Yes for tracking site contacts, supplies and timelines. For participant data that supports a regulatory decision, you would be building an audit trail, signature controls and validation around a tool that was not designed for them.
Free sandbox · No credit card · 21 CFR Part 11 aligned
| Use | Airtable alone | Needs an EDC | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Site contact and start-up tracker | |||
| Supply and shipment log (non-GCP) | |||
| Recruitment pipeline (no identifiers) | |||
| Participant CRFs for submission | |||
| Adverse event records | |||
| Signed informed consent |
The direct answer
Why teams ask
Airtable gives non-programmers a relational database with forms, views, automations and a friendly interface. For a coordinator who has outgrown a spreadsheet it feels like the obvious next step: linked tables for participants and visits, a form for data entry, a kanban view for recruitment. Many teams use it successfully for study operations. The question "can we use it as the trial database?" arrives when a sponsor, an ethics committee or a data manager asks how changes are tracked, who can see identifiers and how the system was validated.
The answer turns on what the data are for. If the records will support a marketing authorisation, a device submission or a publication that regulators or journals may inspect, the expectations of 21 CFR Part 11, ICH E6(R2) section 5.5.3 and, in Europe, the EMA guideline on computerised systems and electronic data in clinical trials apply. If you are tracking supplies, contact lists or internal milestones, they largely do not, and Airtable can be a reasonable choice. Our Capture vs Airtable page covers the general comparison; this page answers the compliance question directly.
Be wary of any tool described as "compliant" without detail. Part 11 is not a badge the FDA awards to software. It is demonstrated by the system's controls, your validation and your procedures, as set out in the 21 CFR Part 11 compliance checklist.
Control by control
The Airtable column lists questions and what Airtable's own documentation says, attributed. It is a checklist for your written vendor enquiry, not a score.
| Requirement | What to verify in Airtable | Capture |
|---|---|---|
| Audit trail (Part 11 11.10(e); Annex 11 s.9) | Per Airtable support, record revision history is shown within a plan-based window, and changes to fields hidden in an interface are excluded from that interface's history. Can you export it, and keep it for the full retention period? | Field-level, one row per changed field; user, timestamp, old value, new value, reason; append-only and hash-chained; exportable |
| Reason for change | Is a reason captured and enforced when a value is edited, or can a user simply overtype? | Reason for change is part of each audit row |
| Access control | Can site staff see only their own participants, and can identifiers be hidden from analysts, including through shared views, forms and exports? | Role-based access; site coordinators see names, researchers see coded IDs; row-level security |
| Data validation at entry | Field types and formulas exist; do range rules raise a tracked query or only a warning? | Edit checks raise an auto-query when a rule is broken |
| Electronic signatures | Is there a signature linked to the record, with meaning and re-authentication? | Password re-authentication and a legal meaning statement for staff signatures; eConsent with email one-time code |
| Locked forms | Can a field or the schema change mid-study without a trace? | Draft to approved lifecycle; approved forms are locked for live use |
| Validation evidence | Is there vendor documentation you can use in a validation package? | Documentation to support sponsor validation and UAT for enterprise customers; validated use is shared |
| EU hosting | Per Airtable, EU residency is on its highest plan and covers some data. What exactly is stored where? | Hosted in the EU (Frankfurt) or the USA (N. Virginia) |
Airtable statements are paraphrased from its support pages as found on 13 October 2026. Plans and features change; confirm on airtable.com and in writing.
The audit trail test
Run this test in any candidate system before you commit: change a value, give a reason, then look for the record of it. A reviewer wants to know who, when, old value, new value and why, and wants confidence the entry cannot be edited later. In Airtable, check where the history appears, how far back it goes on your plan, whether it covers edits made through forms, automations or integrations, and whether you can export it as evidence.
Field
Old value
New value
Reason for change
Changed by
Create a visit, edit a value with a reason and export the audit trail. Free, every feature, no credit card.
