Gravity Forms + Airtable Integration Premium

Key Capabilities

• Real-Time API Dispatch: Submissions are instantly pushed to your designated Airtable base upon form completion.
• Dual Connector Support: Connect via direct REST API or configure Airtable Automation Webhooks.
• Dynamic Custom Field Mapping: Map standard and custom Gravity Forms fields to Single Line Text, Long Text, Numbers, Dates, Single/Multi Select, and Checkbox columns in Airtable.
• Multiple Feeds per Form: Send entry data to different Airtable bases or tables based on specific conditional rules.
• Conditional Logic: Filter and route submissions so only qualifying records are dispatched to Airtable.
• File Uploads & Attachments: Transfer files submitted through Gravity Forms directly into Airtable Attachment columns.

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Step 1: Locate the Airtable Feed Menu

After installing and activating the plugin, navigate to Forms → Forms in your WordPress Dashboard. Hover over the form you wish to connect, click Settings, and select Airtable from the settings menu. Click Add New to create a new feed.

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Step 2: Generate Airtable Personal Access Token (PAT)

Airtable requires a secure Personal Access Token (PAT) to authorize API requests. Go to Forms → Settings → Airtable. You can click the provided link or navigate directly to the Airtable Developer Hub.

In your Airtable account, click your profile icon in the top-right corner and select Developer Hub.

Inside the Developer Hub, click the Personal access tokens tab, then click Create token.

Click Create token. Airtable will display your generated token once. Copy this token immediately to your clipboard.

Return to WordPress, navigate to Forms → Settings → Airtable, paste your token into the API Key field, and save settings. A green checkmark confirms that your credentials are authenticated.

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Step 3: Connect Base URL & Map Form Fields

Open the target Airtable base and table in your browser. Copy the complete URL from your browser address bar (it contains your base ID starting with app... and table ID starting with tbl...).

Paste this URL into the Airtable URL field in your form feed settings. The add-on connects to the table and enables the Airtable Fields — Form Fields mapping table. Map each Airtable column to the matching Gravity Forms field.

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Step 4: Test & Verify Real-Time Synchronization

Once settings are saved, submit a test entry through your Gravity Form. Check your Airtable base to verify that the record arrives instantly with all mapped field values in their respective columns.

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Populate a form field from an Airtable table (new in 1.1.0)

From version 1.1.0, the Gravity Forms Airtable Add-On can also work the other way round: instead of only sending entries to Airtable, a connected Airtable base/table can fill a form field with its records. This uses the Gravity Forms Dynamic Populate add-on, so the two work together.

The source runs entirely on your server, through the Airtable API key you have already saved on Forms → Settings → Airtable. Your API key is never exposed to the page: the field only stores which base and table to read, and the values are fetched server-side when the form is built.

Before you start

• Make sure the Dynamic Populate add-on is installed and active. If it is not, the Airtable source simply does not appear — nothing else changes.
• Save your Airtable API key on Forms → Settings → Airtable (the same key you use to send entries).
• Create at least one Airtable feed whose connector is API and whose Airtable URL points at the base/table you want to read — that table is then offered as a source.

Set the cache time and refresh the data

When Dynamic Populate is active, a new Dynamic Populate source panel appears on Forms → Settings → Airtable.

• Cache time (seconds) — how long the fetched records are kept before Airtable is read again. The default is 300 seconds (5 minutes). Set it to 0 to turn caching off and read Airtable on every form view; any other value is kept between 30 and 86400 seconds.
• Refresh Airtable data now — drops the cached records so the next form view reads Airtable again. Use it after you change the table and want the form to show the new records straight away.

Populate a field from a table

1. Edit a form and add or open the field you want to populate (for example a drop-down).
2. Open the field’s Dynamic Population settings (added by the Dynamic Populate add-on) and choose the source Connected GravityExtra integration.
3. Pick an object named Airtable (GravityExtra) › <your feed> › <table>. The list shows every base/table you have connected through an API feed.
4. Choose which Airtable field supplies the choice value and which supplies the label. Fields are listed by their Airtable field names.
5. Save the form. The field is now filled from the table, with Dynamic Populate’s own filtering, sorting and limits applied on top.

What happens if Airtable is briefly unavailable

Records are cached for the time you set. If Airtable cannot be reached when the form is built, the last good records are used instead, so the form never breaks; once Airtable is reachable again the fresh records are read on the next cache miss. The source never contacts any host other than Airtable, and it adds no requests at all when Dynamic Populate is not active.

Two-way sync: prefill a form from Airtable and update the record on edit (new in 1.2.0)

From version 1.2.0, the Gravity Forms Airtable Add-On works both ways. Besides sending each new entry to Airtable, it can prefill a form from a matching Airtable record when the form loads, and update the same Airtable record when you edit the entry later. Both are options of an Airtable feed that uses the API connector, and both stay off until you tick them, so existing feeds work exactly as before.

