and select Airtable from the menu. Connect your account and you’re off to the races.

With the integration in place, you can add form responses as records in Airtable, and even automatically add questions to a form based on the headings in your existing bases.

Our Content Manager, Jack, uses the Airtable Paperform integration to keep track of all the books he reads in a year (to show off, naturally).

(Image Source: Paperform)

After he slaps another classic on the shelf, he fills out a Paperform, and has the details of the book logged in this swanky Airtable base.

(Image Source: Airtable)

"I love tracking what I read but I don't love sitting in front of spreadsheets to do it," says Jack. "My Paperform is saved as a bookmark on my phone, so any time I finish a book I can quickly log it and know it's perfectly filed in Airtable."

I just prefer to build a form that's aesthetically pleasing. Plus, seeing I'm on mobile most of the time, Paperform's Guided mode makes it much easier to fill forms in on the go.

The Airtable-Paperform integration is perfect for those who need a beautiful, advanced form that integrates seamlessly with Airtable. You can create a form that matches your brand, without sacrificing the benefits of Airtable. It's a win-win.

Customising your Paperform is a breeze, too. You can alter fonts, colours, and add background images. You can also insert photos and GIFs with native UnSplash and GIPHY integrations, or insert videos anywhere on the page. With 25 field types to choose from, you can collect the right data, every time.

When you’ve finished gathering the data, our robust built-in analytics can help you gain deeper insights into your form responses. From the Analytics dashboard, you can review your responses, the completion rate, access partial responses, and comb over your data through helpful graphs and visualisations.

Paperform + Airtable: brains and beauty

Paperform's Airtable integration combines the power of both: you get the versatility and features of a dedicated form builder, without sacrificing, the efficiency and organisation Airtable.

It’s a match made in heaven! (If heaven is a place where everyday processes are automated, and your data stays perfectly organised every time.)

But don’t take our word for it. Give it a go yourself with our 14-day free trial, and see how much you can automate with Paperform's Airtable integration today.