Tables is the new project tracking system to replace Trello, Airtable

David Moore
  • 7 min read

We all love a good spreadsheet, but they can only do so much. Now with Tables, imagine the organization and familiar usability of a spreadsheet plus the robust tracking of a database in one. Area 120, Google’s in-house incubator, released Tables at the end of September 2020. Because it’s powered by Google, Tables integrates with the rest of Google Workspace and provides automated features that allow you to manage projects with ease.

You can schedule recurring email reminders so people will be notified about a project deadline or push a message to a chat room to inform participants a new form has been completed. Notifications can go out to full teams or individuals on that team, and be as specific as a single task rather than a whole project. Also, once the status of a task has changed, it can automatically be moved to another coworker’s task list.

Essential in today’s remote workforce

This is more crucial than ever with a workforce that’s still operating remotely. Some can attest, it’s always been an issue. “I’ve been in the technology industry for a long time, including 10 years at Google. And during my years in the workforce, I’ve always had a difficult time tracking projects. Our teams stored notes and related tasks in different documents. Those documents always got out of date. We’d have to manually sync data between them. And I’d spend a lot of time coordinating between team members to prioritize and update statuses. I spent more time keeping track of work than actually working!” writes Tim Gleason, General Manager, Tables in his blog release of the product.

Easy collaboration with or without Google Workspace

Other project tracking applications are already on the market, like Trello, Airtable, Monday.com, and Notion. Some, like Notion and Trello, have outdated, disorganized interfaces. Others like Monday.com have confusing pricing options that add up quickly.

With Tables, you and your team can work seamlessly with the rest of your Google Workspace toolkit, eliminating the need for outside applications that don’t work as effectively.

The Wursta Marketing Department recently migrated their project tracking system from Trello to Tables to manage their content calendar and marketing tasks. With the bots feature, managers are notified when a draft is ready for their review as soon as a task is moved to the status “Under Review”.

However, similar to other recent updates, non-Google Workspace users can access forms created with Tables to contribute to projects without needing a Google account, so you can still collaborate with partners and outside organizations.

Ready to get productive? Tables is available now

Although Tables is still in the beta stage, users can access the free tier and start collaborating. The free option is best for individual users and includes basic features and functionality. If you’d like to utilize Tables for your entire team or business, subscribe for $10 per month per user. This paid option gives users more storage, table and row space, ability to track past changes, bots, and more.

It’s easy to get started with one of Google’s templates, ranging from IT and Operations to Sales and Product Design. Learn the ins and outs of Tables with Feature Playground – a started template with preloaded data that you can experiment and learn with. From there, you can create your own custom workspace.

To start the year, we hosted a training session with Google experts on Tuesday, January 26 . We discussed use cases, templates, bots, automation, and more. If you missed the session but want more information about Tables, let’s connect.