Quick Base

How to Incorporate Email And Text Messages Into Quick Base

Jessica Hawley — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 13:35:28 +0000

Around 300 billion emails and 20 billion texts are sent around the world each day. Within these messages lies a massive amount of data businesses can leverage in the workplace. But, how to harness it?

At EMPOWER2018, Quick Base solution provider Juiced Technologies, Inc. demonstrated its email and text add-ons in one of the most well-attended breakout sessions at the conference. Juiced Technologies has been developing applications on the Quick Base platform since the early 2000s and has created numerous solutions to further extend the platform. These include three solutions around email and text, which help to process data from incoming and outgoing messages, improve workflows and automate manual tasks.

Want to do more with email and text in your own Quick Base apps? Here’s a bit about each of Juice Technologies’ add-ons, and how they work:

For more powerful email functionality: Courier for Quick Base

While Quick Base has powerful email capabilities, Courier aims to enhance that functionality. “Just like a lot of our add-ons, we see the customer needs a little bit more,” said Todd Jusas, CTO and partner at Juiced Technologies. “Courier gives you that flexibility in creating more email capabilities.”

Courier solves Quick Base users’ needs around outbound email communications — this can include dealing with invoices, sending contracts, drip marketing campaigns and so forth. Some specific capabilities include sending emails with attachments, scheduling emails for set intervals, and creating triggers for emails based on what happens in the Quick Base app.

Today, Juiced Technologies says it’s processing more than half a million emails for its customers.

For converting emails into Quick Base Data: Email Parser for Quick Base

Juiced Technologies also has a solution for processing inbound emails. While the functionality has grown over time, it was originally inspired by a customer who was concerned about what would happen if the recipient of the website submission form was on vacation. The risk was the data would not get uploaded into Quick Base right away and thus cause errors in the system or even lead to a lost prospect.

Today, beyond pulling out data from emails, Email Parser for Quick Base can even pull data points from file attachments (such as a CSV file) in emails and process them into Quick Base.

For simple and fast text messaging: Text My Quick Base

“Text My Quick Base will handle inbound and outbound texts,” said Jusas. For example, you can send queries to update Quick Base, or send scheduled reminders to a set of individuals. It can also provide two-way communication: by texting a specific code, you will get information you need from your Quick Base app.

Jusas gave the example of a customer, NCR, a company that makes self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals and ATMs, among other things. NCR’s business model makes heavy use of third-party providers for installations and other work. As part of this, NCR wanted to know when those third-party providers arrive and leave during installations. So, they turned to Text My Quick Base: the rep texts “A9876” to note their arrival and “E9876” to note when they leave. That data then feeds into NCR’s Quick Base app.

Find out more here about Juiced Technologies’ email and text add-ons, and get even more add-ons on the Quick Base website.

EMPOWER2018 Resources to Help You Do What Matters

Jessica Hawley — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 16:32:01 +0000

The theme of this year’s EMPOWER2018 conference was Do What Matters. From the moment I stepped into the crisp air conditioning of the JW Marriott hotel to escape from the Texas heat that first day, sporting a purple shirt with my suitcase in tow, I knew the week would be full of energy and inspiration. Little did I know how many stories I would hear that would open my eyes to ways our customers are using Quick Base that I never thought possible. Our customers redefine “Do What Matters,” and it’s clear to me that they take problems they encounter into their own hands, and relentlessly drive ideas into action at their companies every day.

In between my shifts manning the Social Center, I was able to attend the keynote presentations and have a number of conversations while wandering the Exhibit Hall. I learned that Quick Base customers LOVE puzzles (literally and figuratively), but more importantly that they approach challenges with the idea that they can solve them with the right tools, technology, and people, and aren’t deterred by something new that they haven’t encountered before.

If I gleaned all this from casual conversations, imagine what you can learn from the 45 carefully planned breakout session topics. If you missed the event, or if there were some sessions you didn’t get to as an attendee, I encourage you to listen to them on Quick Base University. We’ve posted the audio and slides for all 45 breakout sessions given by Quick Base customers, partners, and employees, and I guarantee you they’ll open your eyes to something new, no matter your skill level or Quick Base expertise.

Resources

Breakout session recordings

Missed any sessions? Want to listen to one you attended again? Login to Quick Base University to listen to one or all of the 45 breakout sessions.

