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Open beta has begun for new table reports

By Brian Cafferelli posted 06-01-2020 11:11

  

Open beta has begun for new table reports

 

Over the next few years, we will be refreshing the entire user interface of the Quickbase platform. This will provide a more modern and consistent product experience, prepare us for future support of international characters and accessibility, and speed up our delivery of new features in the long term. In 2020, the first step on this journey is launching a brand-new table report experience. This has been built from the ground up to provide a more modern and intuitive way for you to get insights from your data.

We’ve been running an beta program for the past several months. Table reports lie at the heart of Quickbase, so it’s critical we take our time and get this right. So we invited nearly a thousand companies to our early access program. Your ideas have helped to shape the future of table reports. Now we’re proud to announce that as of June 2nd, we’re launching an open beta available to all!

Read on to learn what you can accomplish with new table reports:

 

Sleek new look

View much more of your data on screen at once, now that we use the full width of the page to display records.

New_Table_-_Figure_1.png


We’ve also added a full-screen mode, for an even better view of your data.




Set the density of records for even more control over the appearance of your reports.

New_Table_-_Figure_3_2.gif

Put your best foot forward using our more subtle, stylish color coding. Applications you build reflect on you, and we want you to look your best - capable, professional, and definitely not boring.

 

Get work done faster

Clean up clutter with nested record grouping. When you group a new table report on several fields, each level of grouping will be nested within the group above it. You can even collapse all groups at once to find what you need right away.

New_Table_-_Figure_4_2.gif

Do you work with reports that include many pages of data? Now you can switch between pages quickly, using page controls that are always visible at the bottom.

New_Table_-_Figure_5.png

Download your report as a spreadsheet in one click, now that we’ve pulled the download option out of the more menu.

New_Table_-_Figure_6.png

Boost adoption of your apps

Your colleagues will get comfortable with your apps more quickly, now that they can filter on any column as they would in a spreadsheet.

New_Table_-_Figure_7.png


Quickly adjust your display by re-sizing columns.

New_Table_-_Figure_8.gif


Open beta

New table reports are now in open beta, which means that all of its major elements are ready to go. If this were a car, it would be ready to drive but not yet complete with its final coat of paint and polish. Stay tuned for more details on when we’ll be making this feature generally available, with the new version of table reports as the default experience for everyone. 

Each individual user can toggle the new table report on, so you can try it out. This is done for each individual report, to avoid you needing to go back and forth depending on which report you’re working on. Some of your reports may not be quite ready for the switch, and we want to give you the opportunity to explore new table reports without disrupting your work.

 

Retiring features

The most successful app builders in Quickbase maintain their apps on an ongoing basis. This separates good apps from amazing apps that transform your business and your career. One important aspect of maintaining a Quickbase app is to periodically review the structure of your app and remove pieces that are not used frequently. The same is true for software vendors like Quickbase, and how we continue to focus on making our platform more capable, more effective, and continuing to meet the most important business needs of our customers year after year.

With that in mind, we need to prune Quickbase over time and retire features that have either been superseded by newer features or are not often used. We will give plenty of notice before we retire a feature, and we will continue to listen to the Quickbase community to understand which features we should retire.

As we replace each piece of the Quickbase interface, our goal is to offer similar functionality and to provide even more value to your business through innovative new features. To achieve that, it’s important that we do not spend time re-building every feature of our current interface.

Features we’re considering retiring for table reports include:

  • Dynamic filters (which are being replaced by column filters)
  • More menu > Change the owner of these records
  • More menu > Sorting & grouping
  • More menu > View as Calendar
  • More menu > View as Timeline

This is not a complete list, however these are some of the table report features we are most likely to retire. We’ll send more details about the specific features we’re retiring as we get closer to their retirement.

Giving feedback

As always, we can’t wait to hear what you think of the new table report experience. Whether you love it, or you’ve found something we’ve missed, it’s all essential to help us make the best table reports possible. Please continue to post your ideas on our Uservoice feedback forum, and vote up other ideas you like.

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Comments

03-01-2021 15:58

Like :)  @Alice Rich

03-01-2021 15:35

Hi Jonathan!

This is an intentional change. Passing data this way through the URL is a security risk, so we will not be implementing this in the new style.

