Recent Content
Introducing New Quickbase Navigation (beta)
3 MIN READ 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!Update on the retirement of Application Webhooks UI and QB Actions
4 MIN READ 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.Dashboard Enhancements
2 MIN READ 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!
Preparing for Automations End of Support on June 30, 2022
5 MIN READ 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.Integrating Quickbase and FastField
3 MIN READ Quickbase has a long history bridging the gap between the field and office, across many industries. For instance, we keep construction projects on time. We manage on-site installations. We track health and safety issues to ensure compliance. In 2023, we added FastField to the Quickbase family to transform your mobile workforce. FastField is a powerful mobile forms solution that adds capabilities like signature capture, as well as image capture with annotation, to streamline your entire field workflow. Two products, bringing larger solutions together. In a recent study, we found that 58% of people spend less than 20 hours per week on meaningful work that drives results for key projects. The rest of that time is spent searching for data, often buried in spreadsheets or piles of paper. We have a term for this wasteful problem: Gray Work. Quickbase and FastField are two products designed to work together to crush Gray Work. Try it out Haven’t seen FastField in action for yourself yet? We’ve got you covered. Quickbase customers can now access a free 30-day trial of FastField, with no commitment needed. It’s easier than ever to try out FastField, now that you can start the trial from within Quickbase. Data integration With Quickbase and FastField under one roof, our team has worked hard on a two-way integration to connect the two platforms. Once you've started a new FastField trial from Quickbase or connected an existing account to your realm, you can click a button on one of your Quickbase tables to begin creating a corresponding mobile form in FastField. As you lay out your mobile form, you can decide which fields from your Quickbase table to include and which ones to exclude, like the fields that are needed just for back-office logging. This allows you to create a shorter, more focused workflow for your field workers. Going in the other direction, we are making it easier than ever to take data captured on mobile devices via FastField and store them in Quickbase. When a FastField form that was created from a Quickbase table is filled out and saved, the data is automatically saved to the Quickbase app. No additional set up required! Dispatching a form Once you’ve created your mobile form in FastField, it’s time to put it to work. Dispatching is the process of assigning a form to someone to fill out. Let’s take the example of a solar company running safety inspections – you’ve already got an inspections table set up in Quickbase, and you have a matching FastField inspection form created as well. It’s Friday, and you’ve planned out a schedule for the following week that determines which job sites each member of your field inspection team will visit, and when they need to be there. You can use our FastField connector in Pipelines to automate these dispatches and assign an inspection to an individual. You can even dispatch the form with some fields pre-filled, such as the site address and the date/time the inspector should arrive on site. All of this keeps expectations clear and keeps field workers focused on the task at hand. Administration We also have some new capabilities for administrators, to make it easy for a Quickbase account administrator to manage their FastField account as well: Single sign-on: When accounts are connected, your users will be able to sign into FastField using their existing Quickbase credentials. Easier access to billing: If you have an annual subscription to FastField, and you signed up for it with Quickbase, you will now be able to see your FastField billing info from the Quickbase Admin Console. With Quickbase and FastField together, you can get easy mobile access to your critical workflows and applications for field teams on-the-go. All while giving your back-office teams access to the data they need, when they need it. The integrations between Quickbase and FastField help to seamlessly connect your field and business operations. Learn more about how to access and use these integrations from these Help articles.Upcoming Changes to JavaScript in Quickbase
13 MIN READ If you’ve ever used JavaScript to modify UI or enable a non-native workflow in a Quickbase app, this post is for you. We know that adding custom code to an application can be a valuable way to extend Quickbase. However, we need to provide this capability in a secure and supportable way. To that end, Quickbase provides the ability to use custom code in code pages. On the other hand, we also see builders inserting custom code into places it was never intended to be used. To improve the security and stability of the platform, we are changing the way Quickbase handles custom code. Specifically, we are changing how the platform handles JavaScript and unsupported HTML tags in places other than code pages. Code pages are where custom code has always been supported, and we encourage app builders to insert it there. We will roll out these changes throughout 2021. This post will cover the background on where custom code is supported in Quickbase, and why it’s important for us to make a change. You can also find details about our plan below, and how that impacts you. Table of Contents Background Upcoming Changes Product Alternatives Next Steps FAQ Background For years, Quickbase builders have inserted JavaScript outside of code pages. This has been done to customize the UI or to automate workflow (such as reloading the current page). Yet custom code such as JavaScript was never intended to be used in a Quickbase app, except in code pages. Builders have shared many solutions like this on our community forum. You might see them called "Image OnLoad" or "Branding OnLoad". Because