Keynote with CEO, Rick Willett

Featuring Rick Willett, George Mashini, and customers from TD Bank, Avant Healthcare, and HomeSquare, this keynote showcases the growing movement of no-code applications and what trends like AI and Blockchain really have to do with the future of no-code technology.

Keynote with SVP of Strategy & Product Management, Jay Jamison

Featuring Jay Jamison, Gev Hovsepyan, Gideon Ansell, Matt Saforrian and a cast of customers and partners, this keynote dives deep into how our product team continues to deliver on our key priorities of trust, simplicity, and power.

Recaps

Customer Award Winners & Finalists

Photo Highlights

We uploaded some of our favorite photos to Facebook to make it easy to share these albums with your coworkers:

Pre-Conference

Day 1

Day 2

Like what you see? We’ll be at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach June 10-13 for EMPOWER2019. Save the date!

How CTC Transportation Insurance Services Drives Productivity, Profitability, and Progress with Quick Base

Jessica Hawley — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 15:43:37 +0000

CTC Transportation Insurance Services (CTC) is one of the largest and fastest growing insurance companies in the nation. Quick Base has been a key facilitator of its accelerated trajectory since 2015, helping to nearly double the number of policies written in that time.

We sat down with CTC’s Lucas Perea, head of IT, and his colleague Stephanie Devine who is the lead developer, to learn how they are using Quick Base to drive a more efficient, agile, and innovative business.

The advantages and challenges of a diverse infrastructure

CTC’s thriving insurance business is a collaborative of companies it owns and works with including: other carriers, a finance firm, risk retention and management groups, an insurance ratings company and a surplus lines program management firm. Together, they enable CTC to provide a broad and competitive range of quality insurance services. Yet CTC’s diverse infrastructure was also hindering the staff’s ability to efficiently track, manage, and report on all the heavily regulated data housed and exchanged by the firm.

Lucas: The trucking insurance business is surrounded by regulation and keeping flawless, long-term records on every transaction across all parts of our business is critical. We must also stay in compliance with continually evolving rules and regulations. Manually integrating data across different point and proprietary systems or making any kind of changes or updates to these core platforms was very difficult. What we needed was a solution that could help us to bridge the gaps between systems and data sources and enable us to easily keep pace with change.

Stephanie: Before Quick Base there was a lot of frustration. We were using spreadsheets and doing a lot of data reentry to share information and collaborate. People were desperate for a better, more efficient, and more connected way to work.

A custom approach without the downsides of traditional development

CTC’s operational complexity made it unlikely that the team would find an out-of-the-box solution capable of standardizing, integrating, and automating the company’s data collection, storage, and processing needs. A custom-built solution was the answer, but past experience with externally sourced, traditionally developed solutions had made CTC executives less inclined to take that road again.

Lucas needed to find another way, and it turned out to be Quick Base—a no-code platform that offered the simplicity and flexibility to build tailored solutions without all the expense and risk of traditional app development.

Lucas: As a Managing General Agency we’re unique, and I knew our solution had to be as well. When I first learned about Quick Base, I wasn’t sure it was the right solution for us until I went to my first EMPOWER convention and was wowed by what it could do. The next year I persuaded our CFO and COO to come with me to the convention.

Somewhere between attending the first and second sessions they were just as sold on Quick Base’s capabilities. They also saw a simpler and more cost-efficient way to solve our challenges with apps we could quickly build ourselves as we needed them. And they recognized the platform’s potential to help us drive an increasingly profitable business with fewer risks and more opportunities for innovation and growth.

Keeping CTC’s workforce productive and connected

Fast forward three years, and virtually every staff member is benefitting from an easier, faster, and more collaborative way to work. At the core of CTC’s secure online Quick Base platform is the Master Policy Register App. It, along with other Quick Base apps, seamless integrations, and automated workflows, have made it possible to optimize all aspects of the business, including enhancing the quality and speed of service to insureds.

Lucas: Insurance is an industry where everything is centered on policy, so any change made by one department will affect all other departments. That means data must be highly integrated and able to easily move back and forth for us to operate effectively. Quick Base’s ability to support the automated extraction and unification of data from multiple internal and external systems now makes it faster and easier to track and manage activity across thousands of policies.

Stephanie: Automated alerts and notifications built into our Quick Base apps also make sure our users hit all the steps in a process, which standardizes and streamlines everything and enables us to deliver fast and consistent service—whether it’s underwriting a policy or addressing a pending cancellation. And Quick Base’s simplicity makes it easy for new hires to ramp up fast.

