Do you want to set up an Airtable WordPress integration to sync information from Airtable to your WordPress site?
Air WP Sync is a freemium WordPress plugin that lets you sync Airtable to WordPress without needing intermediary services like Zapier.
You can set up data and information in Airtable and then sync all of that to WordPress to create the frontend of your site. This lets you use Airtable to create custom websites powered by WordPress.
In our Air WP Sync review, we’ll take a hands-on look at what this plugin offers and show you how to set up an Airtable WordPress integration.
Let’s dig in!
Air WP Sync Review: A Detailed Look at Its Features
At a high level, the core value of Air WP Sync is that it lets you connect unlimited Airtable databases to your WordPress site and publish data from Airtable as WordPress posts, pages, or custom post types.
To do this effectively, you’re able to map data from Airtable to fields in your WordPress site.
In addition to mapping to core WordPress fields such as title, date, category, and so on, this also includes support for mapping data to WordPress custom fields, which lets you set up some more advanced implementations if needed.
The plugin can also preserve Airtable rich text formatting when bringing over your data, such as paragraphs, headings, and so on.
To keep everything updated, you can also sync your Airtable data with WordPress going forward. You can sync data manually or automatically, including setting up your own custom schedules.
You can also choose from different sync methods:
- Add
- Update
- Delete
More on how these different sync methods work a little later in the post!
How to Sync Airtable to WordPress With Air WP Sync
Now that you know more about what WP Air Sync does, let’s dig into how to set up an Airtable WordPress integration using the plugin.
For this part of our WP Air Sync review, I’m using the premium version of the plugin. However, the basic concepts also apply to the free version.
In the next section, you’ll learn more about pricing and free vs Pro features.
1. Set Up Your Data in Airtable
To get started, you’ll want to set up your data in Airtable, if you haven’t done so already.
If you already have everything in Airtable, you can skip ahead to the next step.
For this tutorial, I used Airtable’s premade Restaurant Field Guide template. Then, I’ll sync these restaurants to my WordPress site so that each restaurant gets its own separate page on my site.
2. Generate Your Airtable Access Token
Next, you need to generate your Airtable access token, which is what allows the plugin to connect to your Airtable account.
You can create an Airtable access token as shown here and click the Create Token button:
Give your token a name to help you remember it.
Under Scope, I enabled everything, though I’m not sure if that’s needed. It would be nice to have some documentation here on how to optimally configure the token. However, because this token only has access to specific bases that you choose, there shouldn’t be any issue with enabling everything.
Then, under Access, you want to select the Airtable base(s) that you want to connect to WordPress.
When you’re finished, click the Create token button to generate your Airtable token:
You should then see a popup that contains your token. Keep this handy because you’ll need it in a second and Airtable will only show you this value once:
Don’t worry – if you accidentally misplace it, you can just regenerate the token to create a new key.
3. Create a New Connection in WordPress
Now, open your WordPress dashboard and go to Air WP Sync → Add New to create a new connection.
Give it a name and then enter your access token in the box.
Once you paste in the access token, WP Air Sync should automatically fetch the relevant bases and tables.
You can then use the options to choose what Airtable content to connect to:
- Base – choose the specific base to connect to. You’ll only be able to choose from the bases that you selected when creating your token in the previous step.
- Table – choose a specific table from all the tables in the base that you selected.
- View – choose a specific view within that table, which is helpful if you’ve set up multiple views to slice and dice your data. Alternatively, you can use the default No View option, which will let you pull in all records.
- Filter By Formula – this is an optional and more advanced way to choose what data to import. You can set this up by entering an Airtable formula – if you’re not sure what Airtable formulas are, you should probably just skip it.
4. Set Up Content Import Type and Map Fields
Next, you can scroll down to the Import As… options to choose how you want to import Airtable content to WordPress:
- Post Type – choose the post type to which you want to import content. You can choose Posts, Pages, and any custom post types that you’ve created. The plugin also includes a feature to let you create a new custom post type directly from the plugin’s settings.
- Post Status – you can publish the post right away or import it as other statuses such as Draft, Scheduled, etc.
- Post Author – you can choose the author for imported content from any registered user account on your site.
