Employee information often ends up spread across spreadsheets, shared drives, email threads, and separate HR forms. Employees have to ask where policies are stored, HR manually transfers requests into a tracker, and routine questions create unnecessary administrative work.

Airtable and miniExtensions can bring these workflows together. Airtable remains the internal source of truth, while miniExtensions provides employees with a secure, self-service Portal.

Employees can submit HR requests, view personal documents, update approved profile details, read announcements, find company resources, and search the employee directory without receiving access to the Airtable base.

What You Will Build

The finished system will include:

  • A secure employee login
  • An editable employee profile
  • A personal HR request area
  • Private employee documents
  • Company announcements
  • Policies and internal resources
  • A searchable employee directory
  • Department- or role-specific content
  • Links to payroll, benefits, training, and other systems
  • Airtable views and automations for HR

This guide follows the actual build order: Airtable structure first, then the miniExtensions Portal configuration.

Step 1: Create the Airtable Tables

Start by creating the tables and relationships in Airtable.

Employees

If you don’t have a list of employees in Airtable yet, create one record for every employee who should be able to log in.

Recommended fields include:

  • Full Name
  • Work Email
  • Employee ID
  • Profile Photo
  • Preferred Name
  • Job Title
  • Department
  • Manager
  • Office or Location
  • Employment Type
  • Employment Status
  • Start Date
  • Work Phone
  • Bio
  • Skills
  • Emergency Contact
  • Portal Role
  • Internal HR Notes

The Work Email value should be unique for every employee.

To prevent former employees from logging in, add a formula field named Portal Login Email:

IF({Employment Status} = "Active", {Work Email})

The formula contains the employee’s email while their status is Active and becomes blank when they are no longer active. This will automatically filter out former employees from being able to log in.

HR Requests

Create a table for requests submitted by employees.

Recommended fields include:

  • Request ID
  • Employee
  • Request Type
  • Subject
  • Description
  • Start Date
  • End Date
  • Requested Equipment
  • Attachment
  • Priority
  • Status
  • Submitted At
  • Assigned To
  • Employee-Facing Response
  • Decision Date
  • Internal HR Notes

Make Employee a linked-record field pointing to the Employees table.

The Request Type field can include options such as:

  • Time Off
  • Payroll Question
  • Benefits Question
  • Employment Verification
  • Equipment Request
  • Personal Information Change
  • Workplace Accommodation
  • General HR Question

Use statuses such as New, Under Review, Waiting for Employee, Approved, Declined, and Completed.

Employee Documents

Create a table for documents that belong to individual employees.

Recommended fields include:

  • Document Name
  • Employee
  • Document Type
  • Effective Date
  • Expiration Date
  • Attachment
  • Acknowledgment Required
  • Acknowledgment Status
  • Internal Notes

Make Employee a linked-record field pointing to Employees.

Announcements

Create a table for company-wide or department-specific announcements.

Recommended fields include:

  • Title
  • Summary
  • Full Announcement
  • Publish Date
  • Expiration Date
  • Category
  • Department
  • Location
  • Featured Image
  • Attachment
  • Published

Policies and Resources

Create a table for handbooks, policies, templates, training materials, and internal links.

Recommended fields include:

  • Resource Title
  • Category
  • Description
  • File
  • External URL
  • Department
  • Employment Type
  • Effective Date
  • Version
  • Published

Directory Entries

Create a separate directory table instead of exposing the full Employees table.

Recommended fields include:

  • Employee
  • Full Name
  • Profile Photo
  • Job Title
  • Department
  • Manager
  • Work Email
  • Work Phone
  • Office or Location
  • Time Zone
  • Bio
  • Skills
  • Active

Make Employee a linked-record field pointing to Employees. Use lookup fields to bring the approved directory information into this table.

This keeps confidential HR fields out of the directory entirely. When HR updates an employee’s title, department, or contact details, the corresponding lookup values update automatically.

Step 2: Create the Airtable Views

Create the Airtable views that will later supply records to the Portal.

Useful views include:

  • Active Employees in Employees
  • My Open Requests in HR Requests
  • Current Documents in Employee Documents
  • Published Announcements in Announcements
  • Current Policies in Policies and Resources
  • Active Directory in Directory Entries

Filter Published Announcements so it excludes drafts and expired records.

Filter Current Policies so it contains only published, current versions.

Filter Active Directory so it contains only active employees.

You can also create department-specific views such as:

  • Sales Resources
  • Manager Resources
  • New Hire Resources
  • London Office Announcements
  • Remote Employee Policies

These are Airtable-side views only. You will decide how they appear to employees when configuring the Portal.

