Challenges with gaining control over their Airtable databases
Scottish Sea Farms is a pioneer in its industry. The company has taken its first steps into harnessing the power of no-code by implementing Airtable as its internal database. With the growth of the company, one database quickly turned into twelve, making it increasingly difficult to oversee all the data in one place. Scottish Sea Farms was looking for a solution for the monitoring of their infrastructure. Indeed, they noticed that the most common issues with managing no-code :
- Tracking dependencies
- Seeing latest changes
- Monitoring performances
- Fixing errors
With several employees having access to the company’s Airtable account, they also wanted to be able to see which changes had been made and by whom.
To address these massive challenges and promote the usage of no-code across their company, Scottish Sea Farms opted for ncScale as the ideal solution for managing and monitoring their no-code applications.
“Easy to build a monster though – thankfully tools like ncScale help with automated system documentation”
David Anderson,
Head of IT, Scottish Sea Farms
Addressing Scalability Challenges
David Anderson, Head of IT at Scottish Sea Farms, is a devoted enthusiast of no-code solutions. Under his guidance, the company now optimizes efficiency and fosters innovation by integrating industry-specific apps and widely-used systems such as Microsoft M365, Power BI, Airtable, Stacker, and Atlassian. Yet, the use of no-code tools posed evident risks, including a lack of visibility, insufficient control over potential errors and automation failures, and a general lack of trust, particularly when handling confidential information. David’s introduction to ncScale, recommended by a friend in the no-code industry, instantly captured his attention.
Leveraging ncScale for Scalability
Within weeks after testing it for the first time, Scottish Sea Farms had connected all 12 Airtable databases to ncScale. They now use the observability feature to track dependencies between different no-code elements, inside and outside Airtable. This allows them to see the full impact of any changes before they are implemented which. In turns, preventing any breaks. They also use the Last Edited feature to see the changes that have been made by other team members. This allows the IT department to have visibility over all the data and eliminate Shadow IT from no-code apps.
Enhanced Collaboration and Alerting
Last but not least, the company also uses the monitoring feature. It allow them to not only track, but also be alerted on any changes and errors to the schema of their databases. Once there is an error, the team can quickly communicate and troubleshoot, all from the Tickets tab. Together, this has made Airtable a more trustworthy tool for the company and has allowed its use to be scaled to the entire company.
Achieving a Comprehensive View of the Infrastructure
Using the Observability and Monitoring features together is how Scottish Sea Farms achieved a comprehensive view of all their no-code infrastructure. The most significant advantage for David was the ability to track changes made by other employees. Thanks to it, he could quickly see the impact of those changes, all in one place. This also eliminates the need to document their stack, since every change made on Airtable is automatically updated on ncScale.
Why ncScale?
Scottish Sea Farms has chosen ncScale for its unique ability to document, monitor, and manage their no-code stack. Its observability and monitoring features allow for editing Airtable schemas and automations without fear of any breaks. Thanks to the dependency mapping functionality and the full-text search, Scottish Sea Farms is able to locate any elements in their no-code stack.
About Scottish Sea Farms
Scottish Sea Farms is a medium-sized company in the fisheries industry supplying restaurants and households with top quality products. Established in 1960 under a different name, the company now operates over 60 farms and facilities across Scotland. With almost 250 employees, they have won numerous awards for their sustainability and contributions to aquaculture, especially when it comes to their salmon farming.