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Quickbase Admin Getting Started Guide
If you're new to being a Quickbase admin, start here! While it may feel like there is a ton to learn, the Getting Started Hub has you covered. This is how...
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Introducing New Quickbase Navigation (beta)
Update: This blog was initially published ahead of our open beta in May. On October 1st, new (or sidebar) navigation will become the default Quickbase experience. To help guide the transition, if your users tried new navigation during the open beta and reverted to legacy navigation, we will respect their current settings. Your team will still have the option to use to legacy (or top) navigation until the beginning of 2025, but doing so will require action from both admins and individual end users. Access the End User Guide for More Details > Quickbase is the world’s first platform for dynamic work management. And that means we wake up every day asking ourselves how we can make our customers more efficient and help them grow. We are continually improving the platform and adding new capabilities, so it is easier than ever for you to see, connect, and control your most complex processes. To do that, we want to make sure we continue to focus on providing an intuitive, clean user experience, which is the foundation on which the rest of Quickbase relies. That’s why we’re excited to announce the beta version of our new navigation. Here’s what to expect from our new navigation, and how you can try it out today. What’s changing? We rebuilt Quickbase’s navigation from the ground up to provide a more modern and intuitive experience for both you and your users. And, while we have future plans to add new functionality and concepts to our navigation, we’re not adding any new elements just yet. Instead, this initial release of our new navigation will re-arrange the components you use to navigate around your apps today. This approach will ease you and your users into this experience and make it easier to manage this change. Tables have moved to the left side Some may call it clunky; others call it dated, but we heard loud and clear from many of you that the Quickbase menus at the top of the page take up too much room. That’s why we’re moving app-level links to a new sidebar which you can find at the left edge of the page. Here, you can navigate to each table in your app. And if you are an app admin, you will find links to app settings and the user management page. We’re also providing centralized access to all your table settings with Settings for each table directly in the content menu are designed to save you time and clicks. It’s important to note that your existing table order and permissions will translate 1:1 from legacy navigation to the new style, so you’ll be able to hit the ground running without the need to re-calibrate your settings. With more room to breathe, you can see – and understand - more of your own data on your screen at once. There are several ways you can choose to interact with this menu, depending on how you like to get work done. You can open the sidebar by clicking the arrow to push content and maintain your open/closed state as you navigate across pages or simply hover anywhere over the closed sidebar to open temporarily and close automatically as you navigate. Switch between apps using the new global nav menu We’re cleaning up the experience of having to switch between apps with the app bar, by moving these controls to the top-left corner of the page. In this new waffle menu, you’ll be able to switch between apps. This is also where you will access other parts of Quickbase outside of apps, such as Pipelines and Exchange, enabling one-click access to key areas of the platform. Getting involved in the beta program Want to be one of the first to get your hands on the new nav? Your valuable feedback is pivotal to shaping our platform. Register here! Next steps The new navigation will be available for all users starting on May 8, 2024, with the ability to try it defaulted on. Each account admin can choose to disable the new navigation for their users under the Admin Console-> Permissions menu. If a user’s ability to turn the new navigation is not disabled, they can visit their user preferences and select sidebar navigation to try out the new experience. Happy navigating!Jinja If else statement syntax
In case anyone else is looking for a solution to entering a conditional statement into a Pipeline as an out put value, here is what I learned today. Below is the syntax entered into the place where the {{ c.values }} are put in the Pipelines Designer page. If anyone knows what these inputs are named please tell me. {% if step.fieldname is gt(0) %} {{step.fieldname * -1}} {% else %} 0 {% endif %} Explanation: The statement above is an if : else statement. {% %} these things signify the conditional statement part and {{ }} these are the values the field gets if the condition is met. If the fieldname is greater than 0 {% if step.fieldname is gt(0) %} then enter the value from fieldname from a previous step times negative 1 {{step.fieldname * -1}} else do the next thing, which in this case is enter 0 into the fieldname from a previous step {% else %} finally end the if statement {% endif %} I looked around and couldn't find anything useful so here's a little nugget. ------------------------------ Jim Harrison transparency = knowledge + understanding : The Scrum Dudes ------------------------------Using ""&z=""&Rurl() and rdr in formula URL fields