Step 3: Create the Employee Portal

In miniExtensions, create a Portal extension.

Select the Airtable base, then select HR Requests as the first data table to show in the Portal. Next, select the Employee linked-record field from that table.

That field points back to Employees, allowing miniExtensions to identify the employee users table and determine which HR requests belong to each logged-in employee.

Step 4: Configure Employee Login

Open Users & Login in the Portal configuration.

Use the Portal Login Email formula field as the login field. Because this formula is only populated for active employees, inactive employee records cannot be used to log in.

Do not enable the option that lets users search through existing login values. Employees should enter their own work email rather than seeing a list of employee email addresses. Enabling email verification is recommended to authenticate portal users. Keep this off during testing, as you won’t be able to impersonate users when this is turned on.

Review the remaining login and verification settings, then test the login with an active employee record before configuring the rest of the Portal.

Step 5: Configure the Employee Profile

Open Profile in the Portal configuration and turn on Show logged in profile.

Configure the profile child form with the employee fields that should be visible. For example:

  • Full Name
  • Preferred Name
  • Profile Photo
  • Work Email
  • Work Phone
  • Job Title
  • Department
  • Manager
  • Office or Location
  • Bio
  • Skills
  • Emergency Contact

Make employee-controlled information editable, such as:

  • Preferred Name
  • Profile Photo
  • Work Phone
  • Bio
  • Skills
  • Emergency Contact

Keep HR-controlled information read-only, such as:

  • Work Email
  • Employee ID
  • Job Title
  • Department
  • Manager
  • Employment Type
  • Employment Status
  • Start Date

Do not add confidential fields such as compensation, performance notes, medical information, government identifiers, or internal HR notes to the profile form.

Step 6: Configure HR Requests

Open Tables and select HR Requests.

Under Create & Expand Records, turn on Allow users to create new records.

Configure the create form with the fields employees need when submitting a request:

  • Request Type
  • Subject
  • Description
  • Start Date
  • End Date
  • Requested Equipment
  • Attachment
  • Priority

There is no need to add the Employee linked-record field to this form. A request created from inside the Portal is automatically linked to the logged-in employee.

Configure the expanded record form separately. Include the information employees should see after submission:

  • Request Type
  • Subject
  • Description
  • Submitted At
  • Status
  • Employee-Facing Response
  • Decision Date

Leave internal fields out of the employee form:

  • Assigned To
  • Internal HR Notes
  • Internal Approval
  • Private Manager Comments

The Portal automatically shows each employee the HR requests linked to their employee record. Do not add another filter for the logged-in employee.

If different request types require different information, use conditional fields in the create form. For example, show date fields for time-off requests and equipment fields for equipment requests.

If the workflows are substantially different, create separate Airtable tables and add each one as a Portal table instead.

Step 7: Configure Personal Employee Documents

In Tables, add Employee Documents.

Select the Current Documents Airtable view. Configure the record layout with employee-facing fields such as:

  • Document Name
  • Document Type
  • Effective Date
  • Expiration Date
  • Attachment
  • Acknowledgment Status

Turn off record creation and make the displayed fields read-only.

Because Employee Documents is linked directly to Employees, each employee automatically sees only their own documents. No additional logged-in-user filter is needed.

Only place documents in this table if the employee is meant to access them. Internal investigations, performance notes, or other confidential HR files should remain in a separate internal table, or in separate hidden fields (i.e. not shown on the portal ever).

Step 8: Add Company Announcements

In the Portal’s Tables section, add Announcements.

If the table does not appear in the Add Table list, use Add a missing table. miniExtensions will add the required linked-record relationship to the employee users table and add the table to the Portal.

Open Views and select the Published Announcements Airtable view.

Because announcements are shared content, configure this view differently from personal HR records:

  1. Open Filter and Sort.
  2. Find Choose Records to Display.
  3. Select Show all records.

Choose a List, Gallery, or Grid layout and configure the fields employees should see:

  • Title
  • Summary
  • Full Announcement
  • Publish Date
  • Category
  • Featured Image
  • Attachment

Turn off record creation and make the announcement fields read-only.

The Show all records setting is intentional here. Announcements should be visible to the appropriate employee audience rather than limited to records linked to one employee.

Step 9: Add Policies and Intranet Resources

Add Policies and Resources under Tables. Use Add a missing table if it is not already available.

Select the Current Policies Airtable view, then go to Filter and Sort and set Choose Records to Display to Show all records.

Configure the visible fields:

  • Resource Title
  • Category
  • Description
  • File
  • External URL
  • Effective Date
  • Version

Turn off record creation and make the fields read-only.