the added JavaScript code cannot be sanitized by Quickbase, it could open a security vulnerability that a sophisticated, malicious, builder could take advantage of. “Sanitizing” is simply making sure that an input into a field is what the software intended. For example, to sanitize a field that says “Image URL”, we would ensure it only accepts a format like https://mywebsite.com/images/banner.png and that it only contains secure content. None of the code within a code page can access the native Quickbase document object model (DOM). When you write custom code such as JavaScript in a code page, you are creating a new web page from scratch. This is why it is more secure to restrict JavaScript to being used only in a code page The Quickbase platform includes many security measures which protect you against the risks mentioned above. For example, when you create a new app, any API call pointed at that app must include an application token. We have put in place policies to control cross-origin resource sharing (CORS). And we allow realm admins to restrict what type of content may be embedded as an iFrame within their apps. But the work of building a platform with world-class, enterprise grade security never stops. Our software engineers and system architects are always searching for opportunities to improve. Changing how JavaScript is handled in Quickbase apps is the next step in that journey. Besides this security issue, it's impossible for us to test inserted JavaScript as we make changes to the Quickbase platform. A routine upgrade to an open source library, a change to styling, or to the DOM may cause these custom solutions to break without warning. As we progress with projects like the UI Refresh in 2021 and beyond, these kinds of changes will become more frequent. In order to move the platform forward in a safe, secure, and sustainable way, we must close the loopholes that allow builders to insert unsanitized custom code into their apps. Upcoming Changes There are three areas of the product that need to have the loophole closed. We will close one area at a time, every two months starting in April 2021. Rich Text Fields, where customers could unintentionally allow end users to insert JavaScript. This area was closed in the April 2021 release. Note: This does not include Formula-Rich Text fields. Custom Branding, where customers typically insert JavaScript to modify the UI in non-native ways. This area was closed in the June 2021 release. Formula Fields, where customers can write scripts to automate workflows. Examples of these include cascading deletes and executing multiple actions when a user presses a button. This area will be closed in the August 2021 release. This includes Formula-Rich Text fields. When an area is closed, builders will no longer be able to insert new JavaScript or edit the JavaScript that has been inserted into the area. With these series of changes, we will not remove or modify any existing custom code. We will not intentionally break any existing solutions that leverage these techniques. But a change to styling, a change to the DOM, or an update to a technical library could cause a solution to unintentionally break without warning. And, if a solution breaks for one of these reasons after the area has been closed, builders will not be able to edit the JavaScript to fix it. After we close each loophole, builders will no longer be able to insert or update JavaScript in that part of their apps. For example, imagine you have a formula that contains JavaScript. You need to update the formula, so you open the field properties. In that case, we would pop up a message warning that the field contains unsupported content. If you click Save without removing the JavaScript, you will see an error message preventing the save. You may hit cancel at that point, to back out and keep the previous configuration of your field. We encourage you to continue extending your ecosystem of apps using custom code. You can use custom code such as JavaScript in code pages, even after we close all the loopholes above. NOTE: The vast majority of custom code that's inserted into Quickbase apps outside of code pages is JavaScript code. However, the product changes above will not just restrict where JavaScript can be used. Those restrictions will apply to all custom code that is unsupported outside of code pages. The only custom code that may be used outside of code pages is: Simple HTML tags such as "a", "div", and "img". (See a complete list of supported HTML tags) Any native HTML attributes for those tags. (Such as the "width" and "height" attributes of the img tag) CSS style code which is included in-line, as part of one of the supported HTML tags above As a reminder, iFrame HTML tags are not supported outside of code pages and they will be affected by the product changes above. Product Alternatives Many agile companies extend their Quickbase apps today using custom code. This is a crucial tool for flexing and adapting to a fast-paced business environment. The intended workflow for Quickbase to interact with custom code is by having a formula-url or formula-rich text field as a button or link. Clicking on one of these would open a new browser tab, or redirect the current tab, to the code page. Custom HTML, CSS and JavaScript can be included in this code page. If desired, the page can close itself and redirect to the original page. For example, see the animation below: We will also work to make this even easier in the future. Over time, we will address the majority of extensibility needs in a few ways: Our ongoing product initiatives have an increased focus on customization and power natively. We know will not be able to build a native setting, switch or toggle for every possibility. Yet we conduct research and make data-informed decisions on where more flexibility makes sense. We will continue to absorb small items into future product iterations that customers need so custom code isn’t needed. Examples of this include, but are not limited to: Ability to use Now to get the live time a formula-url was pressed, rather than when the first page loaded New formula functions