ChrisPliakas
Quickbase Staff
Joined 6 years ago
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Connecting Quickbase to AWS for Sentiment Analysis
Quickbase is uniquely positioned to solve numerous business problems because of both the product's incredible flexibility and the different approach to how people build applications on the platform. The problem solvers who use the tool can resolve critical business challenges themselves in days and even hours on a system that IT trusts and can govern at enterprise-scale. Although powerful in business users' hands, the technically inclined can elevate Quickbase to new heights by integrating it with other systems through extension points such as Pipelines, Quickbase's native integration platform. Public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services provide many building block services that go together with Quickbase like peanut butter and jelly, and I want to introduce a sentiment analysis capability for Quickbase using Pipelines and AWS as a working example of this power. As context, Quickbase applications often capture data at the edge of the business. The more data that is captured, the more important it is to automate data analysis to extract insights from it. For example, let's say you want to crowd-source inspection of inventory, products, etc. The goal is for employees to snap pictures and submit comments when they happen to notice something in the field, such as an example of a great product display or a misplaced item. Within minutes, you can create a Quickbase application that is mobile-ready and able to be used in the field. A welcomed problem is when the application becomes widely used across the organization, and manual analysis of the data becomes impractical. One way to start categorizing the data is through sentiment analysis of the comments to sort the feedback into positive, negative, and neutral submissions to determine which ones to act on first. This situation is where our example comes into play. Amazon has a service called Comprehend that provides sentiment analysis. At first glance, the integration appears to be dead-simple. However, many hidden complexities around authentication and infrastructure configuration take time to figure out. The project at https://github.com/cpliakas/quickbase-sentiment-analysis provides a one-click install of the Amazon piece of the puzzle through the Serverless Application Repository that has Quickbase assumptions which make it really easy to securely integrate with Quickbase through Pipelines. The video below walks through an end-to-end setup so that you can start experimenting with the capability now. The https://github.com/cpliakas/quickbase-sentiment-analysis project is released under the permissive open-source MIT license. You are free to use and copy the tool and apply the patterns in whatever manner you wish, including commercial applications where people pay for your service. I hope you find it useful, and I look forward to learning about where the tool and techniques are providing value to your Quickbase applications.33Views0likes0CommentsConnecting Quickbase to AWS for Sentiment Analysis
Quickbase is uniquely positioned to solve numerous business problems because of both the product's incredible flexibility and the different approach to how people build applications on the platform. The problem solvers who use the tool can resolve critical business challenges themselves in days and even hours on a system that IT trusts and can govern at enterprise-scale. Although powerful in business users' hands, the technically inclined can elevate Quickbase to new heights by integrating it with other systems through extension points such as Pipelines, Quickbase's native integration platform. Public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services provide many building block services that go together with Quickbase like peanut butter and jelly, and I want to introduce a sentiment analysis capability for Quickbase using Pipelines and AWS as a working example of this power. The Amazon piece is available at https://github.com/cpliakas/quickbase-sentiment-analysis, and developers can replicate the pattern for other AWS services as well. As context, Quickbase applications often capture data at the edge of the business. The more data that is captured, the more important it is to automate data analysis to extract insights from it. For example, let's say you want to crowd-source inspection of inventory, products, etc. The goal is for employees to snap pictures and submit comments when they happen to notice something in the field, such as an example of a great product display or a misplaced item. Within minutes, you can create a Quickbase application that is mobile-ready and able to be used in the field. A welcomed problem is when the application becomes widely used across the organization, and manual analysis of the data becomes impractical. One way to start categorizing the data is through sentiment analysis of the comments to sort the feedback into positive, negative, and neutral submissions to determine which ones to act on first. This situation is where our example comes into play. Amazon has a service called Comprehend that provides sentiment analysis. At first glance, the integration appears to be dead-simple. However, many hidden complexities around authentication and infrastructure configuration take time to figure out. The project at https://github.com/cpliakas/quickbase-sentiment-analysis provides a one-click install of the Amazon piece of the puzzle through the Serverless Application Repository that has Quickbase assumptions which make it really easy to securely integrate with Quickbase through Pipelines. The video below walks through an end-to-end setup so that you can start experimenting with the capability now. The https://github.com/cpliakas/quickbase-sentiment-analysis project is released under the permissive open-source MIT license. You are free to use and copy the tool and apply the patterns in whatever manner you wish, including commercial applications where people pay for your service. I hope you find it useful, and I look forward to learning about where the tool and techniques are providing value to your Quickbase applications. ------------------------------ Chris Pliakas ------------------------------16Views1like0CommentsCommand Line Interface for Quickbase