People ask all the time, "What is the "&z="&Rurl() inside some of my Quickbase buttons?". Well, not all the time, but often enough that we should talk about it. I am referring to formulas that are inside Formula - URL field buttons like, "Add Task", "Add Document" or "Add Project". It doesn't matter if records are child or parent records you are creating. Only that you are leaving one location to manually add or edit a record and you wish to return back to the location from which you started. Workflows that require user input When creating a relationship, Quickbase automatically generates an "Add Record" Formula - URL field. This provides a quick way for users to create a child record. However, many people have edited their Add Record button and figured out that the "&z="&Rurl() seems to return them back to where they started from, but when they try using the function in other formulas it doesn't work all the time. The reason - it's not supposed to. This function was an expedient way for Quickbase engineers to pass a bread crumb from the originating URL into Quickbase so that when you were finished adding or editing a record you would have a way to return to your original starting point. There are two valid use cases for "&z="&Rurl(). One is when you use the API_GenAddRecordForm and the other is when you use the a=er function to edit a record. Bear in mind that both of these cases expect you to manually modify a record, save the record and return back to the URL from which you started. Here's an example using API_GenAddRecordForm: URLRoot() & "db/" & [_DBID_TASKS] & "?act=API_GenAddRecordForm&_fid_48=" & [Record ID#] & "&_fid_8=" & [Est Start Date] & "&z=" & Rurl() And here's an example using a=er: URLRoot() & "db/" & Dbid() & "?a=er&rid=" & URLEncode([Record ID#]) & "&dfid=12" & "&z=" & Rurl() The thing to remember about the above two examples is that you are starting from one spot, either adding or editing a record, manually saving the record and returning to your starting spot. The "&z="&Rurl() only works in this situation. Workflows that do not require user input If you are using another API call such as API_AddRecord or API_EditRecord, the format for redirecting to another page is a bit different. In this case, you can redirect the final API call in your formula to an a=doredirect URL. This takes the z=rurl() concept and makes it more valuable, since it allows you to make one or more API calls, and then reload the current page. For example: URLRoot() & "db/" & [_DBID_TASKS] & "?a=API_EditRecord&rid=" & [Record ID#] & "&_fid_7=Approved" & "&rdr="&URLEncode(URLRoot() & "db/" & Dbid() & "?a=doredirect&z=" & Rurl()) On the other hand, rdr can be used to redirect the user to a specific page. For example, after a new record is created, perhaps you want to display a "thank you" rich text page you've created. This thank you page should appear as the next step in the workflow, regardless of whether the user was on the app dashboard before they created the record, or whether they came from the table home page. For example: URLRoot() & "db/" & [_DBID_TASKS] & "?a=API_EditRecord&rid=42&_fid_7=Approved"&"&rdr="&URLEncode(URLRoot() & "db/" & Dbid() & "?a=dbpage&pageID=30") For more information on creating formulas in Quickbase you can review the documentation below, or open a support case for assistance. Further Reading: Using Formulas in Quickbase Formula Functions Reference Read about GenAddRecordForm in the API Guide Read about AddRecord in the API Guide Read about EditRecord in the API Guide
SAML Public Authentication Certificate for Signed Authn Requests
June 21st, 2024 Update: We have created a Quickbase app to host the Quickbase SAML Zip File. Access the app by clicking the link above to download the file. For Quickbase Realm and Account Administrators As a Quickbase Realm or Account Administrator, you are probably aware of how your users authenticate (login) to the Quickbase platform. Many Quickbase customers use our SAML authentication feature. Security Assertion Markup Language, or SAML, is a standardized way to tell external applications and services, such as Quickbase, that a user is who they say they are. SAML makes single sign-on (SSO) technology possible by providing a way to authenticate a user once and then communicate that authentication to multiple applications. To help you understand what you may be using at your company, some examples of SAML, SSO or IdP (Identity Provider) vendors are Okta, OneLogin, Microsoft, Duo, and there are many others. Some customers using the SAML authentication feature may also choose to use an extra layer of security whereby each authentication request from the Quickbase platform to your company’s SSO directory (or IdP) is signed by Quickbase using a public authentication certificate configured on the Quickbase platform. Quickbase refers to this extra security feature as the “SAML Authn Requests” option. It has that name because there is a feature in the Quickbase SAML configuration settings named “SAML Authn Requests”. Only Quickbase staff can see this option or change it. It