like UserRoles() and NameOfMonth() More control over the behavior of formula-urls Allow app builders to use JavaScript in certain areas outside of Code Pages. These would not allow arbitrary code to be inserted. Instead, they would support specific methods of extending a Quickbase app with custom code. For example, let's consider the new dashboards in beta as of February 2021. These new dashboards allow app builders to create filters which apply to all reports and charts on the page. We could allow a developer to create a custom chart type, which connects to the dashboard filter. So when an app user clicks that filter, all the reports and charts on the dashboard would update - including the custom-coded charts. This would allow builders to create their own chart, and have it behave natively and seamlessly for their users. We have many plans in this area. While this is not an overnight deliverable, we are confident in the research we have done and our roadmap to deliver on this promise. Programming languages like JavaScript are powerful because they are open-ended. You can use JavaScript to solve virtually any problem if you have the time and technical know-how. But Quickbase is a no-code platform. Quickbase is powerful because of how fast it allows you to build and update apps, deliver value and unlock insights within your data. So we will always focus on accelerating that speed and ease of use. We do not intend for Quickbase to become a full-fledged integrated development environment (IDE). Next Steps First, we want to be as transparent as possible, so app builders are aware of any risks in their applications. To that end, builders will begin seeing a warning in areas that have unsupported content in the near future. This will not prohibit changes to these areas of the platform. Are you already thinking about some of your apps which use these JavaScript techniques? If so, please start planning how you can migrate to supported solutions. We have been logging Quickbase apps that contain unsupported custom code. Those logs are only able to cover apps where you've updated the app’s structure recently. So if you have an app you're unsure about, you can update the properties of any field or table to get it added to the logs. That way, if that app does contain JavaScript or other types of unsupported custom code, it will appear in the logs the following day. On February 11th, we'll send an email inviting account admins to a Quickbase app so you can see where inserted JavaScript is being used. If your account admin does not receive that email, it means that our logs do not show any inserted JavaScript in your account. Review the list of FAQs below. If you still have questions or need help, don’t hesitate to reach out to our Care team by submitting a ticket. We're happy to help identify alternative solutions. However, please note that we will not be able to interpret or troubleshoot custom code. If you find yourself in need of more hands-on assistance, we recommend engaging with one of our QSPs, whom we can help you connect with. FAQ What is JavaScript Insertion? JavaScript Insertion occurs when custom JavaScript code is added to any part of a Quickbase app other than a code page. Some examples include formula fields, rich text fields, and custom branding. While officially not supported, these techniques are used to more deeply customize an app’s UI or workflow. While this has never been officially supported, the platform was not explicitly blocking this as it should have been. As we have added features to the platform over the years, many of the reasons why these techniques were used have become obsolete. What is changing with regards to JavaScript Insertion? We will begin restricting app builders from inserting JavaScript in formula fields, app branding, and rich text fields. Builders will no longer be able to insert new JavaScript code in those areas. We will also block edits to any existing JavaScript in those same places. These areas were never intended to allow for JavaScript insertion. You can still insert JavaScript in a Code Page, which is the appropriate place in a Quickbase application. Will these changes only affect inserted JavaScript code? The vast majority of custom code that's inserted into Quickbase apps outside of code pages is JavaScript code. However, the product changes above will not just restrict where JavaScript can be used. Those restrictions will apply to all custom code that is unsupported outside of code pages. The only custom code that may be used outside of code pages is: Simple HTML tags such as "a", "div", and "img". (See a complete list of supported HTML tags) Any native HTML attributes for those tags. (Such as the "width" and "height" attributes of the img tag) CSS style code which is included in-line, as part of one of the supported HTML tags above As a reminder, iFrame HTML tags are not supported outside of code pages and they will be affected by the product changes above. When will these changes take place? Throughout a series of releases in 2021. After the April 2021 release, users will no longer be able to insert JavaScript into Rich text fields. After the June 2021 release, users will no longer be able to insert JavaScript into Custom Branding. After the August 2021 release, users will no longer be able to insert JavaScript into Formula Fields. Why do we need to make these changes? Custom JavaScript inserted into these areas is not sanitized by Quickbase. This opens the platform up to potential attacks from malicious users, to modify pages or gain access to protected data. Such custom code is also impossible for Quickbase to test. This means routine changes to the platform could (and do) cause a solution to break without warning. Closing these loopholes allows us to provide a more supportable, enterprise-grade platform. It also enables our support resources to triage and troubleshoot more effectively. How are we informing customers of this change? On February 11, 2021, we will email Account Admins who will be affected by this change. The email will include a link to a Quickbase app which will help you locate inserted