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PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

  • 1.  PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 07-16-2021 01:00
    Well, I discovered which I believe to be a terrible flaw with Pipelines, though maybe someone here will tell me it is as expected everyone knows this and I am just late to the party.

    If you use a field in a Pipeline, and that field is used in a condition, or is used to set another field (ie if you drag and drop that field to set another field equal to in during an update phase), and you change the name of the field, the Pipeline will cease working.

    Now, it will not immediately cease working. It will continue to work UNTIL you go into the pipeline and refresh schemas or refresh page. At that point, it will recognize that the field name has changed in the 'fields to use' box, but will not recognize the name change in any of your conditions. Hence, all conditions and uses of that field in the pipeline will no longer work.

    I think is is devastating, because I have no idea if I have changed the name of a field and if I ever open that Pipeline again it will break.

    I tested in numerous ways to be sure I wasn't mistaken. Just a word of caution to everyone.

    Do others think this is of course expected? Or also see this is a huge oversight?

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    Mike Tamoush
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  • 2.  RE: PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 07-16-2021 12:32
    There are a lot of really weird bugs with Pipelines that they need to fix.

    I have had them give an error one day but then appear to recover and keep working. Only to find out a few weeks later that that error was the death knell of that pipeline and it actually quit working on that day but without any subsequent errors. They are just a nightmare to fix once something goes wrong. Usually what seems to cause issues is either refreshing the schema or NOT refreshing the schema at the right times.

    At one point we had many processes in there but have moved the most critical ones to Workato or similar services as those have worked significantly better for us. I feel like we can trust that they will fire and work when they are set to but I do not have the same faith in Pipelines.


  • 3.  RE: PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 07-16-2021 13:49
    I agree with you on all accounts, which is why I am SHOCKED they are phasing out automations. With the difficulties and bugs in Pipelines, this just seems like they are completely jumping the gun. It will take longer than 18 months for them to sort out the myriad of issues in Pipelines and have it be usable.

    I said it in some of my other posts, it feels like QB got new management 12 months ago and decided, let's stop listening to the users and do what we want. I want to keep giving them due credit, because I can see their vision and direction and I am on board - but they keep forcing everyone into their vision before it is ready and tested. The new reports are also riddled with bugs, and they've forced that on everyone as well.

    I've only been using QB for about 1.5 years, and the first 12 months I was their biggest fan. The last 6 months, I'm the exact opposite, dreading that I got into a platform that I shouldn't have.

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    Mike Tamoush
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  • 4.  RE: PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 07-17-2021 16:45
    I plan to  not really think about converting my clients until say after the September release when the conversion tool "matures" to cover more use cases and when I would hope that field name problem will be fixed.

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    Mark Shnier (YQC)
    Quick Base Solution Provider
    Your Quick Base Coach
    http://QuickBaseCoach.com
    mark.shnier@gmail.com
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  • 5.  RE: PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 07-20-2021 16:32
    FYI Customer Support was able to recreate the issue and have escalated to their Pipelines team. I'll update if I hear more.

    For now, i would avoid renaming any fields!

    Also, lets start a user voice to keep automations until Pipelines is a solid alternative?!

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    Mike Tamoush
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  • 6.  RE: PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 07-21-2021 10:38
    I have a feeling that the decision to remove automations in favor of Pipelines is fueled by money in the end. I hope I am wrong but to me it seems like alternatives are being removed and we are being left with only one option. Right now all internal pipelines are free but that may not be the case forever. Once automations are gone they may decide to make part of the internal functions use step runs again and then you are locked into paying more for the tool that used to have a free option.

    At one point I thought the ability to use Pipelines was based on your selected plan but that appears to be changed now. Maybe I am misremembering this and it was only extra step runs that higher tier plans give you.


  • 7.  RE: PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 07-21-2021 10:46
    My understanding is that this is a technical decision and not a driven by financial gain.  I think they believe that the architecture and engine that runs Pipelines will position them for unlimited growth capacity.  The engine that runs Automations probably has inherent capacity limitations, and they have an obligation to plan for handing their expected growth.

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    Mark Shnier (YQC)
    Quick Base Solution Provider
    Your Quick Base Coach
    http://QuickBaseCoach.com
    mark.shnier@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 07-21-2021 12:10
    I guess I don't see why they would remove automations if that were the case. Seems like a weird decision that is not in line with previous ones like where they left actions when automations were brought out. I don't know about you but I don't even touch actions at this point yet it is still there just in case I need it. There may be some specific use cases for it, who knows. Pipelines may end up replacing automations capability fully when it is ready but as of now it is causing us to switch to other systems.

    If automations as a whole are failing or they think the system is crumbling then I'd get why they would want to remove them but they seem fine to me. Of course I don't have the same data they have on how they are working or what their end goals are here. I would think leaving them in makes the most sense as many people like using them and would be fine not touching pipelines I think.


  • 9.  RE: PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 08-03-2021 10:35
    Just to update: This is a recognized bug and is apparently in their backlog. I'm thinking if they have such a big backlog of bugs that they can't get to this one that is pretty significant, maybe they should let us keep automations for now...

    Bug ID: QBE015997

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    Mike Tamoush
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  • 10.  RE: PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 08-03-2021 11:21
    Pipelines is not their first attempt to improve upon the automation capabilities of Quickbase. This is just their most recent. Prior to their divestiture from Intuit, Quickbase was utilizing the technology that Intuit had purchased from ItDuzzIt, another connector service. This was also an uphill battle, but it was such an improvement for those of us that were lucky enough to have access to it. Unfortunately, Intuit kept the technology post-divestiture and I'm guessing that Quickbase has been looking for a suitable replacement ever since.

    At present, they now have 4 different technologies within the platform that allow for some level of automation or integration - Webhooks, Sync, Automations, and Pipelines. I doubt that Sync will be going anywhere any time soon, if at all, just because it provides features that are different enough from Pipelines that it wouldn't make sense. I'd guess Webhooks is safe as well, as it could act as the first step towards integration for those users who might not yet need something as complex as Pipelines. Automations, though very useful, is very limited in its' ability to accept / process business logic other than simple triggers and was built based on usage assumptions from 5+ years ago. I agree that the implementation of Pipelines has left a LOT to be desired, but it is a better technological approach overall.

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    Blake Harrison
    bharrison@datablender.io
    DataBlender - Quickbase Solution Provider
    Atlanta GA
    404.800.1702 / http://datablender.io/
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  • 11.  RE: PIPELINE CAUTION! Renaming fields will break your pipeline!

    Posted 08-03-2021 12:18
    Completely agree that Pipelines has the potential to be much better than automations. I see where they are going and agree with the direction, I just think that there are SO many bugs, lag times, and other issues right now - forcing us to get rid of automations before they have sufficiently worked through the flaws puts us Developers in a tough spot.

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    Mike Tamoush
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