Recent Discussions
The future of Application Lifecycle Management on the Quickbase platform
We know our customers have complex problems to solve. They need a powerful and adaptive toolset to be able to adjust to the surrounding dynamic environment and to eliminate Gray Work. And this is what Quickbase does for them... However, with the level of flexibility and agility that Quickbase provides, there comes the need to oversee and manage the growth of solutions in a scalable way. There is a growing need to have safety processes in place for managing parallel streams of app and workflow development.. Most of all, customers need to ensure the business continuity of their Quickbase solutions. No matter how, when and who is developing anything, the business processes keep running and never get interrupted or distorted by the constantly ongoing change management processes. These needs have been well-known and explored in the traditional software development industry during the last few decades. There are already proven and well-established best practices. Our mission is to apply best practices from traditional software development, adapted to the needs of a business builder in Quickbase. The no-code space has not solved all the ALM challenges in a way that truly works for non-technical users. In Quickbase, we see an opportunity to define what the best-in-class ALM experience for non-technical users looks like. The main pain points we repeatedly hear from our customers are a lack of: Isolated environments, segregating the production solution from testing and development – in other words dev/test/prod Easy version control for Quickbase, with comparison of versions Promotion of changes between environments Selective publication of changes (deployments) Approval processes around deployments Fine-grained auditing of all deployed changes To respond to these market needs, we are developing a new API-based framework that enables builders to partner closely with their IT department to satisfy even the most complicated lifecycle needs. How do we plan to solve those problems? We are developing a framework, called Solution APIs and a new way to represent the Quickbase schema you are building – QBL (Quickbase specific language). With this framework, we will provide several CRUD (create, read, update, delete) APIs that enable a very high level of flexibility and adjustability to fit any organization's needs. You can see more details about Solutions and related features for example Versioning and Rollback here: https://www.quickbase.com/blog/scaled-solution-management About QBL QBL, short for Quickbase Language, is a new way to describe the schema of your Quickbase solutions. Everything you can configure in your apps and pipelines can be represented using natural language. One way to think about it is like a map of your Quickbase solutions – there you can see everything – tables, all their fields, the structure of forms, reports, dashboards, relationships, roles, the structure of a pipeline and all the settings about those items. Here is an example of QBL: In this example we can see a few rows of the description of an app that is called “Service Request Production”. You can see the description of the app, the color, the app icon, the set currency, first day of the year etc. If you have built Quickbase apps, you recognize those to be your app settings. Here is a similar example for a field, where you can recognize the field type, label and the configurations available for a field type DateTime: At this point you might be wondering how all of this is applicable to you. We believe that the QBL and the Solution APIs are so flexible that they can be used in many use cases. A key opportunity we see is the option to integrate Solution APIs with any code Source Control Management (SCM) toolset you have in your organization. SCMs are specifically designed to manage code formats and have a vast array of features to support version control, separated parallel development, role management and so much more. By using Solution APIs with SCMs, you can tap into those capabilities. Some examples of SCM tools are Git, Azure DevOps, Helix and others. Learn more about SCM - https://www.turing.com/blog/source-code-management-tools-best-practices/ Real-world applications Business builders can partner with IT teams to leverage this technology to more deeply integrate Quickbase within an org's stack. But that certainly isn't a requirement. While we know the Quickbase community is going to come up with use cases we could never imagine, there are two fundamental ways customers can consume these new APIs. First, using your company source control tools. Second, running Quickbase on Quickbase. Here are just a handful of the examples we know you’ll take advantage of: SCM: Version control You will be able to take advantage of capabilities inbuilt in SCM tools to seamlessly keep a log of every single version deployed – this is what source control tools are designed for. SCM: Compare Versions (DIFF) QBL is built to enable you to compare versions of your Solutions to the smallest detail. SCM tools are very good at highlighting these differences. Run "Quickbase on Quickbase”: Dev/Test/Prod - create environments With Solution APIs you can unlock a lot of power by creating multiple versions of your Solutions and assign them to be your production, staging, testing and development environments. This can happen by using a sequence of: Export QBL of a Solution -> Use Create API with the exported QBL to create a copy solution and assign it for an environment. Or you can tap into the flexibility Quickbase offers and manage your APIs and environments with a Quickbase app and Pipelines. The app and pipeline can work together to facilitate the creation of separate environments – the app is the “frontend” where you make the configuration, and