Journey to Pipelines Certification Part I: The Why and The How
If you’ve been enjoying Kiko’s series on “Journey of a new builder” blog series, I want to invite you to follow me, Esther, as I embark on a path towards Pipelines Certification.
Why follow me?
Prior to joining as an employee in January 2022, I knew nothing about Quickbase. I had very little coding experience - unless you want to count CSS and HTML on Myspace and a few rich-text boxes. That’s right, you read that correctly, “Myspace”. Six weeks after going through the University courses and plenty of hands-on practice, I was able to pass the builder certification and build my own custom application with multiple many-to-many relationships. Now I’m ready for the next challenge!
Get me automated with Pipelines
Gartner’s 2022 top four predictions for digital infrastructure boils down to this equation:
Automation = Cost optimization + Increased Flexibility and Efficiency
Organizations who are actively investing in workflow transformation understand they’re playing the long game and investing in their future. To automate workflows among Quickbase apps or outside third-party tools, we use a tool called Pipelines which lets you fully integrate data across all existing cloud-based software tools and automate workflows between various SaaS tools.
Let’s not sugarcoat it – going automated is hard work. Doing actual data integration on my own feels super intimidating. How am I, someone who nearly passes out when looking at pages of code, supposed to get Pipelines certified?
How I’m going to get certified
For me to go from novice to certification, my plan is to simplify learning Pipelines into something I could relate to, take all the Quickbase Pipelines Certification courses, attend live training, lean on my colleagues who can offer tips and tricks, and practice building Pipelines as much as I can. I will be documenting my learning experience along the way in hopes that it will help readers see the value in getting Pipelines certified while offering guidance on your path towards certification.
At the heart of it, getting Pipelines Certified is personal. I want to prove to myself that I can go from being a no-code-non-techy-stay-at-home-mom to being both Quickbase Builder and Pipelines certified within a year. It’s ambitious, but possible.
Here's what I’ve done so far to get me ready for the Pipelines Certification exam:
- Signed up for the Path to Pipelines Certification in Quickbase University and started watching the videos.
- All Pipelines require a user token to work. Therefore, I created a user token for the exercises in the course.
- Next, I scanned Quickbase’s Community blog and found an awesome reference article called, “So You Want To Learn Pipelines!” which includes additional articles and videos to supplement the online learning courses. If there’s something in the online course or help files that don’t make sense, my next stop is the Quickbase community to see if anyone broke it down into laymen terms.
- Test anxiety is something I’ve suffered with for most of my life. To help manage it, I put together a list of questions to interview colleagues who have recently passed the Pipelines Certification exam. I’ll be gathering tips and tricks that will set me up for a successful exam experience and will share it with all of you in an upcoming blog post.
- Blocked time in my schedule for focused learning and breaks. I’ve scheduled 30 minutes to an hour a day during the work week on my calendar.
- Signed up for Virtual Empower 2022. Each year, Quickbase hosts a certification study session and I don’t want to miss that. If you sign up and attend, then you’ll receive a discount code to apply to the cost of taking the certification exam.
As they say, “Luck favors the prepared” and I’m not ashamed to stack the deck with a game plan that works best for my learning style. Click on the links above to get started on your journey towards Pipelines certification.