Everything runs on your server with the Airtable API key you already saved on Forms → Settings → Airtable. The key never reaches the page, and only the fields you mapped in the feed are ever sent to the browser.

Update the same record when an entry is edited

1. Edit a form, open its Airtable feed and make sure the connector is API.
2. Under Update the Airtable record on edit (two-way), tick Update the same Airtable record when the entry is edited, and save the feed.

• From 1.2.0, every entry sent through an API feed remembers the id of the Airtable record it created.
• When you edit that entry, on the entry screen or through the Gravity Forms API, the add-on updates that same record, found by its record id. It never creates a new record on an edit, so you never get a duplicate.
• The mapped fields of the record take the entry’s current values; the entry is the source of truth. Airtable fields you did not map are not touched.
• Before updating, the add-on checks that the record still exists. If it was deleted in Airtable (or can no longer be found in that table), nothing is written and no new record is added; the entry gets a note saying so and is no longer linked to a record.
• Each update also leaves a short note on the entry (record updated, or could not be updated).
• Entries sent before 1.2.0, or through the Webhook connector, have no stored record id, so editing them does not change Airtable.

Prefill a form from an Airtable record

1. On the same API feed, map the Airtable fields to your form fields as usual. This one map is used both ways: what is sent, and what is prefilled.
2. Under Prefill the form from an Airtable record (two-way), tick Prefill this form from the matching Airtable record.
3. In Match on Airtable field, type the name of the Airtable field that identifies the record’s owner, usually an e-mail field such as Email.
4. Under Lookup key, choose how the visitor is identified (see below). For A field of the logged-in user, type its user meta key, for example billing_email.
5. Save the feed. When a record matches, the mapped fields are filled with its values as the form loads, and the visitor can still change them before sending.

Who can see which record (the security model)

An Airtable table of form data usually holds personal details, so a visitor can only ever load a record with a key that belongs to them:

• The logged-in user’s own value (the default): their e-mail address, their username, or a field of their profile. The key is taken from the signed-in account, never from the page address, so a visitor can only match their own record. A visitor who is not logged in gets an empty form, unless they open a signed link.
• A signed link: the {gfairtable_prefill_link} merge tag (below) makes a link that carries a signed token. Only your site can create that signature, with a secret kept on your server. A link that was altered, has expired, or was made for another form or feed is refused. Choose Only a signed link to use signed links and never the logged-in account.
• A plain link parameter such as ?gfat_key=someone@example.com is off by default. It can be turned on with Allow a plain URL parameter, shown next to a security warning, and is meant only for non-personal reference tables (a product or branch list, for example), because anyone who knows or guesses a value could open that record. Even then, a valid signed link or the logged-in user’s own value is used first.
• Only mapped fields leave your server. The record is read on the server; a field you did not map, such as an internal note, is never sent to the page.
• Lookups are rate limited: by default 20 per minute for each visitor (IP address and user), so a form cannot be used to read many records quickly.

How a record is matched and filled

• The key is compared with the Match on Airtable field value of each record, ignoring upper/lower case and spaces around it. The first matching record is used.
• Values become the fields’ starting values, including the parts of name and address fields. A list value (such as a multiple select) is filled as comma-separated text; attachment and linked-record fields are not prefilled. A drop-down shows the value only when it matches one of its choices.
• If a form has more than one feed with prefill turned on, the first feed wins when two feeds fill the same field.
• Prefill works on the front end only. If no record matches or Airtable cannot be reached, the form simply loads empty.

Prefill links in notifications

To let someone open a filled-in form from an e-mail without logging in, add the {gfairtable_prefill_link} merge tag to a notification or confirmation. It becomes a link to the page the entry was sent from (or your home page) with a signed token for that entry’s key: the entry’s value of the form field mapped to the Match on Airtable field field, so that field must be mapped. The link works for 24 hours; after that it is refused.

For developers

• Filter gfairtable_prefill_rate_max (int): the most prefill lookups per visitor per minute (default 20, never below 1).
• The signed token travels in the gfat_pf query parameter. It is signed with a per-site secret stored in the gfairtable_prefill_secret option, which is never sent to the browser.
• Entry meta gfat_record_id, gfat_base, gfat_table and gfat_feed: the Airtable record an entry created and the feed that created it.

Updating from 1.1.0

Version 1.2.0 installs over 1.1.0 in the same plugin folder. Your API key, feeds, field maps and the 1.1.0 Dynamic Populate source are kept, and nothing changes until you turn on prefill or update-on-edit in a feed.

Changelog: 1.2.0

• New: prefill a form from a matching Airtable record, looked up only by the logged-in user’s own value or a signed, expiring link ({gfairtable_prefill_link}). A plain link parameter is off by default; only mapped fields reach the page; lookups are rate limited.
• New: editing an entry updates the same Airtable record it created, found by its record id, so no duplicate is ever added. A deleted record is detected; the entry gets a note and nothing new is created.

Troubleshooting & FAQs