I am a fan of right-clicking how other people use buttons and seeing how they tick. Somewhere in my head I know I am flattering the author by copying their work.

Say for instance we have a report in a Project Management application and we wish to trigger emails to select assignees. Let’s add a formula URL field, and title it “Make Toggle”. When the viewer presses this button the Toggle field will check. When pressed again it will uncheck. This is cool because we are actually using the QuickBase API to do something that would ordinarily require multiple mouse clicks and we have reduced it to one click. Another benefit of this is that the record itself is being changed. Sure you can grid edit this report and check the boxes but if you want to trigger automatic email notifications this might be a better way to do it. Grid Edit doesn’t trigger email notifications but API calls do.

You can find out more about Formula URL buttons and cool API functions by checking out the following links and signing up for any of our 10 free weekly webinars. Many of the webinars dive into customizing and making your QuickBase applications come alive.

Configure QuickBase URL Fields
Using Formulas
List of Formula Functions
Sign up for a Free Webinar

This isn’t just hiding or showing fields or sections on a form. This is controlling your form with formulas, changes to lookup, summary and reference fields.

This opens up many new possibilities for forms:

Say you have projects and you have a field called [Project Type]. You use that to describe whether it is a Marketing, Sales or Support type of project. Every time you add a task you need a different set of fields to show based on the project type. Before you would have to create a long task form with all the unneeded fields showing. With form rules now sensitive to lookup fields your project type can now control what your task form looks like. It’s fast, easy and simple.

How about a better way to keep on top of your project’s issues? Say you want to see your issues when they are open but want them to go away when closed. Using a Summary field you can now have them pop up when opened and disappear when closed.

Here’s another one, let’s say we are working on a task and it is overdue. How about using form rules to pops up an alert screen, switches the priority to high and require a note be entered? You can do that too.

We also enhanced our QuickBase alert functionality. You will notice them in applications and on your My QuickBase page.

“I cannot express how excited we are for the dynamic form rules. First conditional drop downs and now this! Christmas was early this year! Thanks QB Team!”
-Melissa

“This is incredible!!! I am so happy to be able to have more power over my form rules! This will save all those creative workarounds I was used to dreaming up! …Conditional Drop Downs & Form Rules!!!! Thank you QuickBase!!!”
-Hunter

“Thanks for listening and making it happen. Keep the enhancements coming!!”
-D.J.

Check out the video to see how you can use this new feature and review the release notes http://quickbase.intuit.com/resources/node/2004 for a complete item listing.

If you have any questions be sure to let us know or pop into any of our 10 free weekly webinars at http://quickbase.intuit.com/webinars/.

Have a blast!

At the end of the event (or at least the part before the cocktails) I gave a closing where I recapped ten great things I heard. Several people came up to me afterward to request that I publish the list… so, here it is…(in the order I heard them during the day):

• Vishy Venugopalan from Longworth Ventures set a great baseline for the day with this overview of cloud computing.

• Scott Cook shared some great stories about the early days of Intuit from failed ads and trouble meeting payroll to the breakthrough insights that helped Quicken take off…

Read the entire list…

After numerous discussions, we made the difficult decision to postpone the release to ensure that the problem is appropriately fixed and tested before we release.

We are continuing to assess the issue and I will post an update to this blog as early as possible next week.   Thank you for your understanding and I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Robert McDonald

QuickBase Product Manager

To everyone who voted for QuickBase in the 2009 Webware Awards, thank you for your vote! QuickBase was named one of Web 2.0’s best business productivity solutions!

In May, Webware announced its annual list of Webware 100 award winners. QuickBase was on the list and recognized as one of the top offerings in the web productivity category.

Click the image to see the full Webware 100 list

The 2009 Webware 100 Awards recognize the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications on the Web today. After receiving more than 6,000 nominations for inclusion in the Webware 100, the editors selected 300 finalists. But the Web’s users made the final cut, voting more than 600,000 times to select their favorite 100 products. QuickBase was one of just 10 products to get the award in the productivity category.

