QuickBase Straight Up

Like chrome on a car, icing on a cake, or bling on your favorite outfit, there are certain details to a QuickBase application that can make or break the application. They may not have to do with the fundamentals of the application (tables, fields, relationships) but they are very important to the user.

1. The Blue Bar — This is a list of tables in your application. It’s handy for savvy users, but confusing for your more tech-phobic users. If your user base has no idea what it would mean to “List All”, you should hide the tables in the blue bar, and instead put function-oriented links on their dashboard (see here).

(a) to hide them for all users, click on the table name, then customize, then properties. Click on the Advanced tab, and then on “Hide from Menu Bar.”

(b) To hide a table for certain roles, click on Users in the Silver Bar, then Permissions (by role), then the role you want to address. Then click on the User Interface tab, and then the “Hide Table” checkbox, either for one table or all.

2. The Silver Bar - Most of your users do NOT need to see some of the links on the silver bar. So follow the same instructions as in (b) above, and then in the “Menus” area, deselect the options you want to remove from the silver bar. Typically, you can remove “Customize” and “Users”, as those are options most users are not concerned with. If you want to have total control over the user experience, you can remove all the options. (see https://www.quickbase.com/db/bdx6xa6th for an application that is tightly locked down).

3. Saving Shared Reports - While you are setting up roles, go to the “Permissions” tab and decide whether your users should be able to “Save Shared Reports”. The answer is probably no. We all create reports all the time, and if we all save them as “shared”, then pretty soon the list of available reports is huge, and no one know what any of them do. So let your users share Personal Reports - that should still keep them happy. For more info, see this.

4. Help Bubbles - It may be totally clear to you what “Capitalizable Task Budget Revision Number” means, but it might not be so clear to your users.  So make judicious use of “Help Bubbles”. They are set in the field definition, and then available on forms.

What if some users need one dashboard and another set of users need another dashboard? Most likely, you then want to create separate roles for those sets of users, and give each what they want.

6. Default Fields - Dashboards with columns that head off to the east horizon or confusing or worse. To fix that, click on the table name in the blue bar, and then customize, and then fields. If you don’t see some check boxes on the left of your screen, click on “Show Advanced”, and then in the “Default Columns” field, select the fields that users will typically want to see in a list - usually not more than 10 fields. If the list gets too long, the important fields get pushed off to the side of the screen and your users will have to scroll to the right, which no one likes to do.

7. Face time - No, not the Apple application, real face time. No matter how great your application is, don’t just email your users a link and tell them to have a nice day. Find a time to work with them, live or over the web. Explain what the app is for, and show them how to use it. Check to make sure that fields and reports have names that make sense to the users. Make sure there is plenty of time for questions.