a pipeline executes the APIs on the background based on triggers in the app. Run “Quickbase on Quickbase”: Dev/Test/Prod - deployments across environments Another way you can take advantage of a Quickbase managed set up is to also control the deployments of changes across environments. In an app you can set rules about the directions of deployments (so you eliminate the option to deploy from test directly to prod for example) as well as permissions for users that are allowed or not allowed to execute deployments and even approval steps. And this is only the beginning. Here are some other things we heard from builders like you: A use case we call “build once, deploy everywhere”. If you need to re-deploy the same Solution several times – for example for different local units of your business or even for different customers, Solution APIs will give you the perfect opportunity to instantly replicate the template Solution in the same or a different realm make updates with new developments or fixes in seconds - to all destination Solutions. Something obvious, but it might be important for your organization – mapping and documenting the Quickbase structures and relationships, including internal and external pipelines. We know for some of our customers this is very important. While Solution APIs are still under development, we are aiming at releasing a limited schema coverage version focused on tables and fields only in early 2024. The first release will enable you to export, import and update your applications properties, your table settings, all field configurations and roles as well as roles permissions over fields and tables. After that we will continue enhancing the coverage of the APIs with forms, reports, dashboards, pipelines and all other Quickbase schema. We hope you get inspired to think about how you can apply these new tools in your organization and don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions or feedback you have. We would love to hear back from you. If you are interested in early access opportunities, more information on the topic or want to share your feedback with us, please don’t hesitate to contact your Quickbase account team or myself at rstoycheva@quickbase.com – Leave feedback for us here !
Quickbase Recertification for 2023: Automatic Recertification
Quickbase University is working on changing the way our customers maintain their certification credentials. We will move away from requiring professional development units (PDU’s) to targeted learning courses to maintain certification. Although this remains our plan, Quickbase University has made the decision to roll out these requirements beginning in 2023 for 2024 certification. As such, all 2022 certification credentials will automatically renew at the beginning of 2023. This means that all holders of Quickbase 2022 certification credentials do not need to perform anything for 2023 certification. In the coming months we will release more information about plans beginning in 2023 for recertification for calendar year 2024.Manny Shares his Quickbase journey and #1 Tip to Build Scalable Apps
Guess what, everyone? Neil and I are starting a new series where we’ll interview Quickbase employees who were former customers. We plan to dig into their Quickbase experience prior to joining the organization, how they used the platform, and uncover tips and tricks to pass on to you. You’ll want to follow this because they, more than anyone, understand what customers go through. As former customers, they’ve walked in your shoes and can relate to pain points in ways employees who never heard of Quickbase can’t. Best of all, their experience and enthusiasm of Quickbase is leveraged each day. Nearly every department has an employee who was a former customer. To kick it off, Neil interviewed Manny De La Cruz from the Customer Success At Scale team. Prior to joining Quickbase, he worked at a New Jersey wholesale insurance company as “the IT guy.” Armed with coffee and lots of energy drinks, his former job role had him staring at walls of code for eight hours a day and coding for business operations from three different regions. Everything from process to documentation were different in every location. It made syncing information very difficult and slowed processing time for insurance claims. Quickbase changed all of this and brought about organizational transformation to a company that badly needed it. When asked what it felt like to incorporate Quickbase in his IT Role, Manny described it one word: “Relief!” The problem Manny’s IT team needed Quickbase to solve was to streamline insurance claims management. They started with building a sales lead tracker with Quickbase’s easy point-and-click tools, consolidated spreadsheets, and synced data through using automation and action tools (pre-Pipelines era). The change was night and day. You can tell from the interview he was very proud to be part of a team who helped streamline workflows across multiple locations without having to leave New Jersey. When reflecting on his past role as a customer, the biggest thing he wished he could tell younger Manny is, “Take your time and slow down! Take more time to learn ALL the features and build it right. You can build something that works, but to build something that works well and scales well is super tough. However, it can be done.” He recommends investing time in going through Quickbase University, watching Empower videos, and taking advantage of learning from live training, and joining customer networks to meet others with similar use cases. To learn what excites Manny about Quickbase and his perspective of the evolution of the platform, be sure to watch the two-minute interview linked above. If you have any questions for Neil and Manny, feel free to post a comment and they will be happy to follow up with you.
