Databases for the lists you keep.
Keep customers, assets, risks or event sign-ups in tables of your own, right beside the documents and plans they belong to. A project holds one database with as many tables as it needs, and the assistant can build one for you from a sentence.
Where databases live
Open a project and look under Sections in the sidebar: the project's database sits directly below Overview, under its own name. A project holds one database, and a database holds many tables, so one is usually all a project needs.
- Project databases belong to one project and open for everyone in it, at the access they have there to databases.
- Workspace databases show in every project of a workspace. Use them for lists several projects share, such as suppliers.
- Organisation databases are for lists the whole organisation keeps. Owners and admins create them, and can let every member add and change rows.
The Databases page, beside Agents in the sidebar, lists every database you can open: in this project, from the workspace and from the organisation, plus any you deleted recently. To move a database to a wider place later, open its options and choose Share more widely.
Start a database
Choose New database
In the project sidebar, press the plus beside Database, or open the Databases page and choose New database. You need edit access to the project.Say where it lives
This project, the whole workspace, or the organisation.Choose how to start
Describe it and the assistant proposes the tables, fields and a first view, then builds them once you approve. Or start from a Template (customer list, asset register, risk register, supplier register, issue tracker or content calendar), from Blank, or by Importing a spreadsheet.
Tables and fields
Each tab along the top of a database is a table. Add one with + Add and Table, and name what it will list. A table starts with a Name field; add the fields you need from the field types below.
| Field type | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Text | A short line of text |
| Long text | Notes and paragraphs |
| Link | A web address |
| An email address | |
| Phone | A phone number |
| Number | Any number |
| Currency | An amount of money |
| Percent | A share, such as 25% |
| Rating | Stars out of a maximum |
| Automatic number | Numbers each new row, such as CUS-104 |
| Single choice | Pick one option |
| Multiple choice | Pick several options |
| Status | To do, in progress or done |
| Checkbox | Ticked or not |
| Date | A day |
| Date and time | A day and a time |
| Duration | Hours and minutes |
| Person | Someone in your organisation |
| Team | A team in your organisation |
| Relation | Rows in another table |
| Lookup | A field from a linked row |
| Rollup | Count, sum or average of linked rows |
| Stable Baseline item | A document, whiteboard, diagram, plan, task or improvement |
| Attachment | Files on the row |
| Formula | Worked out from other fields |
| Button | Does something with the row when pressed |
Under More settings a field can insist that no two rows are the same (useful for an email or a code), stay fast to filter and sort on a big table, or offer quick word search.
Four fields Stable Baseline keeps for you
Views
A view shows the same rows another way, with its own filters, sorting and fields. Changing a view never changes the rows.
- Table: rows and columns, like a spreadsheet.
- Board: cards in columns, by a choice or a status.
- List: one line per row.
- Calendar: rows on the days of a date field.
- Gallery: rows as cards.
- Timeline: rows as bars over time.
- Chart: a chart of the rows, live.
- Form: a page of questions that adds a row. See Forms.
Press + View to add one, for everyone (if you can edit the database) or just for me. The toolbar finds rows in the view, filters, sorts, groups (or sets a board's columns), hides fields and sets the row height. If you can only view a database and change a view, your change is just for you: save it as your own view or undo it.
Rows
Open a row to see all its fields in a panel, with its History and its Sharing. Step to the previous or next row without closing it, copy a link to the row, or see which rows in other tables link to it.
Linking tables
A Relation field links a row to rows in another table, in the same database or in a database of the same or a wider place. Turn on Show the link on the other table too to see the link from both sides. A Lookup shows a field of the linked rows, and a Rollup counts, adds up or averages them. A Stable Baseline item field links a row to a document, whiteboard, diagram, plan, task or improvement.
Files and buttons
An Attachment field holds pictures and documents on a row; your plan sets how many files a field holds and how large each can be. A Button field does something with its row when pressed: set fields, add a row, open a link, a linked row or a view, tell someone, ask an agent or start an agent's duty. One button can do several of these in turn.
Who sees what
A database opens for everyone in its project (or workspace, or organisation), at the access they have there to databases. That access has switches of its own, apart from documents: see People and teams. Press Share to choose instead: the whole project, or only the people and teams you pick, each with one of four levels.
| Level | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Can manage | Changes tables and fields, and who has access |
| Can edit | Adds and edits rows, makes shared views |
| Can view | Sees rows and makes personal views |
| No access | Cannot open it |
When you share with chosen people, only the people and teams listed can open it. Organisation admins always can.
You can also hide one table from someone, or make it view only for them. For finer control, a table rule decides who sees which rows:
- Open: everyone with access to the table sees and edits every row.
- Edit your own: everyone sees every row, and edits only the rows where they are named in a Person field.
- See your own: people see and edit only the rows where they, or their team, are named.
- Private rows: only the person who added a row, and admins, can see it.
One row can be shared more narrowly still, with Only some people in its Sharing tab. Only people who manage a database can change its sharing and its rules.
Bring rows in, take them out
Import rows from a file (CSV, TSV, text, Excel or OpenDocument spreadsheets) or by pasting. The steps match your columns to fields and check the rows before anything is added. Your plan sets how large an import file can be.
Download a view or a whole table as CSV or Excel. Small downloads start straight away; larger ones are made in the background, the bell tells you when the file is ready, and it is kept for about an hour.
History, changes and trash
- Row history shows every change to a row, by whom and when. Pick an earlier state and press Put these values back.
- Changes lists every change to a database or a table, which you can narrow by table, by what changed, by who and by when.
- Trash keeps the tables, rows and dashboards you delete for 30 days, so you can put them back.
History and the record of who changed what are kept for as long as your plan allows. Owners and admins can shorten that, or turn it off, under the organisation's settings.
Ask Orbit
Orbit, the assistant, can build a database from a description, add or change many rows at once, import a file, and answer questions about the rows: how many, what they add up to, or which ones match. Ask from the database itself and Orbit works on the table, view, row or dashboard you have open. It asks before it changes anything, the way your organisation has set it. See Orbit.
Limits
Your plan sets how many databases you can have and how much they store, and how many tables, views, fields and rows each one holds. Usage, at the top of a database or of the Databases page, shows what your plan includes and how much is used, and pricing compares the plans. Reaching a limit never deletes anything; only new rows or tables wait until there is room.