Relations with Airtable

I am on the Free Glide plan and I just started I am an Airtable expert but after I synced my Airtable Data to my Glide app I don’t see any of relations / Linked records that I have in my tables. See Video

If you’re on the Free Plan, you might have hit the row limit and thus not seeing records from some of your tables. How many rows do you have in the base altogether?

Are you you asking how many record I have in each table?

Basically, you are on a free plan, which has a 500 row limit combined across all tables. Glide will load a minimum of 10 rows per table so they are not completely empty, but if the combined rows in all tables exceeds 500 rows, then it’s going to limit what is loaded. Each table will have at least 10 rows, but if you are still under the limit, then some tables will have more rows loaded. It’s seemingly random which table and how many rows are loaded. I believe this is only an issue with external data sources and it’s only a problem when you have more data than your plan allows.

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I think I understand now given this fact I do plan on upgrading to the starter but in the meantime should I export my data to a spreadsheet and then use that as the data source for glide so that I keep everything under the limit and I make sure that I am only sharing the tables that I need?

A google spreadsheet is still an external data source, so you would have the same issues. You may not have an issue with native Glide Tables, but it would be a bit of a process to first create them, and then import your data.

If you end goal is to still use Airtable, then trying to create a google sheet or glide table is a lost cause because you would ultimately have to rebuild your entire app if you switch to a different data source.

What I am saying is that I can create a two way sync between a Google Sheet and Airtable where I Only sync the record and table that I want to use so that I say under the limit.

This way if I update Airtable it will update Google Sheets and therefore update Glide and vice versa I would never end up switching to Airtable this way?

What do you think?

I guess that could work, but it’s just introducing an even longer delay. Devices will be syncing to Glide, to Google, to Airtable, back to Google, back to Glide, and back to the device. Seems like something that will just go terribly wrong down the road. Besides, why wouldn’t you just create another Airtable base that imports the data you need, instead of throwing google into the mix?

So are you saying that ultimately you will or will not use your Airtable base? Like I said, if you prefer to be using Airtable as your data source, then I wouldn’t waste time trying to find a workaround, because you will be stuck with that workaround long term. Switching an app’s data source is not to be taken lightly. You are committing to that data source unless you are willing to rebuild large chunks of your app. At that point, it would just be worth paying the $25 in place of time spent trying to figure out workarounds.

On a side note, it personally makes no sense to me that glide limits the data. It’s reasonable that a published app will not work if you are over your plan limits, but you should at least have access to all of the data so you can at least build the app. Plus I’ve seen Glide incorrectly count rows in unused tables on occasion, so there seems to be bugs in that row counting process to begin with. However, as it stands right now, they limit data from external sources if you exceed plan limits.

Feel free to do what works for you, but personally I’d probably just pay the $25 to avoid the headache.

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I totally agree with you I will try your suggestions ultimately I’m trying to verify whether or not glide is going to be a viable choice for the project that I’m working on so that is what I’m waiting for before I choose to subscribe.

I do think what you’re saying is valid.

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My struggle is even if I subscribe to the the starter plan I need to limit the number of records that are in my base so that I dont go over my limits.

How do you recommend that I handle this because even if I was on the starter I would be just under the 5000 record limit.

If you are under 5000 rows, then what is the problem?

Personally, if I don’t want data to be part of my database, then it just isn’t. Either I delete the data, move it to an unused table, or move it to an entirely different spreadsheet that is not connected to Glide in any way. There is no mechanism in Glide to ignore existing rows without them counting against your limit…with only one exception…If an entire table in your database is not used in any way by your app, then the rows in that table should not be counted. That’s about it.

Anything beyond that, you need to figure out externally. For the record, I have no experience with Airtable, so I don’t know it’s capabilities or all of the ins-and-outs between Airtable and Glide.

The problems that my base adds new records to it all the time, the record count increases daily and therefore I would very soon exceed the limit at this point.

My structure of my base does not allow me to simply more or delete records/rows and therefore I need to monitor my record count very closely.

Let me know if that helps.

I can’t advise you on how you should manage your data. That’s up to you. I can only explain what your limits are and how they work on regards to Glide. If you have more rows than your plan allows, then it’s pretty cut and dried. If your plan allows for 5000 rows and your data has more than 5000 rows, then that’s what it is. It’s over the limit. If you know of some tricks with Airtable to limit what Glide can see while still allowing data to be updated by Glide, then great. I don’t know what else I can tell you.

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I see I will just keep trying and see How things go.

Thank you for your help.