Quickbase is a no-code platform that problem-solvers use to build powerful business applications regardless of their technical ability, but that doesn't mean software developers can't have fun, too! For example, Quickbase has robust and powerful APIs that enable coders to extend and automate Quickbase. In fact, API requests make up a higher percentage of traffic to Quickbase than one might think. In that spirit, I want to introduce you to the Command Line Interface for Quickbase, which makes it even easier to interact with and automate Quickbase through its APIs. https://github.com/QuickBase/quickbase-cli Graphical interfaces like web browsers make it possible for a wide range of people to use software and simplify tasks. With that said, how many times has your index finger felt like it was going to fall off while fighting sleep as you repeatedly perform some monotonous task in Quickbase through the browser? It's situations like this where the command line can save you hours, not to mention your sanity. You can find examples of how to use the tool in the repository's README. Hopefully, it inspires ideas on how you might use it to save time automating your Quickbase tasks. The CLI tool is one of many capabilities in the Quickbase platform that help you automate repetitive tasks. Here are some guidelines to help point you towards the best tool for your task: Use Pipelines and consume the API directly if you are automating a task in response to an action that happens in Quickbase or another system. Consume the API directly with the language of your choice when building a non-Quickbase application that connects to your Quickbase app. Use the Quickbase CLI to perform app setup/admin tasks and ad-hoc calls to the API. Finally, the Quickbase CLI is released as an open source project, which means you can submit enhancements, bug fixes, and documentation through GitHub pull requests if you can write code. Installation instructions, examples, and tips are provided in the README. The tool is subject to the permissive MIT license, so you can freely use it as you see fit inclusive of use in proprietary applications, provided that you maintain the copyright and license with the code. The license also states that the code is provided as-is without warranty, so unlike the Quickbase platform, the tool is not subject to assistance through Quickbase support entitlements. However, contact with the authors is only a GitHub issue away, so please post and feedback, bugs, and questions through the repository's normal GitHub channels as per the guidelines. Happy building! ------------------------------ Chris Pliakas ------------------------------Re: Is Quick Base HIPAA compliant? Not to be confused with the HIPAA management app.
Thanks for the answers to this question. I want to take the opportunity to expand on them to help others who are looking to create HIPAA-compliant applications in Quick Base. The short answer to the question is that Quick Base enables builders to create HIPAA-compliant applications. In other words, it is a shared-responsibility model where Quick Base handles various HIPAA requirements out-of-the-box and provides tools and controls that builders can use to satisfy other application-specific HIPAA requirements. Quick Base is audited annually by a third-party to ensure we abide by the HIPAA security and privacy rules. Please refer to https://www.quickbase.com/security-and-compliance for further information. A more detailed answer first requires some baseline information. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) is United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI). The HIPAA Privacy Rule addresses how PHI can be used and disclosed. The Security Rule mandates administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. The latter is the most relevant to Quick Base applications. The list of what the Quick Base platform gives builders "for free" to comply with the HIPAA security rule is as follows: Data encryption, a data backup plan, a disaster recovery plan, an emergency mode operation plan, and a physical security plan. Areas that the builder needs to apply Quick Base tools and controls to comply with the HIPAA security rule are as follows: Access control (e.g., using roles and permissions to restrict access to ePHI to those who need it, provisioning access to named users and implementing multi-factor authentication, and configuring a user inactivity timeout), using the Audit Log feature to record all access to and changes to apps which hold ePHI, and defining defining password complexity requirements either via Quick Base or by integrating with the corporate SSO (single sign-on) system. Quick Base will also sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) under certain conditions. Signing a BAA is very common as we have a lot of customers with HIPAA compliance requirements. Please work with your Account Executive if you require a BAA.38Views0likes0Comments