Update on the retirement of Application Webhooks UI and QB Actions

Hi Everyone, if you are attempting to Add a comment here and unable to, it's likely due to a security setting in how your account was first configured. We'll be addressing this in our site maintenance on April 1st. In the meantime, if you have concerns over the announcement in this blog, you can share them in this discussion: 

https://community.quickbase.com/discussion/bringing-attention-to-the-end-of-life-for-webhooks#bma069ed71-4ccd-4f47-882f-018e5c871027

Hi everyone, thank you for the great feedback!

I want to reiterate that we are exploring improvements to Pipelines to address sharing, bulk triggering, and trigger speed. From all we've heard from the community, it sounds like these are the primary concerns folks have at this point but we are definitely interested to hear about the experiences you've had with Pipelines so we can help set you up for success.

Also, Jim you mentioned that the process of setting up a new pipeline feels slow to you. Can you tell me know about what you're seeing? I'm curious whether you have tried out our new pipeline designer. You may also be able to accelerate the setup by importing a pipeline via YAML.

"Also, Jim you mentioned that the process of setting up a new pipeline feels slow to you. Can you tell me know about what you're seeing? I'm curious whether you have tried out our new pipeline designer. You may also be able to accelerate the setup by importing a pipeline via YAML."

First you have to log on to a service account using incognito mode. When you log in to the service account, you have to wait for the verification code from Quickbase. The verification code may or may not show up in your inbox in the ten minutes you have to enter the verification code.

Once logged in there are about 400 Pipelines and you can only see the top 10 or so. Unless you know the exact name of the pipeline or it is tagged properly, there is no easy way to find the pipelines associated with a table or App. There is no way to organize the Pipelines into folders, which may feel archaic but it is the best way to organize large amounts of files. (at this point you are already testing the Webhook.)

If you are adding a new pipeline, the first step wants you to pick an app. So the step has to query your realm and get a list of apps, this can take about 15 seconds. Then once you have selected the App, you have to select the table. The table load query can also take about 15 seconds.

From there forward the process is easy. 

Now you want to test. How do I test this thing without it changing every record in the table? How do I stop the Pipeline once it is started? I turned the pipeline on and it is slowly changing all the data in my table because I made a mistake and there is no way to stop the pipeline. 

The pipeline environment needs to store all Apps and tables and fields in an organized visual manner. The visibility can be provisioned via User_Token. User_Tokens should also provision Users or Groups. I am a Realm Admin. I create a User_Token and add three builders to it, who can also see all the Pipelines in a folder structure in the Pipeline UI.

This way if I am in the Pipelines environment and someone has added a pipeline with the agreed upon User_Token, I too can see that Pipeline. Maybe that user can set the User_Token to r/w or r only so it is under each builders control to hold or share.

Finally Troubleshooting. The audit log is a bog. Each Pipeline needs its own Audit log container. The UI of the audit log needs to take up less space on the page. Users who are looking at the Audit log need to be able to see as much information in one screen as possible. The way it is currently set up, it looks like a social media page. You have to dig and expand to get to the details of each step. 

In Pipelines, it's been long enough now that I have lost the will to live. My Webhook was done about an hour ago and I have moved on. Hopefully my pipeline doesn't fail because I will have no idea if it did. The email sent only displays a long number without any information. In a Webhook, I get an error. I know the App, the table and the error message. I can't clear the error but at least I know where to look. 

Brian I hope this is enough information to answer your question. If you would like to meet and record my observations for further analysis feel free. I am certain Edi is aware of all these problems and is working his team into the ground to solve them but it's not ready. 

As a reminder the New Style Reports still aren't working. New Style forms aren't working. Taking things that are mostly working away from your customers is questionable. It just seems to me that this decision should be reconsidered until the customers agree it is good enough to replace Webhooks. 

We will have to write Webhooks into code pages so we can trigger Workato.

Mark, 

Tell him he should just use a Webhook. He will be done in 60 seconds :)

I'm not sure if that was already addressed but I want to add 2 more points missing in Pipelines.

But first I want to say that I'm really nerves about QuickBase ending Webhooks. I would suggest extending the life of Webhooks for a while after all the concerns addressed here are solved and implemented and given time to test.

And here are my 2 points beside the others I found discussed above.

1. Pipeline is missing the %Action% marker (that's beside the supper important marker of %repeatOn% %repeatOff% )
2. Pipeline by nature turns off by any updated in the flow. Which leads to 2 concerns.

• Missing triggers until it is turned on.
• Forgetting to turn it back on.

Webhooks are too important tool to pause on it own even for a split second.

BrianCafferelli 

I hope you will read my concerns and take in consideration.