Forum Discussion

MelissaDoran's avatar
MelissaDoran
Qrew Cadet
8 years ago

Links to photos in a table, Single Field

I have photos that are being linked to from another app. 

photo: kljdsfkl;jsd;lkgahgsample3hkl.jpg
photo: skljfjjiijgjlgjjjgjgjgjgjgjgjgjgsamplejglkjlijli.jpg
photo: 1235lkjlihsampuleggjgututun.jpg
These are the ends of urls that link to the referenced photos.
I have the root that these suffixes belong to.
Also, there may be no pictures in the field, or there could be 500. (probably never 500 but there could be if someone was more entertained by taking pictures than doing their job)

At this point I'm trying to figure out what my options are for displaying these photos and/or linking to them. The data comes through into one field. Would be nice to see them w/o having to click a link. 
We're going to be using these photos of receipts for internal documentation for pricing out invoices to bill for field work. Technicians take the photos and send in with their assignment report using our mobile data collection app. 

I have a few ideas but feel like I'm one piece of info/idea away from making something workable. 
App builders
Ask about Quickbase functionality
File attachments
  • ShawnRenn2's avatar
    ShawnRenn2
    Qrew Trainee
    8 years ago


    Hey Mel,
    We seem to keep bumping into each other here!

    In all honesty your best bet is to create a new table in the source app called documents, and relate it back to whichever table you currently have your single file attachment field on. 

    Any time you could have an unknown number of data points related to a "record", it's almost always a queue to make a related table for it.

    This solves two problems, first being the flexibility of attaching any number of pictures, (and any other supporting details that really should be unique to the document like description, location, date, etc.) and the issue you're having where these images become useless in the linked application. 

    Since the related files would be individual records, each would have a unique link to the image, which also allows you to take another step an display a thumbnail of that image in report view if that would be of use to you. Imagine opening a "project" (or whatever the core table is these images are captured on now) and instead of opening each attachment in a seperate browser window, you could click the "Full Report" link and see all the images at once!

    Hope that helps!
    • MelissaDoran's avatar
      MelissaDoran
      Qrew Cadet
      8 years ago
      The data is coming in from an external app, ie not a quickbase app, through Zapier. 
      Is there a way to format the incoming chunk of data to split into three (or however many photos there are) fields?
    • ShawnRenn2's avatar
      ShawnRenn2
      Qrew Trainee
      8 years ago
      I'm sure there is, although without seeing the available options/format from the source app which Zapier is funneling to Quickbase it's tough to give you any specifics other than to investigate syncing them to a related table as individual file attachments, (if that makes sense).
    • MelissaDoran's avatar
      MelissaDoran
      Qrew Cadet
      8 years ago
      Hey, I sent a request through yall's website for a phonecall, never heard anything back on it, can you check on that for me? my email is mdoran@dcomref.com
  • AlisonFisher's avatar
    AlisonFisher
    Qrew Member
    8 years ago
    Hi Melizzza - is your question how to split a string containing multiple file attachment URLs into separate fields, one for each photo? If yes, a coder would be able to help you. Once the data is teased apart, the photos can be viewed as thumbnails or we could create a custom form where they are displayed. We are happy to help but there is no one simple solution. Thanks!