BullseyeBullsey
8 years agoQrew Cadet
QuickBase Database cleanup, reserved characters, and Boolean search logic
Before starting QuickBase at my company, I inherited a lead list of 5000+ potential customers, which is one of the first things I transferred over once we started using the product. Unfortunately, these lists came from a variety of sources and therefore the customer names had terribly inconsistent formatting. For example, some are listed in all caps and some normal lowercase. Up until now, this was not a huge deal. We use the customer name as the link in orders/sales activities/etc. back to the customer's form.
Recently, I realized that this link was sometimes breaking for our iPhone users if the club name included an "&" sign. Knowing that this is sometimes a restricted character, I painstakingly went through and updated all of the clubs with "&," and updated the link in all related records. I also noticed while doing this that for the customers listed in all capital letters, changing it to "AND" instead of "and" made it unreadable in table-to-table relationship summary tables. I can only assume this is related to Boolean search logic, since everything was fine once I switched it to "and."
A few related questions:
1) Are there any other restricted characters that might break links? Does it differ between PC, iPhone, and Android users?
2) Is it possible to search for "AND," "OR," and "NOT," in all-cap form specifically? Or create a filter to capture these? My tests so far indicate no, but there are a lot of smart people on here :) I am hoping there is a smart way to filter for these, because there are over 1000 customers with some combination of "and," "or," and "not" that I'd prefer not to check one by one.
3) When does the Boolean logic issue truly kick in? Do AND, OR, and NOT have to be isolated, or could it screw things up if they're within a word? For example, do I only need to be worried about customers listed like "CITY HOOK AND LADDER," or will those like "OREGON HUNTING CLUB" also break the system?
I appreciate your help!
Recently, I realized that this link was sometimes breaking for our iPhone users if the club name included an "&" sign. Knowing that this is sometimes a restricted character, I painstakingly went through and updated all of the clubs with "&," and updated the link in all related records. I also noticed while doing this that for the customers listed in all capital letters, changing it to "AND" instead of "and" made it unreadable in table-to-table relationship summary tables. I can only assume this is related to Boolean search logic, since everything was fine once I switched it to "and."
A few related questions:
1) Are there any other restricted characters that might break links? Does it differ between PC, iPhone, and Android users?
2) Is it possible to search for "AND," "OR," and "NOT," in all-cap form specifically? Or create a filter to capture these? My tests so far indicate no, but there are a lot of smart people on here :) I am hoping there is a smart way to filter for these, because there are over 1000 customers with some combination of "and," "or," and "not" that I'd prefer not to check one by one.
3) When does the Boolean logic issue truly kick in? Do AND, OR, and NOT have to be isolated, or could it screw things up if they're within a word? For example, do I only need to be worried about customers listed like "CITY HOOK AND LADDER," or will those like "OREGON HUNTING CLUB" also break the system?
I appreciate your help!