is only enabled when a customer informs Quickbase of the customer's intention to configure their IdP to require signing of authentication requests made by the Quickbase platform to the customer's IdP as part of the SAML authentication process. If a customer wants to know if they are using the “Signed Authn Requests” option, or would like the option enabled or disabled, they can open a support case with Quickbase Technical Support. *When the “SAML Authn Requests” feature is enabled by Quickbase, and the customer has configured their IdP to require signing of authentication requests made by the Quickbase platform to the customer's IdP as part of the SAML authentication process, both Quickbase and the customer’s IdP must use the same public authentication certificate in order for Quickbase authentication to work successfully. If they do not match, Quickbase authentication (logins) will fail and the customer will be unable to use Quickbase. Once a year, Quickbase is required to rotate the public authentication certificate. The certificate rotation will occur on a specific date/time within a 15 minute maintenance window. Therefore, the certificate rotation process requires careful coordination between Quickbase and all customers who have chosen to use the “SAML Authn Requests” feature. Typically, about 2 weeks prior to the annual rotation, Quickbase will communicate to Realm and Account Administrators for customers using the “SAML Authn Requests” feature via in-product messaging and possibly also e-mail. We also post a notice on the Quickbase service page. We provide a link to this Community post which specifies in a section below the date and time of the rotation and provides a link to download the new public authentication certificate. *The Realm and Account Administrators need to contact the person or team at their company responsible for administering their IdP/SSO/SAML system, typically their IT department, in order to ensure that the new public authentication certificate from Quickbase is also installed in the customer’s IdP/SSO/SAML system during the 15 minute maintenance window announced by Quickbase. *The public authentication certificate CANNOT be changed in your company’s IdP prior to the announced maintenance window or logins to the Quickbase platform will break. If the certificate is not changed in your company’s IdP during the 15 minute maintenance window announced by Quickbase, logins to the Quickbase platform will be broken until the certificate is updated in the IdP. For Single Sign-On (SSO) or Identity Provider (IdP) Administrators: PLEASE NOTE: The remainder of this Quickbase Community post is highly technical and should be reviewed by the person or team responsible for administering the Single Sign-On (SSO) or identify provider (IdP) system used to control access to the Quickbase platform. Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication method that enables users to securely authenticate with multiple applications and websites by using just one set of credentials (username and password). An identity provider (IdP) system is a directory of usernames, passwords, groups, roles, etc. that is typically used to manage access to the applications used by a company. Another acronym commonly associated with Single Sign-On is SAML. Security Assertion Markup Language, or SAML, is a standardized way to tell external applications and services that a user is who they say they are. SAML makes single sign-on (SSO) technology possible by providing a way to authenticate a user once and then communicate that authentication to multiple applications. Many customers use Quickbase's SAML authentication feature. A subset of customers may have the “Signed Authn Requests” option selected in their Quickbase SAML configuration. That option is a security enhancement that results in Quickbase signing the authentication requests made to the customer’s identify provider (IdP). Use of this option also requires the customer to configure their IdP to require signing of authentication requests made by the Quickbase platform to the customer's IdP as part of the SAML authentication process. *Customers who choose to use the “Signed Authn Requests” option and enable signing of authentication requests on their IdP must be prepared to manage the annual public authentication certificate update process described below. The option itself offers only marginal security benefit so customers should decide for themselves if that marginal security benefit is worth the effort required to coordinate and execute the update of the certificate and potentially incur several minutes or more of down time for their use of the Quickbase platform while the public authentication certificate on their IdP may not match the certificate used on the Quickbase platform. The “Signed Authn Requests” option is only visible to Quickbase staff and can only be changed by Quickbase staff. It should only be enabled when a customer informs Quickbase of the customer's intention to configure their IdP to require signing of authentication requests made by the Quickbase platform to the customer's IdP as part of the SAML authentication process. If a customer wants to know if they are using the “Signed Authn Requests” option, or would like the option enabled or disabled, they can open a support case with