Integrate Cloud Firestore with Airtable

Cloud Firestore is an online, NoSQL database that is easy to scale and simple to use. Cloud Firestore enables real-time data synchronization among clients on web, Android, iOS, and JavaScript. Cloud Firestore also supports offline mode to sync data in the background even without network connection. Cloud Firestore can be used with other Google Cloud services such as Google App Engine, BigQuery, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Endpoints.

Airtable is a top for creating complex databases. Airtable allows us to create multiple spreadsheets and then link them together. With Airtable, we can also connect to external data sources through Appy Pie Connect. By combining these capabilities of Airtable with the ease-of-use of Cloud Firestore, we can create powerful databases that auto-update and allow us to access all our data from anywhere.

In this section, I will talk about how we can use Cloud Firestore and Airtable together to create a powerful database that auto-updates when new data is added. Below is an example of a database I built using the two tops.

Figure 1. A database I created using Cloud Firestore and Airtable.

The database stores various categories of books with an associated rating assigned by me based on my own experience reading the books. The table at the bottom shows the ratings given to each book by other users who have rated that book. By clicking on the “show all” button in the topbar, you will see all the reviews written by users for each book. In addition to showing all the reviews for a book, clicking some of the buttons labeled “No Rating” and “1 Star” will rate the book with one star or no rating respectively. The books are ranked according to their total ratings given by all users on a five star scale. This ranking is shown in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2. Ranking of books based on total ratings given by users on a five star scale.

Since this database is automatically maintained in real time, it can be useful for many purposes. As a simple example of how this database could be used, let’s say you wanted to read a new book but didn’t know which one you should pick up next. By going to the “Books” tab and clicking on one of the books, you will see a summary of all the user ratings given to that book. By seeing how many people like a book and how many don’t, you can make an informed decision about what book to read next. You could also use this database to help you decide which books you should buy or which books you should put into your Amazon cart for later purchase.

In this article, we looked at how we can implement a powerful database using Cloud Firestore and Airtable together. We saw how Cloud Firestore allowed us to maintain auto-updating data without having to write any code on our end while Airtable gave us the ability to connect to external data sources and easily create queries for our database. Although both tops are excellent in their own right, using them together allowed us to create a simple yet extremely useful database that can be used for a variety of different purposes.

The process to integrate Cloud Firestore and AWS IOT may seem complicated and intimidating. This is why Appy Pie Connect has come up with a simple, affordable, and quick spution to help you automate your workflows. Click on the button below to begin.