Rafe Needleman, editor at Webware and CNET commented that “This annual listing has become such an essential resource for people who want to learn more about Web 2.0 and the many ways it can help them stay connected. The Web 2.0 community and our editors ultimately selected the very best sites, services and applications that have made a lasting impression.”

Here’s a quick look at some of the new features that will be coming out with the June product release.

Formulas in form rules…huh?

Dynamic form rules are used by application designers to make forms behave differently based on specific conditions. They set the condition and tell QuickBase what action (or actions) to perform. Until now, derived fields such as formulas and lookup fields were not available for use in form rules.  With this release, that limitation is now gone.

From one of our development partners during the beta test:

“The new formula rule mods are amazing!!!! What a huge difference this will make for creating more user friendly forms.”

I certainly hope you’ll feel the same way.

Not to alarm you, but…

We’ve improved the Alert system that lives on your MyQuickBase page. QuickBase now visually alerts you when you get a new alert, distinguishes between high and low priority alerts and whether or not you’ve read them. The alerts management UI also now lets you delete alerts in bulk.

In addition, we have added a new alert to warn application managers if one of your application tables is approaching it’s size limit.

Notice to night owls

If you are QuickBasing, a new term I just made up, at 4:30AM Pacific on Sunday, please use the downtime required to launch these new features to contemplate how you will take advantage of the new form rules functionality. We have scheduled the upgrade window from 4:30 to 4:50AM. Long enough to make an egg sandwich.

Enjoy!

Tip #7 – Anticipate needs for security, service and support
Many SaaS providers have made extensive hardware and software investments that offer an exceptional level of security. That said, not all providers are alike.

When you’re evaluating a potential solution for your Web-based project management needs, consider the following:

Data security
Where is the data hosted? What systems are in place to protect your data? Look for a solution that provides the utmost protection for your business information.

Service and support
What happens when you need help? Who’s available to get you started – and to assist your team as needs arise? Look for service and support policies that can bring rapid relief to your occasional challenges.

Years of experience
Is the provider a new player or a proven partner? Who are its clients and what are their satisfaction rates? Previous history is one of the best predictors of future experience.

Here’s what QuickBase offers in the areas of security, service and support:

QuickBase Data Security
Your QuickBase application data is stored in the same facility that handles millions of tax returns via TurboTax for the Web each year. QuickBase uses industry-standard, 128-bit Secure Socket Layers (SSL) protocol to ensure your information is neither intercepted nor corrupted during transmission over the Internet. In addition, QuickBase uses encryption technology to help protect your data when stored on disk.  Click here to learn more about the security, reliability, and confidentiality of QuickBase.

QuickBase support resources
Whether you are new to QuickBase or have been using it for years, the QuickBase Support Center provides everything from answers to common questions to detailed instructions.

QuickBase support resources include live technical support from the QuickBase Customer Success Team, online product help, live online training, and the QuickBase community forum.

Test drive QuickBase support
When you’re trying out QuickBase during a free 30-day trial you have access to all the same support resources as our customers – that includes live technical support.  Plus, you have assistance from the QuickBase Concierge Team.  Their job is to help you more quickly determine if QuickBase is a fit for your needs.

QuickBase experience
QuickBase is a proven solution backed by Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, QuickBooks and Quicken.  Over 56 of the Fortune 100 and thousands of small and medium sized businesses rely on QuickBase.  And, QuickBase has been serving customers for over nine years.

What do you think?
Please share your thoughts about and experiences with QuickBase’s data security, service and support. Have you worked with the QuickBase Customer Success Team? The Concierge Team?

What’s next?
This is the final tip in this series. It’s time for some reader feedback. Did you find these tips helpful? Do you have a favorite tip? Or maybe a team productivity tip you’d like to share that wasn’t covered?

What other topics would you like to see covered in the QuickBase blog?

Tip #6 – Personalize the project experience
Sure, collaborative teamwork is what project management is all about. But your team’s success depends on the integration of individual efforts – each with different needs.