Quickbase Technical Support. In order to validate that the signed authentication requests actually come from Quickbase, we provide the customer with a public authentication certificate. Customers using the “Signed Authn Requests” option must ensure their IdP is configured with the public authentication certificate currently being used by the Quickbase platform to sign authentication requests made by the Quickbase platform to the customer's IdP as part of the SAML authentication process. If the public authentication certificate configured in the customer’s IdP does not match the public authentication certificate being used by Quickbase, the customer will not be able to authenticate successfully to the Quickbase platform. *Quickbase has no ability to know if or how a customer has configured their IdP. We therefore cannot tell a customer if their IdP is requiring Quickbase to sign authentication requests and we cannot tell a customer if the public authentication certificate Quickbase is using matches the certificate the customer has configured in their IdP. Quickbase rotates the public authentication certificate every year and distributes it to applicable customers inside a certificate file via this Quickbase Community post. Quickbase determines the applicable customers based on which have the “Signed Authn Requests” option enabled in their Quickbase SAML configuration. During the period of time starting on the date that we announce our intention to update the certificate, and ending after the date/time we actually update the certificate on the Quickbase platform, we make both the current and new certificates available in this Community post. After we update the certificate on the Quickbase platform, we then remove the now out-of-date certificate from this Community post. Prior to the annual public authentication certificate rotation period, Quickbase will communicate via in-product messaging and possibly also e-mail to Quickbase realm and account administrators at the applicable customers the specific date/time on which we intend to update the certificate on the Quickbase platform. When Quickbase updates the certificate, we do so during a 15 minute maintenance period on the announced date/time. We strive to provide customers with enough notice of this maintenance period for them to notify their responsible staff, typically their IT department or whichever group within the customer’s organization is responsible for administering their identify provider (IdP) system. The customer’s IdP administrator should plan to update the public authentication certificate provided by Quickbase during the 15 minute maintenance period announced by Quickbase. Doing so will minimize the chance of the customer experiencing any interruption of their use of the Quickbase platform. PLEASE NOTE: For any customer using the “Signed Authn Requests” option, i.e., requiring signing of authentication requests made by the Quickbase platform to the customer's IdP, any time the public authentication certificate used by Quickbase does not match the public authentication certificate configured in the customer's IdP, logins to the Quickbase platform will fail. It is therefore essential that the customer update the public authentication certificate in their IdP during the 15 minute maintenance period announced by Quickbase annually. Quickbase Public Authentication Certificate Rotation Maintenance Window Quickbase plans to update the public authentication certificate on Wednesday, November 20, 2024, between 8:00 PM and 8:15 PM Eastern US Time. Current and New Public Authentication Certificates The NEW public authentication certificate is provided below for you to download and install on your identify provider during the 15 minute maintenance period. The zip file contains both the metadata (with certificate contained inside) as well as the certificate on its own. Current Certificate (Expires November 24, 2024): QB_SAML_Exp11-24-2024.zip NEW Certificate: (Expires November 25, 2025): QB_SAML_Exp11-25-2025.zip Additional Information on SAML Public Authentication Certificate Configuration Scenarios and Expected Outcomes This section describes several scenarios that could exist specific to a Quickbase customer using SAML authentication for access to the Quickbase platform. Quickbase SAML configuration option “Signed Authn Requests” is disabled, and Customer does not configure their IdP to require signing of SAML authentication requests. In this case, logins to the Quickbase platform will work normally assuming there are no other SAML configuration issues. There is no use of public certificates in this scenario. Quickbase SAML configuration option “Signed Authn Requests” is disabled, and Customer configures their IdP to require signing of SAML authentication requests, and has the currently applicable public authentication certificate from Quickbase installed in their IdP. In this case, logins to the Quickbase platform will fail because the Customer's IdP is expecting authentication requests from Quickbase to the IdP to be signed and Quickbase is not signing them because the “Signed Authn Requests” option is disabled. Quickbase SAML configuration option “Signed Authn Requests” is enabled, and Customer configures their IdP to require signing of SAML authentication requests, and has the currently applicable