JavaScript in your apps. We will email those Account Admins before we make each of the product changes above. Those changes will take affect with our product releases in April 2021, June 2021, and August 2021. Application Managers will also see warnings in apps that include inserted JavaScript. For example, a message will appear if you edit the properties of a formula that includes inserted JavaScript. What will happen with existing JavaScript solutions? We will not be making any changes to existing objects that contain inserted JavaScript at this time, or during any of the releases mentioned above. That means that solutions that leverage inserted JavaScript should continue to work as they were designed. However, builders will not be able to save changes to these objects after their respective release. After the April 2021 release, you will not be able to make changes to JavaScript within Rich Text fields. After the June 2021 release, you will not be able to make changes to JavaScript within Branding. After the August 2021 release you will not be able to make changes to JavaScript within Formula fields. As always, these solutions might break as a result of a routine change we make to the Quickbase platform. For example, upgrading a technical library, or changing either our styling or our Document Object Model (DOM) could cause inserted JavaScript to stop working. What will happen if a builder attempts to save changes to an object with inserted JavaScript? After we close each loophole, builders will no longer be able to insert or update JavaScript in that part of their apps. For example, imagine you have a formula that contains JavaScript. You need to update the formula, so you open the field properties. In that case, we would pop up a message warning that the field contains unsupported content. If you click Save without removing the JavaScript, you will see an error message preventing the save. You may hit cancel at that point, to back out and keep the previous configuration of your field. What will happen if I copy an app with inserted JavaScript? Customers should be able to copy applications with unsupported JavaScript. The inserted JavaScript will carry over to the copied app. As with any inserted JavaScript, after we close down the area it is inserted in, builders will not be able to edit it. Should I remove all inserted JavaScript from my Quickbase apps? We are not removing or modifying any existing inserted JavaScript. You can continue to use your apps that contain inserted JavaScript. But, while we are not intentionally breaking any solutions that rely on inserted JavaScript, these solutions could break as a result of a routine change to the platform, like a change to styling, an upgrade to technical libraries, or a change to the Document Object Model (DOM). As we progress with the UI Refresh Initiative, these changes will become more frequent, increasing the chances that your apps could break. If you want to avoid that risk, you should explore alternative, supported solutions to the problems you’re solving with inserted JavaScript. What if I need help? If you’re still not clear on exactly what is changing, or have a specific question about your account, you can always submit a support case to our Care team. Also, our Quickbase Solution Providers (QSPs) are a network of professional services firms that you can contract with to help you plan for and execute any changes to your apps that you might deem necessary as a result of this announcement. They can help you identify and implement alternative, supported solutions to the problems you currently solve with inserted JavaScript. If you are working with a QSP already, you can follow up with that partner or find a potential partner here. We also have a list of partners who are providing services offerings to specifically handle JavaScript issues. If you would like a referral to a partner or potential partners, submit a support case, and a support representative can provide this for you. Can builders still insert JavaScript into code pages? Yes, users are encouraged to use code pages to leverage custom code for their Quickbase applications. These code pages should be used standalone, rather than attempted to be “injected” into a Quickbase page. What if I need help identifying my inserted JavaScript? The first place to look is the Inserted JavaScript Usage app. This is a Quickbase app that lists where inserted JavaScript is used in your apps. It includes details such as Field ID for formulas that include inserted JavaScript. On February 11, 2021, we will email a link to this app to Account Administrators. We will send this email only to accounts we've detected are using inserted JavaScript. Not sure whether a specific app includes inserted Javascript? You can check this by opening the app in question, then making any schema change. For instance, you could add a new field or update the properties of an existing field. Then, you can check the Usage app one day later. We update the Usage app daily. So if the app in question still does not appear in the Usage app then you do not need to take further action. Will Copy Master and Details buttons be affected? No, as long as you are using your Copy Master and Details button as it was originally generated (i.e. no changes were made to the formula) it should not be affected by these changes. If you have Copy Master and Details buttons, you may have received a warning in your application about the presence of unsupported content. To be clear, after the August release, you will not be able to edit these formulas. However, unlike other formulas that contain JavaScript, these buttons will continue to work as designed and do not need to be replaced with alternative solutions.New email notification beta has arrived
5 MIN READ NOTE: THIS BLOG WAS AUTHORED BY BrianCafferelli , BUT DUE TO TECHNICAL CHALLENGES, BRIAN WAS NOT ABLE TO PUBLISH. Companies around the world run time-sensitive, business-critical processes on Quickbase. And one of the ways this streamlines how you manage critical information is through our built-in email notifications. The ability to send alerts to the right people at the right time ensures that your team stays productive. We’ve upgraded much of the user interface across the Quickbase platform recently, such as reports and forms. And the next step in this journey is simplifying emails and making them more flexible. We’re proud to announce that we have re-built emails from the ground up. We are providing a new and modernized experience that supports new forms, allows you to pick the time of day an email is sent, and more. Read on to learn more what’s possible using new email notifications. Using new forms and notifications together We recently rolled out a new version of forms, providing a drag-and-drop building experience and giving you more control over the layout and appearance. However, using these new forms requires a separate legacy form to be built for emails as well. We are now making this build experience easier and more consistent, now that you can display a new form in a new email notification. This helps make your notifications more professional-looking and engaging. Embedding reports and charts Legacy emails in Quickbase allow you to send a single report to a group of users periodically. New email notifications will also allow you to send a chart, and even multiple reports or charts in the same email. This puts a lot of power into the hands of the app builder since you build these user interface elements such as reports, and can use them in many places such as dashboards and emails. Expanded options for the From field Being mindful of who appears in the From field of your email can help clarify who is driving the process at hand and help an email recipient to respond quickly. Quickbase enables you to set your From field to the generic “notify@quickbase.com”, or the user set in a User-type field. For example, an email on a compliance requests table could appear as coming from the user who placed the request. Our new email notification feature adds a few options for setting your “From” field. You can have your emails appear as coming from the owner of the email notification. Or you can even have emails appear as coming from the user who triggered the email in the first place. This gives you a great amount of flexibility to set up email notifications to match your exact process needs. Setting CC and BCC fields With the legacy emails, you can dynamically set the recipient based on data in Quickbase. For example, based on the Assigned To field in your table. This maps to the To field in the email message. However, it’s not possible to populate the CC or BCC fields today. New email notifications enable you to CC and BCC people. (This ability must first be enabled at the realm level) Attach files to your emails Using legacy emails, you could include a file attachment as part of the form or report being sent. New email notifications will let you go a step further and take a file from a File Attachment field in Quickbase and attach it directly to the email. Better bulk options We have also added more flexibility for managing bulk emails. For example, imagine that you have created an email notification which is sent when a record is edited. If a user clicks to edit a single record, then saves it, the email sent will reflect the changes made to that individual record. But what would you like to happen when a user enters grid edit mode, and updates many records at once? Legacy email notifications allow you to choose whether you want to send the email if many records were changed at once. Our new email notifications go one step further and make it easy to send individual emails (up to 10 at once), or to send a combined email that covers all the triggering records. Audit Logs We get support cases from builders asking to verify whether an email notification was sent, when it was sent, etc. The Quickbase Tech Support Team has access to that information today, but customers are not able to see it directly. When you leverage our new email notifications, account admins will be able to track usage of those emails in their Audit Logs. A streamlined builder experience We’ve also made it easier to build email notifications. We have combined the functionality of legacy notifications and legacy subscriptions together, allowing you to set up either a triggered email or a scheduled email. Need to change the trigger type later? No problem! Using the new email notifications, you will be able to go back afterwards and switch the trigger type without needing to create a new email from scratch. This also provides a more intuitive and streamlined experience, similar to how trigger behavior can be modified for a pipeline. For scheduled emails, you will also be able to specify the time of day the message will be sent. This is a long-time customer request which makes it easier to plan out your workflows. Our updated rich-text editor helps you to create impactful and professional messages, with new features like inserting report widgets into your emails. And you can still modify the HTML markup directly if you’d prefer. Tips for new builders To create notifications that are impactful, here are a few things to keep in mind: Leverage the conditions in the trigger to ensure the email is sent precisely when you need it to be Write out your email in a way that makes it clear why the recipient is receiving it, and what they should be doing upon receiving it Use rich text and images like your company’s logo to create a more engaging message. The future of legacy email notifications and subscriptions In order to make all the powerful improvements above to email notifications, we needed to re-build the feature from the ground up. That means that you will need to create new emails to take advantage of these new capabilities. However, we realize that most of you rely heavily on legacy notifications and subscriptions. So those legacy emails will continue to be available and operate exactly like they do today, and we do not currently have plans to change that behavior. Try it out today! We opened up our beta program for new email notifications to all users in March 2024. Simply navigate to table settings, and when you click the New button for emails you will see the new “Build your own” option. To learn more about new email notifications, please see the article in our help center.Empower 2025, Call For Speakers and Date/Location Reveal