December 2021 Release Webinar Q&A!
December 2021 Release Webinar Q&A! First and foremost, thank you to everyone who attended the December 2021 Matthew and Manny Sho..... I mean, Release Webinar! Below are the questions from the Q&A Section that we did not have time to answer live, along with some that were answered, but merited re-mentionng. Can you choose the text that shows up in the timeline bars? Or does it have to be the first column? In the current state, the Timeline Report bars display the text of the first column selected in the “Columns to display” section. Can you add time to the timeline report? We are trying to create a report the will show when associates will be in the office for a 1 - 2 week span. In the current state, the Timeline report only allows for date ranges. Duration and Time of Day fields are not yet supported. For the rich text emails - Is it possible to include a Quickbase-generated chart in an email? In the current state, the email cannot reference a Chart/Graph. Alternatively, the Quickbase generate emails can include images in most formats, so the chart could be saved as a PNG and then inserted into the Email. When might Gantt Charts be able to support Multiple Icons or Date Ranges on the same row? This is a great question, as of right now, we don’t have a timeframe for this, but submitting it to Product Feedback would help expedite this. For Timeline reports, can you drag the timeline bar to modify the date of the record? No, the bars are visual representations of the date range. This is also a great opportunity to leverage the Product Feedback and get this on the Product Team’s radar. Is the Gantt chart the best way to show a typical work week and everyone's schedule for in the office times and out of the office times? We’ve seen Calendar reports used more frequently for this but a Gantt chart could be used as well depending on the specific use case. Calendars are easier to adjust the view at the moment without going into settings to view month, week, or Day When are Notification Audit logs coming? We don't have a timeline at this time for that functionality but we did bring this up to our product team. Submitting this to Product Feedback would help expedite this. Someone noted in the chat that calendars are now available on the dashboard. When will this be available? Great to point to reiterate, Calendar reports are available for use on the dashboard as of now in Beta. Where can I sign up for the Formula Queries training? Is there a link? Yes! Here is the link to the Formula Queries Webinar happening Thursday, December 16th 2021 at 1 PM EST Was user voice feedback migrated to the new feedback? Yes, recent feedback and popular requests were migrated to the new platform, you can read more about our Feedback changes in this Blog Post When will the A3 Amazon Channel be available for general use? The A3 Amazon Channel hit General Availability on Tuesday, December 7th 2021. This Channel is available to customers on Business and Enterprise plans.Customizing Notifications with New Rich Text Enhancement
Starting this Tuesday, 11/16, you can create custom email notifications without knowing a lick of HTML! By enhancing custom notifications to include a Rich Text editor as opposed to the previous plain text editor, we are opening the door for the less technical to have the confidence to build out their own customized messaging around record changes. Why custom notifications? Custom notifications can enhance the recipient’s experience. You can customize them to include your company’s logos and include more on-brand messaging. For internal recipients, a custom notification may include more specific directions and next steps. The short: you can make them look nice! And you can make them more useful. Try leveraging custom notifications to provide easily digestible information, while providing a clear way to take action based off the included information. For those of you well-versed in the HTML language, not to worry, you still can continue showing off your HyperText magic the same way as before. Side note: I enjoy seeing what I create within Rich Text transformed in real time into HTML, which you can view by clicking on Source: I encourage you all to give it a try here. Happy customizing, informing, and directing next steps!