For this example, I’m just going to import them as a regular post. However, the custom post type option will be really handy if you’re looking to create more custom apps.
Below that, you can set up field mapping, which lets you map the data from your Airtable base to fields in WordPress.
This includes support for core WordPress fields – e.g. post title, post content, categories, etc. It also includes support for custom fields, including Advanced Custom Fields integration (ACF). The ACF integration is available with the Pro+ plan.
Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) supported field types: Number, Range, Email, URL, Password, Message
Image, File, Wisiwyg Editor, Select, Checkbox, Radio Button, Button Group, True/False, Link
Google Map, Date picker, Date Time picker, Time picker, and more!
To get started, you can click the Add Field button.
Then, there are only two parts:
- Airtable Field – choose a column from your Airtable base.
- Import As – choose which WordPress field to which you want to add the data from that column. You can also create new custom fields as part of this.
For example, to set the restaurant name as the title of the post, you would map it like so:
You can then repeat the process to map additional data, setting up as many mapping rules as needed for your situation.
The mapping rules might change based on the Airtable field that you select. For example, selecting an Airtable column with images opens the ability to map those images to the featured image in WordPress.
When you’re finished, you might have something that looks like this:
5. Configure Your Sync Settings
Next, you can set up your sync settings, which lets you control how and when to sync the data from your Airtable base with your WordPress site.
First, you can choose from three different “strategies” for how to sync:
- Add, Update & Delete – this is a full sync. It will add new content if needed, update any existing content if the data in your base has changed, and delete any WordPress content where the corresponding Airtable record has been deleted.
- Add & Update – will add new content and update existing content if the data in Airtable has changed. However, it will not delete any existing content even if that content is no longer in your Airtable base.
- Add – will only add new content – it will not edit or delete any existing content on WordPress, even if that content has changed in Airtable or is no longer in your Airtable base.
Below that, you can choose your sync trigger. You have three options:
- Manual only – only sync content when you manually initiate it.
- Recurring – automatically sync content on a specific schedule that you set – anywhere from once a week to every five minutes.
- Instant – you can set up instant syncing by configuring an Airtable automation to call a webhook URL. For example, you could automatically sync whenever you update anything in Airtable.
6. Publish and Go Live
Once you’re happy with your connection’s settings, you can click the Publish button to make it live.
You can also manually sync your connection from the interface after publishing it:
After the sync finishes, you can see that I was able to successfully import all of the restaurants as posts on my site and according to my field mapping:
If you want to add another connection, you can repeat the same steps from above.
You can also manage your connections by going to Air WP Sync → All Connections:
Air WP Sync Pricing
Air WP Sync comes in both a free version at WordPress.org as well as a premium version with more features.
With the free version, you get access to the core functionality of the plugin, including letting you set up connections between your Airtable data and WordPress fields and sync your data manually or automatically.
However, the Pro version unlocks some added functionality that could be important for serious use cases:
- Set your own custom update frequency for how often to automatically sync data. The free version just lets you use the default daily or weekly schedule.
- Publish unlimited connections from Airtable to WordPress. While the free version lets you set up unlimited connections you can only have one active connection at a time.
- Publish Airtable data to custom post types. The free version only supports the default Post and Page post types.
- Create custom fields and sync Airtable data to WordPress custom fields.
Here’s a visual look at Air WP Sync free vs Pro:
If you want the premium features, there are three different pricing plans. All of the plans include access to all of the features – the only difference is the number of sites upon which you can use the plugin.
Plans start at $129 for use on a single site (or $99 if the plugin is on sale, as it was when we took the screenshot below):
Final Thoughts on Air WP Sync
Overall, I found Air WP Sync to deliver on its promises in a very polished way.
I think it’s done a good job of giving you lots of flexibility and letting you map and sync data in the way that works best for your site.
So if you want to set up an Airtable WordPress integration, I’d definitely give this one a look.
With the integration with Advanced Custom Fields working with and displaying custom data across your WordPress site has become even easier.
If you’re interested in trying it out, you can start with the free version at WordPress.org, which should work for basic use cases.
However, if you want to build truly custom web apps, I definitely recommend upgrading to the premium version to access the ability to work with custom post types and custom fields, along with more flexible syncing.
You can use the buttons below to get started:
