Airtable Settings: Change Default Field Behavior to Manual

Marvin A. just wnated to loop back on the airtable request - the issue that I’m still seeing is that even after setting all fields to “Manual” whenever you add a new field to the airtable it defaults to “Auto” --> any way to make this bevahior that IF an airtable node is set to manual then new fields would also be set to manual

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16 comments

Stephen T.
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Marvin A. fyi here is an example of the pain it causes, just so you can see the behavior
Stephen T.
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https://www.loom.com/share/028cce2062cc43faa7aec8890bddf7ab?sid=fd879d0a-c530-4082-82ae-eba6d4e1b117
Marvin A.
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Got it. Thanks for sharing! It’s interesting bc usually it’s a more of a feature when I build.. especially with creating new fields it is usually pretty helpful to have it default to auto but I see your point with changing field names and having multiple actions affected. Not sure if/when we find a solution here but I will keep you posted!
Stephen T.
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Hmm Marvin A. for anyone using airtable I am confident that this is not a feature they would want
Stephen T.
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Why? A data base is used to store information. But, everytime you add in a new field, you don’t want then for every time you update or create a record for the AI to take a call on what they think is right
Stephen T.
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For example, let’s say I have a database of applicants
Stephen T.
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I realize I forgot to add in gender
Stephen T.
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I now add in gender - something that is self-reported
Stephen T.
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NOW, everytime my Lindy touches this table - which would be a lot if I use Lindy
Stephen T.
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The AI agent has to take a call on what the gender of the applicant is
Stephen T.
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But that’s not how databases usually work - in most cases, the data is meant to stay constant overtime. It’s not mimicking human behavior - it’s actually introducing this strange decision path every single time for the AI agent to reassign a new value to an existing data alyer
Stephen T.
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This might be true for say “sending an email” - but for something like a database (Airtable, Supabase, googlesheets, etc.) I really don’t think you want the behavior of the AI agent taking a call everytime on whether or not to change existing fields
Marvin A.
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yeah Stephen T. I hear you on the database integrity point - totally valid for traditional data storage use cases. The challenge I am seeing is that tools like Airtable/Sheets get used for so many different things beyond classic databases - project tracking, content planning, calculations, etc. where auto-population might actually be helpful.
Marvin A.
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That said I still hear you… already shared internally and will think through some options that give users more control based on their specific use case
Stephen T.
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I think the main thing would just be a switch where if i say “Set everything to manual” then the default should then be manual. But totally OK if the default is Auto (as long as I can change the default for my airtable nodes)
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Stephen T.
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Really appreciate you sharing this out!!
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Airtable Settings: Change Default Field Behavior to Manual | Lindy Community