The platform’s centralized database has made it possible for us to broadcast up-to-the-minute, curated content across TVs installed in each department as well. Employees get a live view of everything from sales figures by region, to action items, to who’s visiting the department. We even have a ticker on the bottom that shows things like upcoming CTC events. It really helps foster a sense of community.

Making things happen with the right reports

Quick Base’s extensive reporting capabilities are also playing key roles in helping the company do everything from delivering winning presentations to providing senior management with custom views of the business for better decision making.

Stephanie: If someone is looking to present to a potential new investor or carrier, we have formula fields to quickly calculate everything there is to know about a program or initiative. From there, we can create convincing visuals using Quick Base’s many chart and graph options.

Lucas: We can also put reports in senior management’s hands that they wouldn’t have imagined possible years ago. The added visibility helps them see the business from all angles for better decision making.

Reducing risk, raising profitability

Reducing risk is an important goal for any business, but for those in the insurance industry it is critical to a company’s viability. If a business cannot show that it is profitable and able to pay claims, then regulators can deem it unstable and force it to shut down. Quick Base has enabled CTC to continue to improve its profitability margins by minimizing losses in a number of ways.

Lucas: One of our biggest risk reducers is our Master Policy Register app which provides one place to reference data for underwriting and policy management. Before we built it, our underwriters had to log into multiple systems just to get the full picture on a policy. Now they can quickly analyze merged policy data and get immediate insight on whether a potential insured will be a good risk.

Stephanie: Another thing we’re doing is helping existing policy holders remain in good standing with things like free electronic driver logs.

The app also interfaces with the Department of Transportation on things like inspections and violations. That information is combined with policy reviews and our records on past claims, cancellations, etc. Because we’ve moved all these workflows into Quick Base, we have so much more transparency throughout our company. It enables us to automatically flag an inspector to schedule a visit with an insured if, for example, a lot of violations start popping up.

Endless possibilities for innovation and competitive gain

Improvement and innovation are always on the agenda, and it’s not just the Quick Base admin and executives who see all the possibilities. More people in all areas of the business are stepping forward with their own ideas about how Quick Base could make their work lives easier.

Stephanie: We’re at that point now where the house is built and they’re like, “Ah, this painting would look really good right there.” My inbox is proof positive that Quick Base is successful within our company. It’s always full because someone’s always thinking of some new way to use it.

We’re currently working on a project that will add a new button on everyone’s home page that is connected to a project management app for Quick Base development. That will make it even easier for users to request app changes and updates. Quick Base helps us stay nimble and innovative without having to rely on another provider.

Lucas: Another idea we have is to use Quick Base data to power a CTC virtual assistant (like Amazon Echo and Alexa devices). This will enable underwriters and agents to quickly get rough quotes with voice commands. Insurance isn’t always the most exciting subject, but we try to keep it fun and interesting. Quick Base is helping us stand out in many ways.

June 2018 Release Notes

Craig Lordan — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 14:06:45 +0000

The Quick Base June release delivers on our commitment to enterprise security and governance, with new controls that help you comply with your organization’s security standards and corporate policies, including:

Audit logs (summary of data changes)
Realm-specific encryption keys
Special characters for passwords

In addition, our new Automations feature already has more enhancements, and the new My Apps page becomes your default experience.

The June release of Quick Base, including the features and fixes listed in these release notes, is available starting Sunday, June 24, 2018.

SPOTLIGHT

New use case for audit logs

Audit logs help ensure you meet your organization’s security standards and corporate compliance policies.

This month, our next phase of enhancements to audit logs include when records are created, modified or deleted. For example:

These enhancements are in addition to the existing logs showing when records are read. In a future phase, audit logs will include payload information for record changes.

Audit logs are included with Platform and Unlimited plans with 6 months data retention and available as an add-on for Premier plans. Data retention is the continued storage of an organization’s data for compliance or business reasons. Admins can view and download audit log information in 7-day increments. A total of 90 days of activity is available. Retention packages for your account are available for 1, 3, and 7 years.

Access audit logs in the left-hand navigation bar of the Admin Console.

Realm-specific encryption keys

Quick Base currently encrypts all customer data at rest at the application layer using a global AES 256 key. As customers continue to store more data within Quick Base, they need to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of that data. The June release now includes capabilities to encrypt proprietary data with realm-specific keys.

To set up encryption keys for your organization, please open a support case.