2 MIN READ Empower 2025 Call For Speakers is Live! Last call to get your applications in, deadline for Call for Speakers is Friday, January 10th! Now that you know the when and the where, it's time to figure out who will be presenting at our first in-person Empower in years! If you fall into the following categories, you should apply to speak at Empower. You are a builder. You have solved a complex challenge in your organization, and you did so by pushing our product deeper than you had ever pushed it before. You are a business stakeholder. There was a significant change in your organization, and you owned it. You owned it using Quickbase. You can speak to the challenge your organization faced, the solution you created, and the business value you have captured from implementing this change. You are a leader. You can speak to how Quickbase has been tied to your corporate strategy. The broader business goals you and your team are striving to hit are being supported through the use of Quickbase applications your team has designed and implemented. We want to hear from our builders, our decision-making end users, our leaders from across the many industries that use Quickbase. Empower 2025 is an incredible opportunity for this! All Speakers will receive the following: One complimentary Full Conference Pass ($1199 value) to Empower 2025 10% Discount Promotional code to share with colleagues Automatic Champion Status within the Qrew Champions Program Speaker Swag To apply to be a speaker at Empower 2025, click here! The deadline for call for speakers is January 10th, so get your applications in by then! For those looking to register for Empower 2025, attendee registration will launch in December. We'll provide more communication on Empower Attendee Registration in the coming weeks!Mixed Encoding Scanner now available to help identify issues with UTF-8 data
7 MIN READ Mixed Encoding Scanner now available to help identify issues with UTF-8 data When the Quickbase platform first emerged on the market, it was targeted primarily at US customers. However, there has always been innovative app builders in many countries who have used our platform with non-English data. We are making product improvements to better serve those builders and to expand Quickbase internationally. One of these improvements is a new UTF-8 setting to ensure non-English character sets can be stored and viewed properly. In some cases, a user may have entered non-English characters into the system while the UTF-8 switch was turned off, or prior to the existence of the UTF-8 switch. This would result in characters being saved in the system without proper character encoding. We refer to this as "mixed character encoding," which can lead to inconsistent results (e.g., displaying, sorting, filters, etc) when the UTF-8 switch is enabled later. We’re happy to announce our new Mixed Encoding Scanner app that will be published on the Quickbase Exchange. This app can be used to help identify mixed character encoding issues. Read on to learn more about character encoding, and how you can use our new Mixed Encoding Scanner app to determine which tables – and the fields in those tables – contain UTF8-encoded characters. Once you have identified the affected tables, you can proceed to the next step of resolving the UTF-8 encoding issues. To try and help simplify some of these technical concepts, I worked with Lynn Hedegard to write this post. Lynn is Senior Solutions Architect on the Quickbase Best Practices team. What is character encoding and what is UTF-8? Character encodings are a bit like languages. Computers use character encodings to ensure data is stored and displayed consistently. When two pieces of software communicate, they need to agree on what “language” they are speaking (this is referred to as character-encoding). One of those character encodings is called “UTF-8”. “UTF-8” is a Unicode standard that defines how computers store and communicate characters (like C, or ó, or й, or 好, or even an emoji) using 1s and 0s. The UTF-8 standard maps every printable character from any language to a given set of byte values – and includes a mechanism to create new characters going forward. To see how this works in practice, imagine you’re signing up for a newsletter on a website: You type an ó into a web form The browser has a setting that says "Treat this data as UTF-8” The browser submits that text to a database and includes the character encoding (i.e., UTF-8) used for this data as part of the submission. The database says "I've been told this incoming information is encoded as UTF-8, so I know how to store that data (i.e. the character string)." Now, imagine that someone wants to retrieve that information and display it in their browser. In this scenario, the opposite process occurs. The database says "Hey web browser, I'm sending you some information and the data is encoded as UTF-8." In this case the text will be displayed on the browser as expected. But, if the database does not specify the character encoding, the browser will not know how to display character data. It’s possible that the ó will be displayed as a question mark (?) or possibly #00FB, which is the byte value for the ó. Basically, when one computer sends data to another computer, the sender needs to specify the character-encoding used to encode the data being sent. UTF-8 in Quickbase Quickbase has a setting for character encoding that can be set at either the realm level or the app level. That setting has two options: Non-UTF-8 mode: This is designed for apps whose record data includes only English-language text, numbers, and basic symbols such as the comma, period, at-sign, etc. For a complete list of supported characters, see the ASCII list of printable characters. (ASCII’s extended characters are not supported by Quickbase’s non-UTF-8 mode.) UTF-8 mode: This supports apps whose record data includes text in virtually any language, numbers, special