10 ways in which TimeTonic outperforms Airtable ☝️

Introduction

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TimeTonic and Airtable are two no-code, data-oriented tools. No-code is a new way of developing software that allows you to go faster than traditional code because you assemble prebuilt software components.

These data-oriented no-code tools are also called no-code databases. Their purpose is to record data in a structured and relational manner (data linked to each other for example: a prospect and linked to his company).

Airtable is an American tool that is very well known in the world of no-code. TimeTonic is a French tool that is not yet as popular but whose adoption has grown strongly for several months and which deserves to be known because it is not content with being an Airtable clone.

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The first advantage is the ability to dynamically link data.

🔗 Practical case: event management with TimeTonic

Imagine that you want to organize events and for that, you start by choosing a region and then a department. Here, TimeTonic allows you to create a funnel effect: once a region is selected, the proposed departments are only those in this region. This feature, unfortunately, is not possible in Airtable.

🌐 Simplification and logic of data

This TimeTonic feature is very powerful. It simplifies the user interface by displaying only relevant and logical data, thus avoiding input errors. For example, you will not see the department of Ain listed under the Île-de-France region.

🛠️ Another example

Another example could be choosing a supplier, followed by selecting an item, where TimeTonic would only show items related to the chosen supplier.

👀 Why is dynamic data linking important?

This feature not only improves the user experience but also ensures the consistency and relevance of the data entered, a crucial aspect in managing complex data.

The second advantage is the link between databases

🔗 Seamless integration between applications:

Let's take a concrete example: you have an HR application with a table of employees and another application for leave management. With TimeTonic, you can easily link the employee table in your HR application to your leave management application, without duplicating data. This means that you can manage leave requests using existing employee data directly.

🛠️ The limitation of Airtable:

In comparison, Airtable does not allow this direct connection between tables from different bases. The workaround is to create a data table in the leave management application and synchronize this data with the HR application, a more complex and less efficient process.

📊 Advantages of linking bases:

This TimeTonic capability offers several advantages:

• No data duplication: avoid redundancy and potential errors.
• Simplified reference tables: facilitates the creation of centralized repositories for better data management.
• Operational efficiency: improves the fluidity of processes between different applications.

🌟 Why is it an attractive advantage?

The link between different databases reflects a deep understanding of the operational needs of businesses, allowing for more natural and effective data integration.

The third advantage is the TimeTonic mobile app

🌐 A native application with offline mode:

Starting with the Pro version, the TimeTonic application works in offline mode, allowing you to work on your data even without an Internet connection — a crucial asset for professionals on the go.

✍️ Easy signature collection:

Another great feature is the ability to collect signatures directly through the app. The built-in signature field makes it easy to collect signatures for confirmations, agreements, or any other document that requires validation.

🌓 Dark mode support:

A significant little plus: the TimeTonic application also manages dark mode (predominance of black color), offering a comfortable and customizable visual experience according to your preferences.

📂 Data group management:

The TimeTonic mobile application also allows you to visualize grouped data, with the possibility of folding and unfolding groups. This feature is particularly useful for easily navigating large data sets, significantly improving the user experience when consulting numerous fields.

📈 Competitive advantage:

While Airtable also offers a mobile application, the combination of the native aspect, offline mode, signature collection, dark mode, and data group management places TimeTonic a step above in terms of mobile functionality.

The fourth benefit is the selective and secure sharing of data.

🔒 Selective and secure data sharing:

In creating databases, it is often crucial to share only part of the data with certain users, for reasons of security and simplicity. Airtable offers a solution via interfaces, but this can lead to tedious duplication of interfaces for different categories of users, without the possibility of sharing views between them. The recent evolution of Airtable on interfaces partly addresses this problem but only for the most advanced versions.

🌐 Timetonic's solution: mirror spaces:

TimeTonic, on the other hand, greatly simplifies this process with its mirror spaces. These offer remarkable flexibility in determining which tables are accessible to users and which views of each table they can consult.

🚀 Ease of creation and maintenance:

Creating multiple mirror spaces in Timetonic is a quick and easy process. More importantly, in the event of changing needs, adapting accesses and views is simple and does not require redoing all the work from the beginning.

📊 Why is this benefit interesting?

This feature makes Timetonic particularly suitable for businesses that need to share data selectively and securely, while maintaining easy management and adaptability to change.

The fifth advantage is the email management integrated into TimeTonic

📧 Emails directly in timetonic:

In its business version, Timetonic allows you to consult and respond to your emails directly from the application. This integration is transforming the way you can interact with your emails in a professional context.

🔗 Email-project link or CRM:

The most interesting aspect is that the emails appear in a table, allowing you to link them directly to a specific project or to an exchange in a CRM. This creates a powerful synergy between your communications and your management data.