public authentication certificate from Quickbase installed in their IdP. In this case, logins to the Quickbase platform will work normally because the Customer's IdP is expecting authentication requests from Quickbase to the IdP to be signed using the currently applicable public authentication certificate and Quickbase is signing them with that same public authentication certificate. Quickbase SAML configuration option “Signed Authn Requests” is enabled, and Customer configures their IdP to require signing of SAML authentication requests, and has a public authentication certificate installed in their IdP that is either expired, or does not match the public authentication certificate currently being used by Quickbase. In this case, logins to the Quickbase platform will fail because the Customer's IdP is expecting authentication requests from Quickbase to the IdP to be signed using the public authentication certificate they have configured in their IdP and Quickbase is signing them with a different public authentication certificate. Quickbase SAML configuration option “Signed Authn Requests” is enabled, and Customer does not configure their IdP to require signing of SAML authentication requests. In this case, logins to the Quickbase platform may or may not work normally depending on the IdP and how it handles a signed request. Quickbase cannot anticipate how different IdPs may handle this scenario. The solution is to open a case with Quickbase Technical Support and request that the “Signed Authn Requests” option be disabled.Update on the retirement of Application Webhooks UI and QB Actions
Top of FormQB NOTE: Since we originally published this article, we have updated the date when Application Webhooks UI and QB Actions will reach End of Support. The new date is June 30, 2025 – when both creating and editing actions and webhooks will be locked. Note that locking create and edit does not apply to Webhooks APIs or the Webhooks channel in Pipelines. Quickbase makes it easy to reduce repetitive tasks and orchestrate workflows, uniting disconnected data onto one platform. With Pipelines, business users can manage both automations and integrations in one place. And we have been hard at work enhancing our Pipelines capability based on your feedback. Now, as we continue to look toward the future, we must also evaluate the role of older and less flexible features like the Application Webhooks UI and Quickbase Actions. These two features will reach End of Support on June 30, 2025, and existing actions and UI-based webhooks will become read-only at that time. What this change means for you After June 30, 2025, the Application Webhooks UI and QB Actions will no longer be supported. At that time, there are some changes we are making to those features: Any actions you’ve already created will continue to run. However, at that time they will become read-only, so you will not be able to edit them or create new ones. Any webhooks you’ve already created will continue to run. However, at that time the ability to create or edit Application Webhooks through the UI will be disabled. You will still be able to enable and disable existing actions and webhooks after this point. We strongly recommend that you migrate any remaining actions and webhooks to use pipelines instead, which enable more powerful and flexible workflows. If you are an app builder, you already have access to create pipelines. If you do not see the Pipelines link below, please contact your account administrator to get access. The Pipelines Advantage We have been continuously adding new capabilities and tools that make it easy for you to transition your workflow automations to our newer and more powerful Pipelines technology. Not only will this ensure that you don’t experience any disruption to your business or your processes, but it also opens the door to new workflow ideas that can connect across multiple systems. Pipelines supports all QB Actions and Webhooks features – Pipelines supports all the features you’ve been leveraging within QB Actions and Webhooks, including the ability to query the previous value of a field. Pipelines enables more sophisticated logic than Quickbase Actions and Webhooks – Pipelines supports more powerful business logic than QB Actions and Webhooks, including branching and looping, as well as parsing text. Pipelines gives you the ability to scale workflow across systems – In addition to orchestrating workflow within your Quickbase ecosystem, Pipelines includes drag-and-drop integration with over 40 products including Outlook, Slack, and Sharepoint. Recent Pipelines Improvements We are making major improvements to Pipelines, which make it easier to build, enable more powerful pipelines, and make them easier to govern and manage. Easier to build: Describe your workflow using natural language, and our Smart Builder will build the pipeline for you using AI. Improved Pipelines Designer offers a streamlined, drag-and-drop experience Simplified setup for Quickbase channel no longer requires user tokens to be created manually More powerful and reliable pipelines: New integration channels for Fastfield and Snowflake Improved Outlook channel enables replying to email thread Improved Quickbase channel enables exporting records to CSV Pipelines trigger up to 5x faster Increased limit on outbound webhooks from 20/second to 50/second Improved governance: Added pipelines to Field Usage Pipelines can be backed up easily via Solutions Connection Central now includes both Pipelines and Sync tables Static IP Addresses for Outgoing Pipelines Focus areas for improving Pipelines We’ve gotten feedback from many of you on Pipelines about what’s going well and where we have opportunity to improve. