Archive for the ‘Quick Tips’ Category

Understanding Relationships: Never Enter Data Twice

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

    Most of a database’s power, and most of its complexity, is in the relationships between tables. If your application has one table in it, that is a clear sign that you are missing out on the jelly in the QuickBase doughnut. Relationships are important!
    You need to learn how QuickBase deals with relationships, but even before that, you need to see why relationships are important. A good starting point is the article here. This is specifically about MS Access, but the article is still good for QuickBase users and it is way easier to understand than the Wikipedia article!

Expose Filtering Criteria

Monday, August 31st, 2009

If you have a report with custom filtering criteria, then you may have experienced frustration with QuickBase’s terse and unhelpful displaying of this information. QuickBase will show the first term of your filtering criteria in the blue bar above the report, followed by “AND…” It’s a suspense-building technique better left to soap opera cliffhangers than web database management software.
 see full query
There’s no perfect fix for this limitation, but there is one way to get around it. Select “Print” from the mini-toolbar on the report. Leave the default option, “Print the report as a table.” Then, on the following screen, check the box labeled “include filtering criteria.” Click continue, and if a print window pops up, just cancel out of it. The window you’re left with should display your report with the full filtering criteria displayed just above it. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to share this more informative report, but if you’re desperate for a way to show your filter criteria then it may be just what you’re looking for!

Stop Wasting Time with Dates

Monday, August 31st, 2009

You’ve probably never thought of typing the date as a particularly time-consuming activity, but if you create or modify a large number of records on a daily basis, then you’ve probably spent much more time than you realize scanning the calendar popup for the little highlighted box that represents today’s date. Lucky for you, there’s a little-known shortcut that will allow you to cut this minor hassle out of your daily life. Simply enter the date field and press the letter “t,” and QuickBase will insert today’s date for you. Or if it is a date/time field, press “n” (for “now”) and QuickBase will enter the current date and time. Maybe not mind-blowing, but hopefully it will make your daily life a little bit easier.