👥 Contact automation:

All contacts with whom you exchange by email are automatically added to an email contact table, simplifying the management of your professional network.

🤖 AI integration for advanced email management:

With Timetonic, you can go further by integrating artificial intelligence into the processing of your emails. Imagine translating, summarizing, prioritizing, or even getting help writing your emails. By simply adding a few fields to the Email table and using TimeTonic and Chat GPT automations, you can significantly extend the possibilities of managing your emails.

📈 Why does that make a difference?

This integration of email into TimeTonic opens up new ways for efficient and intelligent communication management, by directly aligning emails with data and business processes.

The sixth advantage is the map view of the data

🗺️ Dynamic geographic visualization:

TimeTonic makes it possible to transform your data into an interactive map, offering a valuable geographical perspective for planning and monitoring field interventions, managing logistics or simply to enrich the understanding of your data. Unlike Airtable, where a map view requires the use of external extensions that are not integrated into the interfaces, timetonic offers this functionality natively.

🔍 Highlights of the map view in timetonic:

• Direct accessibility: no need for extensions or external access to the database. The map view is available directly in your timetonic workspace.
• Interactivity: open a detailed sheet directly from a point on the map to see more information on an intervention or a customer.
• Automatic GPS coordinate update: Use the timetonic mobile app to update GPS coordinates via your smartphone's GPS sensor, ensuring an accurate and up-to-date location.

🚀 Why is it interesting?

This feature is particularly useful for businesses whose business requires a clear understanding of the geographic distribution of their operations or customers. Timetonic's dynamic map view simplifies the management of location-based data, making processes more efficient and intuitive.

The seventh advantage is the automatic generation of documents

📝 Simplified document generation:

Unlike Airtable, where creating custom documents requires the integration of third-party tools like Documint or Docupilot, TimeTonic offers an integrated solution for generating Word, Excel, or PDF documents without external tools. This native integration eliminates the need for external connectors and reduces the additional costs associated with these services.

🔧 Operation:

In timetonic, all you have to do is file a document template and use a specific field to generate a document based on this template. The generated document is then stored directly in timetonic. To go further, timetonic allows you to dynamically select the document template from a column, offering great flexibility to adapt your documents to the specific context.

🖼️ Wealth of documents:

The generated documents can include images, such as photos or electronic signatures, which is ideal for validating field interventions. They can also contain data tables, for example, to detail the lines of an order, which is very useful in many contexts where the number of data to be generated is not fixed.

🌍 Key benefits:

• Save time and money: no need for expensive third-party tools or complex configurations.
• Advanced customization: easy adaptation of documents to the specific needs of each project.
• All-in-one: integrated document management for increased operational efficiency.

The eighth benefit is external access to data

📝 Advanced forms:

While Airtable offers forms to add new data, TimeTonic goes a step further. Not only does it allow data to be added via forms, but it also allows data to be modified. This ability to update directly without using external tools like Fillout for Airtable, greatly simplifies data management and interaction with external users.

🔗 Extranet business license:

The Business version of TimeTonic introduces an extranet license type specially designed for external access. Unlike the need to purchase a traditional license per external user, this option offers an economical and effective way to share your data without compromising security or functionality.

🌐 External sharing made easy:

This approach allows for seamless external collaboration, without requiring third party tools like SoftR for Airtable. Although it is not a complete extranet site, external access to the TimeTonic database offers a familiar and powerful interface for users, facilitating the exchange and updating of information in real time.

💡 Why is it important?

The ability to edit data from outside with TimeTonic opens up new ways for collaboration and project management. It allows businesses to keep data up to date with the direct involvement of external stakeholders, improving the efficiency and accuracy of shared information.

The ninth advantage is checking the validity of the data

🔍 Flexibility and data security:

TimeTonic offers precise control over the data entered. It allows you to dynamically define whether a field should be read-only or even hidden, depending on the user context. This flexibility ensures that sensitive information remains protected and that the interface remains clean and relevant for each user.

🔐 Advanced data validation:

Beyond access management, TimeTonic makes it possible to implement fine validations on the data entered. Whether it is to confirm the validity of a SIRET number, license plate, or any other specific criterion, TimeTonic ensures that entries respect the required formats, thus minimizing errors and inconsistencies.

Last advantage: editable pivot tables

🔍 Native TCDs in Timetonic:

In Airtable, TCDs or Pivot Tables only allow you to consult data.

Timetonic integrates this functionality directly into its platform and in a simpler way than Excel. TimeTonic allows you to edit the TCDs created.
This allows users to manipulate and analyze their data with great flexibility and precision.

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Conclusion

We have seen the top 10 advantages of TimeTonic over Airtable. Airtable also has strengths. The choice of the no-code tool is important and must be carefully considered before starting the project. For this choice to be truly enlightened, it is necessary to know in depth the specificities of the tools envisaged.