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. Getting this perspective is essential to help us evolve our product and make sure we are serving the community well. Looking forward, we are exploring a number of Pipelines enhancements: Support for official service accounts New bulk trigger step Initial trigger time improvements Connection Central improvements We plan to keep existing actions and webhooks running for the foreseeable future. If this changes, we will make sure to provide a reasonable amount of notice first. Learn more Take the Getting Started with Pipelines course in Quickbase University. Learn more about building pipelines with AI by watching our session from Empower 2024. Take the Pipelines Builder certification exam. Explore the 40+ no-code connectors available for Pipelines. Learn more about Quickbase’s process for retiring product features.Preparing for Automations End of Support on June 30, 2022
Workflow automation has taken many forms in Quickbase over the years. It could be a simple email notification, a dynamic form rule, or even a complex script triggered by a webhook. But one thing that’s clear is that workflow automation is only going to increase in importance for customers and use cases of all kinds. To meet those evolving requirements, we have spent the last year growing and improving the workflow automation capabilities of our powerful new Pipelines technology. Now, as we continue to look toward the future, we must also evaluate the role of older and less flexible features like Quickbase Automations. That’s why we will be retiring Quickbase Automations in favor of Pipelines. On June 30, 2022, Automations will reach End of Support. What End of Support means for you The next step in retiring Automations will come on June 30, 2022, when the feature will reach End of Support. At that time, you will no longer be able to create new automations. This also means that the Quickbase Technical Support team will not be able to assist with the Automations feature after June 30, 2022. Existing automations will continue to be editable, and they will continue to run until Automations reaches End of Life. Read on to learn about the benefits of using Pipelines instead of Automations, and how you can prepare for Automations retirement by migrating your existing automations. Improving your workflow using Pipelines We have been continuously adding new capabilities and tools that will make it easy for you to migrate your workflow automations to our newer and more powerful Pipelines technology. Not only will this ensure that you don’t experience any disruption to your business or your processes, but it also opens the door to new workflow ideas that can connect across multiple systems. Pipelines supports all Automations features – Pipelines now supports all the features you’ve been leveraging within Automations, including the ability to query the previous value of a field. Pipelines enables more sophisticated logic than Automations – Pipelines supports more powerful business logic than Automations, including branching and looping, as well as parsing text. Pipelines gives you the ability to scale workflow across systems – In addition to orchestrating workflow within your Quickbase ecosystem, Pipelines includes point-and-click integration with over 30 products including Outlook, Slack, and Sharepoint. We are committed to supporting every Automations use case. That’s why all Quickbase customers get unlimited use of Quickbase-to-Quickbase Pipelines included with their service plan at no additional cost. Focus areas for improving Pipelines We’ve gotten feedback from many of you on Pipelines, about what’s going well and where we have opportunity to improve. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. Getting this perspective is essential to help us evolve our product and make sure we are serving this community well. There are three main areas we are focusing on to further support you as you migrate from Automations: Ease of use – We are working on improvements to make it faster and more intuitive to build pipelines. For example, in the January 2022 release we are making our builder wizard generally available. Using the wizard, the user first chooses which steps to include. Then, they are directed to the pipelines designer page where they fill in the details for how each step should work. We have also extended our Pipelines educational resources in Quickbase University, with the release of our new Pipelines Builder certification exam. Performance – In December 2021, we rolled out the new “Blaze” engine to offer better reliability, performance, and efficiency for Pipelines. Compared to November 2020, usage of our Pipelines capability has multiplied by more than 71 times, and the Blaze engine helps support that exponential increase in workload. It also lays the foundation for the next round of exponential growth in integration and automation