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  • 1.  Pipelines Work Dates

    Posted 07-30-2021 15:51
    Does anyone know if there is any anticipation or timeline on quick base supporting work dates in Pipelines?  I have LOTS of automations that take action on my tasks table which the start and due date are work dates.  I either need to convert these to standard dates (which is touch because I do not want work assigned on weekends) or I need to wait to start converting to pipelines until the functionality is there.

    Currently, I need to create a new "automation" which I want to do in pipelines since I will need to move it anyway, but I am stuck because of this issue.

    Thanks!

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    Ivan Weiss
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  • 2.  RE: Pipelines Work Dates

    Posted 07-30-2021 16:01
    I believe work dates are on the roadmap, but don't have any information about the actual timeline of that. This is a major issue for one of my clients, so I can understand your pain. We ended up using a combination of TTI's, Automations, and Pipelines to get the result he was looking for.

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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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  • 3.  RE: Pipelines Work Dates

    Posted 07-31-2021 08:40
    Blake, so how did you get around it?  I guess technically I would create a pipeline that would check everytime a task was updated to see if it falls on a weekend and adjust the due date.  But that just sounds expensive in terms of processing.  I am not even sure how to do that via jinga but I would think there is a way.

    I have about 40 automations to move so I want to start by doing a few a month but right now I cannot because of the work date issue.  They are literally all stuck in automations because of this work date issue.

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    Ivan Weiss
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  • 4.  RE: Pipelines Work Dates

    Posted 07-31-2021 11:32
    Edited by Blake Harrison 07-31-2021 11:37
    This was not an easy process - it actually took me a couple of weeks to work out all the nuances. Honestly, if you're concerned about weekends, I would stick to Work Dates and deal with Automations for now (as long as your business logic isn't overly complex, that is).

    But, if you're up for some self punishment, the solution that I built is very specific to this client's process. Here's some of the stuff he needed to be able to do and how I addressed them:
    • Automatically create Tasks based on the selected Template at 2 separate points in the Project I used record created for a Pipelines trigger that updated the project template and pulled over the first set of Tasks. The second set was triggered by a button, but I built the API calls directly in the button. This required updating the Template Project with pertinent info from the Project and then running a list of 6 TTI's to move information around before finally importing the Tasks and clearing out the fields in the Template
    • Reset select Task Start Dates based on actions taken on the Project Automations
    • Use predecessors so that certain Tasks would be dependent on others
    • Have a Task be dependent, but offset from a prior task by a given number of days (Task starts X days after Predecessor) I setup a looping relationship for this so that the user selects the Controlling Task when setting up the Templates. I've got calculations that determine the Start Date based on the offset days, the Controlling Task, etc.
    • Dynamically calculate the "Days Allowed" for select Tasks based on calculation using the average Project length Part of the button API's I mentioned above takes the calculated ratio from the Project, puts it on the Template Project, and then the 'Days Allowed' calculations use that value for those Tasks that are flagged as variable
    • Override the Start Date of a Task Button that moves the Predecessor to another field and directs the user to a Code Page popup to select the new Date
    • Override the End Date of a Task Button that directs the user to a Code Page popup to select the new End Date which is used in the 'Days Allowed' calculation to determine the corrected End Date
    • Determine Assigned To based on Job Title and Region Standard relationship lookups and a formula to determine Assigned To on the Template
    And I'm sure I missed a few things.

    EDIT: Oh, I've got 1 Pipeline that I use to update the Assigned To on Tasks for the Project Manager if the PM is updated
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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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  • 5.  RE: Pipelines Work Dates

    Posted 08-02-2021 16:56
    For anyone else affected I spoke to QB support and was told work dates ARE NOT planned for development for pipelines.  Looks like they will be abandoned.

    Thanks Quick Base for breaking what worked just fine! ugh!

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    Ivan Weiss
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