Kuovonne's Guide to Airtable
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Kuovonne's Guide to Airtable
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3rd party portal

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Use a third party system to create “portal access” to your data.

Pros

There are many portal systems available at different price points
You typically pay a flat monthly fee instead of a per user rate (but not always).
Far more styling options to make your portal pretty.
You can control if you want to require users to log in or allow anonymous edits.
You can set the domain name for the website of the portal.
Users can edit any field type, including attachments, rich text fields, etc.

Cons

Monthly third party fees can be expensive
Record history does not show who actually made the edits
Limited ability to see formula results or possible side-effects when viewing formula results

List of third party portal systems

Note that I have not used all of these systems.
The arena of third party portal systems is a fast-paced one. New portal systems come out and existing ones change features and pricing frequently.
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Consideration for choosing a system

Monthly Price. These systems have monthly subscription fees.
Consultant recommendation. If you are working with a consultant, what does your consultant recommend? If you want to use a system that your consultant has not worked with yet, do you have the patience for your consultant to learn the system?
Look and feel. Are you okay with limited choices on customizing the look and feel of the portal? Do you have a developer with the ability to take advantage of advanced features like custom html or css?
Mobile experience. Do you need a system that works on mobile, desktop, or both?
Level of access control. Do you need edit access? Do different types of users need different levels of edit access? Do you need edit access by users who are not logged in?
Number of users. How many external users will you have? Most systems have different pricing levels for different number of users.
Number of developers. Will you need only one person with access to developing your system? Or will you need multiple users, such as you and a consultant?
Support & community. What level of support do you need?
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