symbols, etc. UTF-8 has emerged as the international standard for character encoding. To determine if UTF-8 mode has been enabled on either the app or realm level, do the following: Go to the App Settings by clicking on the gear icon near the top left part of the Home page on your app. Select “App properties” located at the bottom of the first column. Near the middle of that page, you’ll find the Advanced Settings section, which contains the “options” sub-section. One of the check boxes is the UTF-8 switch. There are 3 possible states for that selection item. The check box is grayed out. This indicates that the REALM-Level UTF-8 switch is ON. In this scenario you can NOT change the setting at the App Level, so the line is grayed out. The check box is empty. This indicates that both the REALM-Level UTF-8 switch AND the APP-Level UTF-8 are OFF. The check box has a check mark. This indicates that the REALM-Level UTF-8 switch is OFF, and the APP-Level UTF-8 is ON. NOTE: For customers who created their Quickbase account before December 2021, your realm defaults to non-UTF-8 mode. For customers who created their account in December 2021 or later, your realm defaults to UTF-8 mode. To enable UTF-8 mode for your entire Quickbase account, please request the change by opening a support case. (You can open a support case by clicking the ? icon at the top of any page in Quickbase, then clicking Manage Support Cases.) Mixed character encoding For the most part, the mixed character encoding scenario originates when non-English characters are entered into the system while the UTF-8 switch is OFF (or prior to the existence of the UTF-8 switch). A user can enter any text string into a text field – including text that contains UTF-8 characters – and not receive any errors. Users may even see these characters displayed correctly on the Quickbase UI – until the UTF-8 switch is enabled. Setting the UTF-8 switch after that data was entered into the system will NOT re-encode the data. It simply tells the system to specify UTF-8 encoding when sending data to the browser. But since the data is currently stored in the system as ASCII, the browser will not know how to handle the UTF-8 characters that are improperly encoded in the first place. When this happens, you will see the UTF-8 characters displayed as a byte-code (e.g. #00FB), “?”, etc. There are a few ways in which mixed encoded characters can get into the system. As we discussed previously, this can happen when text containing extended language characters are typed into a text field for a record. Another scenario occurs when a block of text is copied from another window (e.g., webpage, a PDF, Microsoft Outlook/Word/Excel, etc.) and pasted into the text field. One more scenario occurs with integrations. In this case, non-English characters enter the App by way of an integrations such as an API, XML, Pipelines, etc. Here’s a closer look at how mixed character encoded data can be introduced to a Quickbase app: A user updates a text field with a character string that includes “好”, and saves the record while the UTF-8 switch is not enabled. Quickbase responds by saying "Okay. I'll store this data, but I don't really know what it is" because it’s not an ASCII character. The next time someone retrieves that information (e.g., via a report or a form), the browser will not know how to render those character(s) because the web browser and Quickbase never agreed on the character encoding. These characters may display as a byte-code (e.g. #00FB) or “?” or depending on the browser. The Mixed Encoding Scanner is a Quickbase application designed to help app builders address this issue. The Mixed Encoding Scanner The first step in resolving the mixed character encoding problem is to scan your app and determine how much UTF-8 data you have in your App, if any. To simplify this scanning process, we asked for help from one of our premier Quickbase Solution Providers - Data Collaborative. They have developed a tool that can automatically scan apps and determine how much UTF-8 data exists in your apps. The Mixed Encoding Scanner is now available on the Quickbase app exchange. To get a copy of the app, click Explore Sample Apps on the My Apps page and search for "Mixed Encoding Scanner". After creating your copy of the app from Exchange, you can perform an analysis on any app in your realm. Simply enter the app’s DBID and an app token to get started. Next, the Scanner will estimate how long the analysis will take to run. This depends on the speed of your internet connection and the volume of data in the app. After the analysis is complete, the results are displayed. You can browse the results to determine which tables, fields, records, and app variables need to be fixed. Resolving the Mixed Character Encoding Problem If you determine that only a few occurrences of problematic characters exist in your data, you can turn on UTF-8 mode for the app, and then simply edit those records, fields, etc. If your keyboard mapping supports all the affected characters, manually re-typing the characters that are not displaying properly will correct the issue. Some of our more technical app builders may leverage the encoding tricks available in VSCode or a similar tool to solve the problem. On the other hand, you may discover that your app has many occurrences of problematic characters. In that case, you’ll want to use a more automated approach to solve the problem. We recommend most builders work with Data Collaborative for a more hands-on approach to cleaning up the data. After cleaning up the data, enable the UTF-8 setting to ensure data entered going forward is saved properly. Learn More About UTF-8 support Wikipedia article on UTF-8 character encoding The Data Collaborative websiteUnlocking more Quickbase Power with QBL and Solution APIs