use-cases which companies are looking to create with Quickbase Pipelines. We’ve seen pipelines run 30 times faster on average since releasing the Blaze engine. Governance – We are making major investments to make it easier to manage your pipelines at scale. Account administrators will be able to set access to Pipelines channels by individual user, or by user group. Pipelines builders will also be notified when one of their pipelines encounters an error. And finally, app builders will be able to see a list of pipelines connected to their app. Each of these features will be available in the first half of 2022, before we reach the End of Support date for Automations. Preparing to migrate There are three steps you can take to prepare for your migration from Automations to Pipelines: Make sure you have access to Pipelines – Some of you are app builders who have built automations but have not had a chance to start working with Pipelines. It’s worthwhile to check the top-left of your Quickbase view to make sure you have Pipelines access set up. If you do not see the Pipelines tab, you’ll need to contact one of your account admins to get access. Create new workflow automations using Pipelines instead of Automations – Since Automations will not be supported starting on June 30, 2022, this is the perfect time to stop creating new automations and creating pipelines instead. We have many resources available to bring you up to speed. (Check out our list on the community.) Begin migrating your existing automations to Pipelines - We’ve developed a simple migration tool you can use to create a corresponding pipeline for each of your automations, which you can do in just a few clicks. We have been improving the migration tool over the past few months, and it is now ready to migrate virtually any automation. (Learn more about using the migration tool in our help article.) Timeline Over the several months, we will be following our standard feature retirement lifecycle, and taking several steps along the way to retire the Quickbase Automations feature. Timing Retirement Phase Description June 22, 2021 End of Sale We will focus on making sure that all our customers have the information and resources they need to successfully plan for the migration of their Automations to Pipelines. Even though the Automations feature will still be available to existing customers, we encourage customers to begin using Pipelines to implement new workflow automation ideas moving forward. June 30, 2022 End of Support Your existing Automations will continue to run without interruption, but you will no longer be able to create new Automations or get assistance with the building and configuration of Automations from Quickbase staff. During this time, we encourage you to migrate any remaining Automations to Pipelines at the earliest possible opportunity. TBD End of Life Automations is officially retired. This means that it is fully removed from our product, and remaining Automations will cease to function. Learn more Learn more about using the migration tool in our help article. Take the Getting Started with Pipelines course in Quickbase University. Take the Pipelines Builder certification exam. Browse all the Pipelines resources available on the community. Explore the 30+ point-and-click integration channels available for Pipelines. Learn more about Quickbase’s process for retiring product features.Dashboard Enhancements
NOTE: THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN by BrianCafferelli , BUT TECHNICAL CHALLENGES ARE PREVENTING BRIAN FROM PUBLISHING. 🚀🚀🚀Quickbase makes it easy to surface the right data, to the right people, at the right time. When you set up dashboards for each role in your application, you are enabling informed decision-making across your business. Quickbase dashboards allow you to display reports and charts from multiple tables or even multiple apps. And in just a few clicks, you can apply filters to all reports on the page. All of this is supported by our drag-and-drop dashboard designer, giving you a quick and easy tool for delivering important business insights. We’re excited to announce a series of improvements that will allow you to display more data and more reports on your dashboards, and make it easier to build those dashboards. These new improvements will be released in April 2024. 🚀Infinitely-scrollable tabs More space, more reports, more data - all on one dashboard! Tabs will also display at the top of the page instead of the bottom, with this new design. Infinite dashboard with multiple reports 🚀Seamless building experience Experience a smoother, more intuitive way to arrange your widgets now that widgets will automatically move out of the way. We also added a quick option to add a new widget below an existing one. Widgets intuitively moving 🚀Add below widget menu option 🚀Meet the spacer widget Create cleaner, more organized layouts by effortlessly adding either space between widgets or stylish dividers. Spacer widget magic 🚀Missing button groups? A familiar Quickbase experience allows you to style your button widgets easily. Button groups 🚀 Less clicks and less back-and-forth when working with tabs Rearranging tabs easily 🚀Update filters titles inline 🚀Excited about all of these upgrades? You can update your dashboards without having to rebuild them!
