May 2025 Pipelines Qrew Meet Up Recap
Hi Pipelines Qrew!
Thank you to all who were able to attend the 1pm EST session of the Pipelines Qrew yesterday. Here’s what we discussed:
API Fundamentals & Postman Testing
- Mike Frischmann walked through how to set up and test APIs in Quickbase using Postman, focusing on foundational concepts for new and intermediate users.
- He explained how to authenticate using API keys, review API documentation, and test both GET (listing templates) and POST (creating PDFs) requests with the Craft My PDF API.
- Mike emphasized using Postman to troubleshoot and validate API calls before moving them into Quickbase Pipelines. This was an eye-opener for many!
Automating PDF Ticket Generation & Upload
- Mike demonstrated how to automate the creation and upload of PDF tickets for Quickbase records.
- He showed how to trigger a pipeline when a record is updated, pass Quickbase data into the Craft My PDF API, and automatically upload the resulting PDF back into the correct Quickbase record.
- The demo included mapping dynamic fields from Quickbase, building the JSON payload, and handling the API response to store the PDF.
Translating Postman Workflows into Pipelines
- After validating API calls in Postman, Mike showed how to replicate the workflow in Quickbase Pipelines.
- He covered setting up triggers, using the JSON handler, mapping variables, and configuring the “iterate over JSON records” step to process multiple responses.
Many folks commented how they appreciated Mike’s way of walking through each step, not getting deterred when things didn’t work, and working through the solution by using Postman and Quickbase to figure out errors, and rerunning Pipelines until it worked in his live demo. It was well-paced and easy to follow. These are some great best practices for making the process repeatable and scalable for various API use cases.
Missed the meeting? Here’s the recording! I highly recommend giving it a listen-through and trying out the resources he recommended. Mike uses most of the hour, but it’s filled with valuable information and step-by-step guidance along the way.
Pipelines Raffle Entry: We have a raffle drawing for those who listen to the recording or attended the meeting. You can enter by logging into the Qrew Discussion site and share what you learned from Mike’s session, share an additional useful tip, or ask a question about what you watched to the group. Winners will be selected at the next Pipelines meeting! Open until May 28th so get your entries in!
Agenda for next Pipelines Qrew Meet Up Wednesday June 25th at 12pm: We are back to our regularly schedule meet up time next month and Wes McAda from Versar Inc. will be doing an Empower encore presentation with a new Pipelines twist for his EOTI app. I already have a fun raffle idea that I’m looking forward to deploying alongside Wes’s presentation. Check out the events page for more details and to register or login. If you use a calendar, please be sure to update it based on what we’ve posted on the events page. We’re cooking up four meet ups for June 2025 including two that are special that I’m excited to tell you more about very soon! Thank you and have a good evening.