Changes to the Automations Feature in Quickbase

For the most up to date information on our Automations End of Support and Retirement plan please refer to our most recent post which you can find here. 

We’d like to take a moment to share some news about our plans for the future of the Automations feature in Quickbase. If you are using the Quickbase Automations Feature in any of your Quickbase Apps today, or are planning to create a new Automation in the near future, then this post is for you.

Workflow automation has taken many forms in Quickbase over the years. Whether it’s been a simple email notification, a dynamic form rule, or even a complex script triggered by a Webhook, 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.

• • The Future of Automations
  • Background
  • Timeline
  • Migration to Pipelines
  • Next Steps

The Future of Automations

We have made the decision to begin the process of retiring the Automations feature. Over the next 18 months, we will be slowly phasing out the Automations feature from the Quickbase platform, and in January of 2023 Quickbase Pipelines will become our one-stop shop for all your workflow automation and integration needs. We know that this will mean a change for those of you who are still using the Automations feature today, and we are already working hard to ensure that this will not disrupt your business or your processes.

Background

Over the years since introducing the Automations feature, we have continuously gathered feedback, and learned about the wide range of processes and workflows that Quickbase customers need to automate.  These workflows often stretch across multiple systems, and increasingly require business logic that is more flexible and scalable than we had ever imagined when we first introduced our Quickbase Automations feature.  Fortunately, our Pipelines technology is here to help us meet these growing workflow automation challenges.

Timeline

Over the next 18 months we will be following our standard feature retirement lifecycle, and taking several steps along the way to retiring 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.

 

Migration to 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 doors to new workflow ideas that can connect across multiple systems.