For example, not everyone on your team wants or needs to see all project information, and they definitely don’t all want to see it in the same way.  You may want to assign varying levels of information access to project participants.  And, each member of your team may want to customize the project management application to view just the information that’s most important to them.

Many project teams find the following personalization features very helpful:

Adjustable permission levels
The entire team does not need equal access to project information. Customizable project management applications allow managers to control what information individuals can see – and their ability to modify, share or simply view it – by assigning different levels of permission.  This way, the project manager retains the oversight he needs, while individual participants gain access to just the information they need – no more, no less. And, confidential or sensitive information remains restricted to authorized users.

Customizable dashboards and reports
A “dashboard” is an application’s control center. It’s the first page you see when you open your application, and it puts all the at-a-glance information you need in one place.  From it, you can search, add information, create or access reports, and more.

Project management software should enable individuals to arrange their dashboard to their tastes, allowing them to easily access just the documents, records and other information most important to them. It should also enable individuals to create their own custom reports so they can see information how and when they need it.

Get personal with QuickBase
Did you know that Intuit QuickBase provides many ways to personalize your project experience? They include: roles, groups, field level permissions, dashboards and reports.

Roles
You control access to your application and information by assigning a role to a user. QuickBase roles determine what the user can see or do within your application.

Groups
You can save time when managing large groups of users, by creating a QuickBase group. QuickBase groups are a collection of similar users combined together to grant application access or special permission rights to all members at once.

Field level permissions
There may be times when you want to share your application with many users, but limit access to certain fields. QuickBase lets you choose from three access settings: No Access, View or View/Modify.

Dashboards
With QuickBase you can customize dashboards for your users, including personalized views of the information important to them, buttons to get them going to the right place fast, and information to guide them on what to do or what’s new. For example, you can add a report to the dashboard that lets each user see a list of her own unfinished tasks when she opens the application.

Reports
With seven QuickBase report types to choose from, you can display your data the way you want and interact with your data right through your reports. QuickBase reports formats include: table, grid edit, summary, crosstab, calendar, chart and timeline.

Coming next week – tip #7 – anticipate needs for security, service and support.

How are you using QuickBase’s personalization features?

Please take a few minutes to post a review of QuickBase project management at onlinepmtools.com.

About onlinepmtools.com
Onlinepmtools.com is a user review website (launched March 2009) that provides user reviews of – you guessed it – online project management tools.  At onlinepmtools.com it’s all about user reviews: “Hearing straight from people and companies who have used the tools is the best way to get a feel for quality and fit for your own needs.”  So please help others in their search for an online project management tool by posting your review of QuickBase.

Posting your review
Went you get to the QuickBase listing on the website, just click either the leave a comment or the write a review link to share your thoughts.   You’ll be asked to rate QuickBase in terms of features, support and ease of use using a five point scale.  Then, write a short review in your words of why you chose QuickBase for online project management.  You can also choose to be notified by email when additional reviews are posted.

I’m a user too!
Personally I don’t just work for Intuit QuickBase; I’m a user too. I use the product all the time.  I’ve worked at other software companies where I’ve used their product a tiny bit internally – or at least taken a training class on how to use it (that was back in my enterprise software days).  But at QuickBase I actually use the product a lot – more than I’ve used the product of any other company I’ve worked at.

I think it’s pretty cool that we use QuickBase so much at work.  I use QuickBase to manage marketing projects and budgets, report on program results and submit/track website work requests.  I also use it to submit and track projects with external vendors.  That’s just a few uses off the top of my head.

I like how QuickBase is easy to use like a spreadsheet – it’s got that familiar rows and columns look to it – and the grid edit feature is near and dear to my heart.  I also like the fact that I can quickly create and share reports – and export them to a spreadsheet when I need to.

It’s about you
Sure I use and like QuickBase but onlinepmtools.com doesn’t want to hear from me, they want to hear from customers like you, so please do post a review.  Thank you!