4 MIN READ NOTE: THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN by BrianCafferelli , BUT TECHNICAL CHALLENGES ARE PREVENTING BRIAN FROM PUBLISHING. Quickbase is built for enterprise scale. That’s why a majority of the Fortune 100 leverages our platform to manage their complex processes and eliminate Gray Work. Success using a no-code platform like ours requires an approach to governance that enables business and IT to collaborate. Business users need to be able to innovate fast enough to stay ahead of competitors, while IT needs visibility and control to ensure compliance with corporate policies. That’s why one vital part of Quickbase is our Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) capability. This is a set of tools that helps you to plan, build, test, deploy, and update your apps. Our sandbox feature is one example of this. However, we have heard feedback from many of you that you need more control over how your apps are managed, as well as your pipelines. That’s why we are excited to announce general availability of our Solutions APIs, along with the all-new Quickbase Language (QBL). Introducing Quickbase Language (QBL) The cornerstone of Quickbase ALM is Quickbase Language (QBL), a domain-specific language designed to describe the schema of Quickbase apps. This human-readable, text-based language allows users to obtain textual descriptions of Quickbase apps and pipelines schema in the form of a YAML file. QBL's simple and intuitive syntax makes it easy to read and review changes to Quickbase apps, facilitating collaboration among development teams. You can find more details about QBL in our help center. Solutions APIs Solutions APIs are an extension of our existing library of RESTful APIs. This provides three endpoints that empower you to interact with QBL and manage Quickbase solutions easily: Export: Obtain the QBL definition for the supported schema of all apps in the Solution in YAML format. Create: Apply a YAML file with a valid QBL definition to create a new solution and its contained apps. Update: Apply a YAML file with a valid QBL definition to an existing Solution to update all schema in the solution to match the one in the YAML. These endpoints enable users to streamline the application development lifecycle, from creation to deployment, while ensuring consistency and accuracy across environments. The power of QBL + Solutions APIs Version Control: QBL describes your Quickbase Solutions using a text-based format. Solution APIs enable the export and import of these descriptions, facilitating version control. This solves the problem of tracking changes to Quickbase applications over time, providing a clear audit trail of modifications and ensuring consistency across environments. Change Management: By leveraging QBL and Solutions APIs, you can implement structured change management processes for Quickbase solutions. Changes made to schema can be described in QBL format and tracked through different methods. This enables teams to review, approve, and deploy changes systematically, reducing the risk of errors and regressions. Environment Management: Solutions APIs enable you to programmatically create and manage multiple virtual environments for your Quickbase solutions, such as development, testing, and production environments. This solves the problem of manual environment setup and configuration, streamlining the process of deploying and testing applications across different stages of the development lifecycle. Deployment Automation: You can automate the deployment of Quickbase Solutions, depending on your business needs. Approved changes can be automatically deployed from source control repositories to designated Quickbase environments, reducing manual effort and ensuring consistency in deployment processes. Scaling Solutions: Solutions APIs empower you to scale the distribution of Quickbase Solutions across multiple customers or organizations. By automating the creation and deployment of solutions using the APIs, you can efficiently onboard new users and deploy standardized solutions to different clients or departments. This solves the problem of manual solution distribution and customization, enabling customers to deliver value faster and more consistently. This allows you to build once, and deploy as many times as you need to, seamlessly maintaining many separate instances of the same solution. Applying these new capabilities To tap into the power of QBL and Solutions APIs, you need 2 main things. Step 1 Define the ALM goals of your team/organization. Figure out what is the best process for your setup. Do you need all ALM areas or just some of them? Will your team and users benefit from a strictly-controlled approval and deployment process, tight version control, or both? Is there some IT policy or regulation to follow? Once you have a good process defined, you can move on to step 2. Step 2 Decide what is the best way to manage and/or automate the designed process. Option 1: One powerful way to leverage Quickbase's ALM capabilities is by integrating the Solution APIs with source control tools like GitHub. By doing so, your can establish robust approval and deployment processes, enhancing collaboration, version control, and reliability throughout the application development lifecycle. Source control tools offer a wide range of features to support all that and if your organization is looking for optimal control and governance, we recommend looking into that option. Option 2: A different option, if your team needs a more familiar experience, is through managing the virtual environments, approvals, and deployments using a Quickbase app. Solutions APIs can be executed through a set of pipelines and the workflows can be managed in a Quickbase app dedicated for that purpose, as seen below: We are dedicated to making ALM easy for your teams. While QBL doesn’t support all Quickbase schema yet, we will keep improving the experience and adding schema coverage throughout the rest of 2024. To check which schema objects are supported by QBL today, please check the article in our help center. We are also here to help you on your ALM journey. Contact your account team for more information on the features and help in implementing them. Your feedback is precious to us! If you have anything to share about the ALM features, the experience using them, or you need more/different features, please leave your feedback in the side panel in the Quickbase platform!