What you would have to build around it
If you decide to run regulated data in a general database anyway, the cost moves from licence fees to your own time. The list below is the minimum a quality unit will expect to see, and each item has to be written, approved and kept current.
A requirements specification, a risk assessment, a validation plan, test scripts with executed evidence and a summary report, repeated whenever you change the base structure. Because Airtable is edited live by whoever holds creator rights, you also need a change-control process that stops a field type or formula changing silently. See computer system validation for clinical trial software.
If history windows do not cover your study duration, you must export and archive change records on a schedule and prove the exports are complete. That is work an EDC does for you by design. See audit trail software for clinical trials.
Shared views, forms, synced tables and exports can all leak identifiers if one setting is wrong. You need a permissions model, periodic access review and a record of who held which rights when. Compare with role-based access control in clinical trial software.
Signatures with meaning and re-authentication, a query workflow between monitor and site, source data verification tracking and randomization are all bespoke builds. See electronic signatures for clinical trials and query management software.
Switch plan
A practical sequence for a study that started in Airtable. Capture's AI drafting reads a form description or an uploaded file; it builds forms, and nothing is saved without your review.
Export every table to CSV, record the date and the person, and archive the export with the study documents. Treat it as the historical record for data collected so far.
Take the field list from your base: name, type, options, units. Use it as the specification for the new forms. See how to migrate from Excel spreadsheets for the same method applied to columns.
In a draft form choose Build with AI and upload the field list (CSV, XLSX, PDF or DOCX) or describe the form. Review every question, add codes, ranges and edit checks.
Visits and windows, roles for site coordinators and researchers, signatures where your protocol requires them and randomization if the design needs it.
Enter sample participants, break a rule, change a value with a reason, sign a form and read the audit trail. Record the evidence for your validation file.
Write down the cut-over date, what data stayed in the old base, and how the two datasets will be reconciled at analysis. Do not claim a data import that you have not tested.
Before you decide
Ask your sponsor, regulatory affairs or ethics contact. If not, Airtable may be fine.
Revision history retention, export, signatures, validation documents, HIPAA and GDPR terms, in writing.
Where is the data hosted, is a DPA in place and is a DPIA needed? See GDPR DPIA template for clinical trials.
Can you read the change history for the full retention period your sponsor or country requires?
Name the person who controls schema changes and the process that reviews them.
Export data and field definitions in a form an auditor can read.
For trial logistics such as site start-up, supplies and timelines, yes. For participant data that supports a regulatory submission, you would need to build and document an audit trail, signatures, access control and validation around it. Confirm requirements with your sponsor.
We found no public Airtable statement of Part 11 compliance on 13 October 2026. Part 11 is also not a badge: it depends on controls, validation and procedures. Ask Airtable for written documentation.
Per Airtable's support pages it has record-level revision history, with a viewing window that depends on the plan. Whether that satisfies your sponsor's audit trail requirement is for your quality unit to decide.
Per Airtable's GDPR page it offers data processing agreements with standard contractual clauses on request, and European data residency on its highest plan for some data. Whether that is enough for your participants depends on your DPIA and your DPO.
A purpose-built EDC. Capture provides a field-level audit trail, re-authenticated signatures and role-based access, with a free sandbox. Part 11 compliance remains a shared responsibility.
You can rebuild your forms quickly by describing them or uploading your field list for AI drafting, which you review. We do not claim an automated data import; plan to archive the Airtable export and document the cut-over.
Yes. Capture is suitable for Phase 1, 2 and 3 studies.
Open the free sandbox, with every feature, no credit card and no time limit. You pay only when you go live with real participants.
Keep exploring
Capture vs Airtable
The general head-to-head.
Can you use Google Sheets for clinical trial data?
The sibling question for Sheets.
Is Excel acceptable for clinical trial data?
The same question for Excel.
ALCOA+ data integrity checklist
The principles an audit trail serves.
21 CFR Part 11 compliant EDC
What Part 11 means for EDC.
Free EDC software
No-cost options compared.
Free sandbox, every feature. Edit a value, sign a form and export the trail. No credit card.