Schedule your Quick Base Automations

Now Quick Base Automations is more powerful and more convenient with our new trigger type: schedule. You can easily set up your automation to run on a set daily, weekly, or monthly schedule.

Choose on a schedule as your trigger type, then select the frequency. For weekly or monthly schedules, select which days your automation will run.

For example, you could update your budget reports on the first and last day of every month.

We’ve also made the following improvements to automations:

Made the modify related records action easier to use.
Added the automations owner to the Automations List page.
Improved the sort order of the Automations List page and the select criteria drop-downs on the Trigger page. These now display alphabetically.
Moved the Comments section (formerly called notes) to the bottom of the left-hand navigation bar.
Updated the labeling on the run table-to-table import action page to improve usability.

Require special characters for passwords

When setting the policy for password requirements, realm administrators now have an option to require the use of special characters.

When a user creates or changes a password, the new password requires at least one standard special character from the list below.

! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / : ; < = > ? @ [ ] ^ _ ` { | } ~

A space is also an acceptable special character.

Last sign-in date and time message

A message now appears notifying users of the last date and time of sign-in to Quick Base. The message appears each time a user signs in to Quick Base. The date and time reflect the user’s local settings.

New My Apps page

With our May 2018 release, we let you try out our new My Apps page. The feedback we have received so far has been overwhelmingly positive, so with our June 2018 release, the new My Apps page will become the default experience for users.

The new My Apps page enables users to do everything they could with the previous experience, but with a simplified, modernized look and feel.

Users will still be able to use the previous (original) experience if they choose to do so, by clicking Use original experience in the upper right of the My Apps page:

COMING SOON

Create a table-to-table relationship

Coming soon, we have an early access opportunity available to try out a new, streamlined way to build table-to-table relationships, with guidance to help you connect your tables more easily.

To participate, please fill out our sign-up form: New Relationship Builder Early Access.

Identity management

We have an early access opportunity to new identity management integration capabilities in Quick Base. We are working on features using the standard System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) specification to allow you to sync Quick Base with common identity managers popular across cloud applications and services, such as Okta, Ping, and OneLogin.

To participate, please open a support case.

Kanban reports

We’re extending early access to our popular Kanban reports, which show your fields as sorted, draggable cards in columns.

With this release, those in early access can now

Select which card groups to display on reports, up to 10 groups
Display more field types on Kanban cards, including rich text, phone numbers, users, and URLs

Also, moving a card from one column to another automatically updates that card, including color coding on the card, re-evaluating formulas, and re-checking permissions and report filtering. For example, if a user doesn’t have edit permissions for tickets with a status of “Done,” after dragging the card to the Done group, the card can no longer be dragged.

If you are interested in this feature, please open a support case.

ALSO IN THIS RELEASE

When viewing user tokens on the Admin Console, there is a new Export CSV option available.
API_DoQuery has a new optional parameter, useFids, which specifies that the IDs of each field should be used for the field tags in the record aggregate, instead of field names, when fmt is not specified for the request. The field tags will match those in the structured response.
When setting criteria, users will see more type-ahead field pickers, including in email notifications, custom permissions for roles, and triggering Webhooks and Actions.
We upgraded the Box SDK we use for Box connections to use TLS 1.2. Box is removing support for TLS 1.0.

NEW RESOURCES

Quick Base University

Quick Base Certification

We’re happy to announce that your Quick Base subscription now includes a complimentary certification exam registration through the end of 2018. Use the promo code qbcert when you register.

You have the choice of two certifications: App Builder and Expert Builder. You can find certification details on Quick Base University.

New and Updated eLearning Courses

EF04: Quick Base EMPOWER2018 – Recordings of some of the most popular sessions delivered during the EMPOWER2018 conference, held in Austin, TX, June 4-7, 2018.

Quick Base University Curriculum App – A new View Learning Curriculum link has been added to the Quick Base University home page. This offers a complete view of our entire curriculum in a Quick Base University Curriculum app. The app provides an overview of our entire eLearning course offering with direct links to each series, course, and lesson.

II17: Working with Automations – This course will be updated (available June 25) to cover new features including scheduling and actions to modify or delete records.

Q02: 2018 Continuing Education – Q2 – Presents key product features released in Q2, including an overview of the benefits as well as step-by-step instruction for use. Note: If you have 2018 certification, you are required to complete these quarterly courses to automatically receive the 2019 Certification. (Available June 30.)

