Thoughts from the general public....when to build a new app for process reasons

I always strive for simplicity. To that end, we have ONE app. At last count, it has about 75 tables. Not everything in it is needed by anyone in our company (75 employees), but every table is connected to at least one other table, and since our clients are at the center of everything we do, the Client table is the hub of the system. I can control which tables can be viewed/modified by each role (we have about 20 roles). I can control which tables appear as a tab for each role. And I can set different dashboards by role. Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would want to do it any other way than having one app.

I am of the same opinion, but have a few apps that I do not want to try to reproduce so tying to them via permission passed down from the parent app has come into play. I am trying to build everything into a single app but I have those one offs that I just do not want to try and incorporate at this point...maybe that will be the task after going forward.

Do you know what the table limit is in a single app

There is no limit to the number of tables in an app.

The only arbitrary limit I ever run into in QB is the 500 MB size for a single table. As Mark said, the number of tables is unlimited, and so is the number of fields in a table.

Hopefully nobody feels I'm hijacking a thread since it does indicate general thoughts...

Today this same question hit me.  After all the "blood, sweat, and tears" I, and extremely helpful members of this forum and QB, have spilled creating a single app for our group, I am asking myself if splitting the app is better.  

Within our group we have 2 teams that perform the same overall task for our client, but based on the differences from a merger within our client there exists slight differences in workflow.  I currently built the app to include both and am trying to reference all tables and roles based on this single field.

-> Caveat -> Most team members only ever work within one team, but there are several of us that work across both teams.  Additionally, data from one is not relevant to data in the other, just the workflow process is close enough.

So my question in this is:
1. Is my current app (without seeing it) worth keeping and just control all things via the single field? Then create a Team 1 role and a Team 2 role based on the reference field?
2. Take the tables in the app (25) and copy them within the app.  Then take all tables and rename them to indicate Team 1 and Team 2 and assign roles this way?
3. Create two apps, basically by copying the tables with their appropriate relationships intact and assign any cross team users roles in both apps?
4. Go home with my head hung in shame,  drink myself into a stupor, and cry until I am dehydrates :) -> just kidding, I do that.

 

One app!  keep to one app for sure and control access with Role Permissions.

While building your first app may have been painful, they will get much much easier the more you build.  QuickBase is like 1,000 easy things to know, but you need to make 1,000 mistakes once.  Then you will be flying.

Believe me it gets old in a big hurry to make the same changes to the app twice. it's sort of fun  and satisfying once (well for me anyways), but definitely not fun and not satisfying doing it twice. You may think that your app is finally perfected, but only if the world stops for you and nothing changes.  But the world does not stop.

You need to be agile 'cause as soon as yer app is done, word will comes down that the needs of the business have changed, and you need to adapt the app to meet the new needs.  Quick Base is a journey and not a destination.  Any user with half a brain will "get it" and tell you "this is good, so thank you,  but if we could do this .. it would be better". They will keep pushing the envelope and scope of your app.

You need to be agile 'cause as soon as yer app is done, word will comes down that the needs of the business have changed, and you need to adapt the app to meet the new needs.

That line right there made me laugh so hard I started crying.  You have lived through such modifications, we all have.  But this client is in the midst of a process that changes things roughly every 30-45 days, and this has been going on for a solid year.  That's why our app has so many fields that I added with the attempt to be Zoltar The Fortune Teller.  That is the great part of Quick Base, simple to grow and modify.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Cheers!