Google Tables, a work-tracking device and competitor to the favored spreadsheet-database hybrid Airtable, is shutting down.
In an electronic mail despatched to Tables customers this week, Google mentioned the app won’t be supported after December 16, 2025, and suggested that customers export or migrate their knowledge to both Google Sheets or AppSheet as an alternative, relying on their wants.
Launched in 2020, Tables centered on making challenge monitoring extra environment friendly with automation. It was one of many many initiatives to emerge from Google’s in-house app incubator, Space 120, which on the time was dedicated to cranking out a lot of experimental initiatives. A few of these initiatives later graduated to develop into part of Google’s core choices throughout Cloud, Search, Buying, and extra.
Tables was a kind of early successes: Google mentioned in 2021 that the service was transferring from a beta take a look at to develop into an official Google Cloud product. On the time, the corporate mentioned it noticed Tables as a possible answer for quite a lot of use instances, together with challenge administration, IT operations, customer support monitoring, CRM, recruiting, product growth and extra.
The app was created by Google worker Tim Gleason, who had spent over a decade on the firm. Gleason later moved on to develop into a tech lead supervisor for NotebookLM earlier than asserting that he would retire starting September 2024.
Space 120, in the meantime, was the sufferer of a Google re-org in 2022, when the corporate canceled half its initiatives and knowledgeable employees {that a} discount in power would minimize the in-house R&D division to half its measurement. The division that remained would deal with AI initiatives, Google mentioned.
The next 12 months, Space 120 was wound down amid broader layoffs, and a small handful of initiatives would transfer on to core Google product areas. (A type of was Aloud, which was constructing instruments that permit creators rapidly dub their movies. YouTube introduced an auto-dubbing function in 2023 that turned extra broadly obtainable this 12 months.)
Tables had survived these modifications, because it was part of Google Workspace’s workforce beneath Google Cloud. Sadly for Tables customers, the service now has its personal end-of-life date, too.
Within the electronic mail, Google advises Tables admins to export their data both on to Google Sheets, then proceed to handle their workflow in Sheets utilizing tables and conditional notifications, or reap the benefits of a new migration tool to import their knowledge to Google’s no-code platform, AppSheet. The latter answer preserves formatting like column varieties and relationships, and the workflow can then be managed with automations, fine-grained permissions, and Workspace integrations, Google says.
The corporate earlier this month introduced the approaching closure on Desk’s web site and directed customers to an FAQ, which famous that the workforce behind Tables had created a brand new knowledge expertise to energy automated apps and workflows straight inside AppSheet. This different, launched in June 2023, lets customers construct knowledge fashions for customized apps and workflows straight inside AppSheet, the corporate mentioned.
