Rapid Cloud Database Development With Airtable

Rapid development is crucial for today's business. Tools that assist in the rapid deployment of apps are a vital part of one's technology toolkit. Whether you are a Developer or just someone who needs to create a cloud-based data storage solution quickly, Airtable may be for you. This semester I have been using Airtable in my MIS 330 Project Management class with great success. Most of the students are Business Majors with limited experience in working with databases. A few are Business Analytics Majors. Since we are "on line" due to the continuing Covid-19 crisis, we needed something students could access on-line from wherever they were. The ability to share their work with me was also important. Here's the introductory exercise we did at the beginning of the semester back in January. It assumes little or no background in Database Management.

"Creating a Relational Database in the Cloud – Getting Started" 

1. For all of the database development work in MIS 330, including our semester project, we will be using “Airtable” a relational, on-line, “Cloud” database. The “Creator” plan is free. To get started, set up a new account or simply sign in with your existing Google account.

2. Add a new Workspace (Over on the Left. Click the “+” sign. Name your workspace “MIS 330” you can always change it!).

3. Add a Base (Select “Start from scratch” from the drop down list. Call it “MIS 330 Intro.” Choose a color and icon.).

4. Click on the new Base you just added. Create an empty Table called “Employees” with the following field names and types (you can insert a new field by “right clicking” on the grid and then selecting Insert left or Insert right from the drop down menu. Use the following:

EmployeeID Single Line Text (This becomes the Primary Field)

First Name Single Line Text
Last Name Single Line Text
Address         Single Line Text
City         Single Line Text
State Single Line Text
Zip         Single Line Text
Date Hired Date
Salary Currency


5. Enter at least 5 records into the Employees table to test it. Exit Airtable. Your work should automatically be saved! Hint: To return to the beginning, just click the “Go home” icon in the upper-left corner. It looks like a table.


Here's a link to the database we created for this first assignment:

https://airtable.com/shrG4RAgA05SvRCUn

Airtable allows you to create multiple tables and link them using "One to Many" relationships as implemented in most commercial relational database software. Our semester projects took advantage of this capability as we developed a solution for a medium sized computer consulting firm during the semester. The Filter, Group, and Sort routines are quick and easy to use. No need for printed reports as in the past.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EOQ Calculations in Excel

Image
Last week in Operations Management we used Excel to calculate the Economic Order Quantity and graph Carrying Costs, Ordering Costs, and Total Costs. The Economic Order Quantity or "EOQ" is the order size that "minimizes" Total Costs. Any more or less and you are spending too much on ordering or too much on keeping inventory. For example, in the Excel spreadsheet below, if you had an Annual Demand of 12000 units, Ordering Costs of $10 per order, and Holding costs of $4 per unit per year, the EOQ would be 245 units and Total Costs would be $980.00: We used the following formula in Excel to calculate EOQ: =SQRT((2*B2*B3)/B4) And the following formula to calculate Total Costs at this point: =$B$6/2*$B$4+$B$2/B6*$B$3 To create the graph, we used the following formulas and simply copied them over a range of 100 to 500 units. Ordering Costs: =$B$2/D2*$B$3 Holding Costs: =D2/2*$B$4 Total Costs: =F2+G2 Looking at this chart, we can clearly see that our order size of 245 is ...
Read more

Reliability Calculations in Excel

Image
In Operations Management today we used Excel to calculate product reliability. Reliability is defined as "the ability of a product, service, part, or system to perform its intended function under a prescribed set of circumstances" (Stevenson, 2009). In order to calulate reliability over a given length of time we need to use the following formula: P(no failure) = e -t/MTBF where: e = 2.7183 t = Length of service before failure MTBF = Mean Time Between Failures One of the cases we did in class involved an auto detailing company that wanted to calculate the reliability of its vacuum cleaners. Excel provides an "EXP" funtion that we can easily apply here. After entering all data for the problem as shown on the spreadsheet below, we type the formula =EXP(-A5/$B$2) in cell B5 and copy down. Next we plot the distribution for t=0 to the maximum life expectancy of 20 years using a line graph. What we end up with looks like a classic case of "ex...
Read more

“How Are We Doing?” Efficiency, Utilization, and Productivity

Image
In business, knowing how we are performing in relation to our competition is vital. Internally we want to know if we are using resources effectively and getting the most out of what we have. Efficiency and Productivity are two calculations that are fundamental to the success of any organization. While the calculations are simple, choosing what measures to use and collecting the necessary data requires a thorough understanding of your industry. To calculate Efficiency you will have to first decide what to use as a base for comparison. Does your company already have a “target” of some kind? Like total units produced? If so then you can compare everything to that. Once you have that, there are a couple of basic formulas that can be used: Efficiency = Actual Output/Effective Capacity X 100% Utilization = Actual Output/Design Capacity X 100% Design Capacity is the maximum output achieved under ideal conditions. Effective Capacity is always less than Design Capacity because of factors...
Read more