Add separate Portal views for useful categories such as:

  • Employee Handbook
  • HR Policies
  • IT Help
  • Expense Templates
  • Training Materials
  • Manager Resources
  • New Hire Resources

Each Portal view can use the corresponding Airtable view created earlier.

Step 10: Build the Employee Directory

Add Directory Entries under Tables and select the Active Directory Airtable view.

Open Filter and Sort and set Choose Records to Display to Show all records. This allows each employee to browse the complete active directory instead of seeing only their own directory entry.

Choose a Grid, List, or Gallery layout and display only directory-safe fields:

  • Profile Photo
  • Full Name
  • Job Title
  • Department
  • Manager
  • Work Email
  • Work Phone
  • Office or Location
  • Time Zone
  • Bio
  • Skills

Turn off record creation. The directory fields should also be read-only because employees update their permitted information through Profile.

Using the separate Directory Entries table prevents confidential fields from the Employees table from being exposed accidentally.

Step 11: Show Different Content by Department or Role

Use fields from the Employees table, such as Department, Location, Employment Type, or Portal Role, to control which Portal content appears.

To restrict an entire table:

  1. Open Tables.
  2. Select the table.
  3. Open Conditional Table.
  4. Add a condition based on the logged-in employee record.

For example, show a Manager Resources table only when Portal Role is Manager.

To restrict one view inside a shared table:

  1. Open Tables.
  2. Select the table.
  3. Open Views.
  4. Select the relevant view.
  5. Open Conditional View.
  6. Add the employee condition.

This allows all employees to access the resources table while only specific employees see views such as Manager Resources or US Benefits.

Conditional tables and views control which content sections appear. Personal HR requests and employee documents remain scoped automatically through their Employee linked-record fields.

Step 12: Add Links to Other Employee Systems

Open Menu, enable External Links, and add links for systems that remain outside Airtable:

  • Payroll
  • Benefits
  • Learning management
  • Expense reporting
  • IT support
  • Company calendar
  • Shared documentation
  • Video meetings

Set a title and URL for each link. Choose whether it should open separately or be embedded when the destination supports embedding.

Use Conditional Link when a resource should only appear for a particular department, employment type, location, or role.

Step 13: Add Airtable Automations

Once the Portal workflow is configured, add Airtable automations for the internal HR process.

Useful automations include:

  • Set new requests to New
  • Record the submission date
  • Notify HR when a request is created
  • Route requests based on Request Type
  • Notify IT about equipment requests
  • Alert managers about time-off requests
  • Notify employees when a status changes
  • Remind HR about overdue requests
  • Archive expired announcements
  • Remind employees about expiring documents

Create internal Airtable views such as:

  • New HR Requests
  • Waiting for HR
  • Waiting for Employee
  • Overdue Requests
  • Leave Requests This Month
  • Equipment Awaiting Approval
  • Documents Expiring Soon

These internal views do not need to be added to the employee Portal.

Step 14: Brand and Share the Portal

Customize the Portal logo, colors, header, and employee-facing table titles.

Clear labels might include:

  • My HR Requests
  • My Documents
  • Company News
  • Policies and Resources
  • Employee Directory
  • Training
  • Employee Help

Open the Share menu when the Portal is ready. Copy the Portal URL or use Email Login Links to distribute access to employees.

You can also embed the Portal in an existing internal website or use a custom URL where supported.

Step 15: Test the Complete Workflow

Create test records for at least two regular employees, one manager, and one inactive employee.

Verify that:

  1. Active employees can log in.
  2. The inactive employee cannot log in.
  3. Each employee sees only their own HR requests.
  4. Each employee sees only their own personal documents.
  5. New HR requests are automatically linked to the logged-in employee.
  6. The HR request form does not ask employees to select themselves.
  7. Profile fields have the correct editable and read-only settings.
  8. Announcements and resources show the intended shared records.
  9. The directory shows all active directory entries.
  10. Conditional tables and views appear for the correct roles and departments.
  11. Internal HR fields are never exposed.
  12. Airtable automations run as expected.
  13. The Portal works on desktop and mobile.

Give Employees One Place to Find Information and Request Help

An employee Portal built with Airtable and miniExtensions gives employees one place to find colleagues, read company updates, access policies, view personal documents, update approved profile details, and ask HR for help.

HR continues managing the underlying workflows in Airtable, while employees receive a focused experience containing only the information and actions intended for them.

Personal records are automatically locked down through the employee relationship, shared intranet content is deliberately configured to show all appropriate records, and new requests created inside the Portal are linked to the logged-in employee automatically.