Formula URL button - save and redirect
Hi there I?ve created a form accessible to ?everyone on the internet? for our clients to submit service requests. I added ?&ifv=20? to the url to hide the qb branding. However, doing this causes the save button to become hidden. I created a formula url button that will save it using this javascript I found on the forum: var text URL = "javascript:void(DoSaveAdd())";var Text Image = "<a id='saveButton' class='Vibrant Success' onclick='DoSaveAdd()' href='#'>Submit</a>";"<b href =" & $URL &">" & $Image & "</b>" My problem now is how do I get the page to redirect after the form is saved. Here?s a link to the form, you can try it and see what happens. https://sparkav.quickbase.com/db/bnzwm7ykp?a=nwr&ifv=20 I'd like it to redirect to an external webpage. If that is not natively possible than I'd like it to redirect to a rich text page I've created in quickbase. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Elisha
Finding Duplicates in Quickbase Just Got a Whole Lot Easier
Quickbase is truly an amazing platform, and I am excited to say it just keeps getting better. I currently work as a Solutions Consultant with Quickbase and have been here for three years. During this time, I cannot tell you how many requests I’ve received where customers or prospects inquired about methods to find duplicate values. This request frequently comes up when tracking contacts in a CRM, but I have also heard use cases around transaction/expense tracking or even consolidating overlapping information into Quickbase from multiple systems. There was just not a great solution. In some cases we could force some duplicates to be visible, but the setup was a bit inelegant. Simplicity is always something we strive for at Quickbase, and so that is why I am super excited to announce (in case you haven’t already heard), that finding duplicates in Quickbase just got a whole lot easier! Let’s talk about the solution…*drum roll*… Formula Queries! If you missed the Empower Session on Formula Queries, you can find it here. Formula Queries are pretty darn awesome. If you are an intermediate to advanced builder in Quickbase, you have probably written your fair share of formulas. Traditional formulas (outside of lookups and summaries) look at only the record they are on. In other words, traditional formulas cannot look at other records in the same or other tables, only the single record on which they live. Formula Queries, on the other hand, can look at the record they live on, plus any other record in the same table, and even any other record in the same application. There are numerous uses for Formula Queries, many of which we have not yet discovered. A few uses are things like resource allocation, rolling summaries, holiday planning for project durations, and of course, duplicate tracking. So, let’s dive into duplicate tracking. Some of the items you probably should think of before trying to write the query are things like: What makes another record a duplicate? In the case of a contact, is it the first and last name that indicates a match, or in a transaction is it the dollar amount and date? This is something to really begin thinking about to ensure you are telling the system how to properly identify the duplicates. How do I want to be notified of a duplicate? Is it a report on a dashboard that displays them? Or should you receive an email if a record was saved and it’s a potential duplicate? Should duplicates exist at all? Should users be able to enter duplicates to begin with? Who should manage duplicates if found? Should it be a single person or team? Should there be some approval process? Let’s take a look at a Formula Query in action: Reading from the inside out: First, GetRecords: inside of this function is the Quickbase Query Language (see more about queries here) that compares the field id 7 of the current record (which is the Last Name) with the [Last Name] field of other records in the same table. The field id 8 is similar, but instead compares the email addresses. This specifically says get any record where the Last Name and Email of another record are the same as the record we are currently on. So, if I have two or more records where the Last Name is Stewart and the Email is JimmyStewart@example.com, then all records with that matching criteria will return as a result to that function. Then, GetFieldValues: Once GetRecords returns any matches it found that have the same Last Name and Email as the current record, then GetFieldValues grabs the contents of the returned records. In this case, the values that are grabbed are the contents of field 3 (the record ID of the match) The result is magic: Ta-da! You can see the record IDs of any duplicates (in our case where the Last Name and Email match), show up right here in this field. This may spark some additional thoughts such as “who should be responsible to see the duplicates”, or “what should we do if we identify duplicates”; There is no ‘right’ answer. You may wish to have an individual or team dedicated to managing this process, and perhaps they are the only ones with access to view these fields. Once the duplicate is identified, maybe there should be some sort of approval process to delete the finding, or some way to hide that record from end users. These are only some ideas on how to manage the duplicates, but from organization to organization or team to team, these processes may differ. And of course, the beauty of Quickbase is that you can customize this workflow to best fit your needs. Great, you have now seen how to track duplicates in Quickbase with Formula Query magic. Shoutout to our product team who keep pushing the limits of Quickbase!