We have however given you another way to accomplish the same workflow in the new style! After you make a change to your report you'd like to share, enter the more menu and select > "Copy Link." This will copy a link with your changes included that you can send to another user who will be able to see the report just as you're seeing it but without passing the query data directly in the URL.

03-01-2021 14:29

I've noticed that on the new reports, when any filters are selected, the URL doesn't change. The old reports reflected any selected filters in a revised URL. This is a really useful feature for sharing dynamic views with co-workers. To be clear, an unfiltered report has a URL like this

https://homesquare.quickbase.com/db/bij5u3shf?a=q&qid=7

while a filtered report has something that looks like this

https://homesquare.quickbase.com/db/bij5u3shf?a=q&qid=7#dynamic/{%22sidebar%22:[{%22facetid%22:44,%22data%22:{%22value%22:%22EZBZ%22}},{%22facetid%22:52,%22data%22:{%22value%22:%22Current%20Customer%22}}],%22searchString%22:%22%22,%22ver%22:1}

Will this functionality be captured in the new reports?

10-07-2020 11:24

Hi Marissa! Thanks for commenting! My name is Alice Hinshaw and I'm the Product Manager working on the New Table Report. Favorites is not being retired on the new table report, it's something we just haven't yet built into the new style. We are focusing our efforts on building the highest value features first and while there are lots of different inputs that go into prioritizing these items, one of them is feedback submitted through our user feedback platform, UserVoice. I would encourage you to add this request so others can vote on it to show their support. Here is a link.

10-07-2020 11:22

Hi Jonathan! Thanks for sharing your thoughts here! My name is Alice Hinshaw and I'm the Product Manager working on the New Table Report. 

While we don't plan to support the All-Star Action Menu due to javascript injection concerns as Evan mentioned, I have some good news on your other points.

  • Drag to rearrange columns
    • This is not something we are intentionally deprecating in the new table report, just something that has been lower priority to add in since there are other viable ways to accomplish the same thing and we've been focusing our efforts building the highest value features and items there is no other way to accomplish first. While there are lots of different inputs that go into prioritizing these items, one of them is feedback submitted through our user feedback platform, UserVoice. I would encourage you to add your support to this post requesting the same thing.
  • Two clicks to filter
    • With the last release we introduced a feature where we persist, or remember, if you left the filters section open or closed on each report you visit. If you leave it open, you can save yourself that first click next time you visit the report.
  • Clear all filters
    • We're currently working on adding in this functionality. Keep an eye out for updates in our future releases!

10-07-2020 10:47

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks so much for the feedback and I am glad to hear you have been liking the new table report experience. Feedback like this from users is very helpful as our team continues to fine tune the New Report UI and experience. I just wanted to chime in on your first point with the All-Star Action Menu and the dropdown. It functions using javascript that isn't supported and hasn't been supported by Quick Base. As we innovate and change the platform there are going to be changes that take place like the New Table Report where we are going to be closing the loop and restricting the use of Javascript like this injected into reports and fields and previous uses of Javascript can and will break. This is both to make it possible for us to continue to innovate and also to ensure we are closing any security concerns that javascript injection like this raises. I think that your feedback on the value of that dropdown though is very pertinent and I would definitely encourage you to submit that as feedback on our User Voice for the New Table Report as room where we could continue to innovate to make it possible to put more functionality into a field. The Quick Base User voice can most easily be accessed from the My Apps page in Quick Base by clicking on the orange Feedback tab that appears on the right of the page or at http://quickbase.uservoice.com by signing in with your Quick Base credentials. If you have any trouble signing in directly with the URL going through the Feedback tab on the My Apps page most often resolves them.

10-05-2020 14:36

Brian a couple of notes about the still-in-beta new table reports (which in general are great):
  • It doesn't support the All-Star Action Menu super button app, which has been quite a boon for my users, enabling the combination of several buttons into one dropdown menu. I'd love to see this supported.
  • The drag-to-rearrange feature of old table reports was useful, if occasionally glitchy. Be nice to see it supported.
  • I'm a little unclear on why you require 2 clicks to start filtering on some field (1 click on the Filters arrow to review the column filters, and a second click to expose the filters for a given column). The filter box doesn't take up a lot of vertical room.
  • It would be great to be able to clear all currently applied filters with one click.

10-01-2020 11:42

Hello!  Came to an old post because I'm having a hard time finding the favorite button on the New Style!  Is that feature being retired?