WHAT’S FIXED IN QUICK BASE?

We continue to focus on quality. Below are the issues we fixed this month.

Note: Platform security, billing changes, back-end tooling, and performance are all ongoing commitments. Each release may include changes in these areas.

Issue ID	Description
QBE011931	Fixed an issue where custom fields could cause Zendesk connections to fail with an internal server error for an input string.
QBE012483	Corrects a display issue with the Admin Console navigation menu for certain types of accounts.
QBE012494	Clicking “Favorite” on a report did not work if the app header color was changed to a light color background, so that the Show Favorite Reports icon appeared as black instead of white. This has been fixed.
QBE012502	Restores the view choice “Users in my role” when saving a new report.
QBE012512	Advanced search for tables was not working correctly in some browsers. This has been fixed.
QBE012534	Fixes an issue with built-in fields displaying duplicate “date modified” information.
QBE012550	For some apps with an existing home page, a message appeared prompting creation of a home page. This issue has been fixed.

The June release of Quick Base, including the features and fixes listed in these release notes, is available starting Sunday, June 24, 2018.

EMPOWER2018 Event Recap

Jessica Hawley — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 12:33:49 +0000

Every year, we do so much each day that it feels like EMPOWER flies by. But we’re never short on awesome memories! We couldn’t have had such a successful event without all of our inspiring customers, partners, and employees. Here are some of our favorite moments from this year (let us know if we’re missing anything!)

App-a-Thon Winners Announced at Stubb’s BBQ Party

We announced the winner and gave away grand prizes of $5000, $3000, and $2000 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, respectively. Congratulations to the top three winning teams! A big shout out to team Prime Time for taking the grand prize and walking away with all the glory and bragging rights to boot! After hearing a fictional use case for a bar trivia company, these teams came up with creative solutions and built Quick Base apps in just a few hours.

1st place: Prime Time

Dan Ricci, Manager of Business & Data Analytics, Prime Buchholz LLC

Nate McCue, Business Analyst, Prime Buchholz, LLC

Jacob Lehoux, Business Analyst, Prime Buchholz, LLC

2nd place: Drinks Not Shrinks

Darla Nutter, IT Architect, Datatrend Technologies

Debbie Bruce, Senior Director PMO, Atos North American Operations

David Pontier, Senior Project Leader, KI Industries

Amanda Allen, Senior Manager of Lab Operations, Leap Oncology

3rd place: Holy Shirts and Pants

Jerry Sworen, Digital Applications Development Manager, Metro

Kevin O’Boyle, Director of Marketing, Metro

Patrick O’Boyle, Business Analyst, Metro

Dan Rutecki, Analyst, Metro

And the Customer Award winners are…

The Pathfinder Award, given to the organization that moves the needle in new and different ways by reimagining how their business succeeds went to TD Bank.

The Catalyst Award, given to the organization that creates a culture in which motivated people are empowered people went to Relias.

The Impact Award, given to the organization that demonstrates the results of driving ideas into action for their organizations every day went to Vumatel.

The Quick Base Hero Award, given to the person for whom innovation has become part of the job went to Forrest Parker from CRH Americas Materials.

Congratulations to these outstanding customers!

Product Announcements

Did you catch the product keynote? We unveiled our product roadmap for 2018. See more info in our Wednesday recap.

Put on your sunglasses – EMPOWER2019 is headed to Miami!

Yup, you heard that right, we’re going to soak up some sun in 2019 and make our way to Florida for next year’s conference! It will be at Fontainebleau Miami Beach June 10-13, 2019. Save the Date, and sign up now to be notified when registration opens!

Daily Recaps

Check out our recaps of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for highlights from each day.Check out all the action from the week on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebookand Instagram (#QBEMPOWER18) and share your favorite memories!

EMPOWER2018 Wednesday Recap

Jessica Hawley — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 18:00:40 +0000

What an exciting Day 2 of #QBEMPOWER18! Check out the highlights:

Women’s Leadership Breakfast

We started the day bright and early with our first-ever Quick Base Women’s Leadership Breakfast, led by Cynthia Gumbert, SVP of Marketing and Amy Cohn, SVP of Human Resources. Did you know that 4 out of 10 people who use Quick Base are women? We’re inspired by all the women who have used our platform to create innovative apps and by those who have advanced their careers by being no-code builders. A big thanks to all panel members for sharing their experiences, including:

Jacqueline Di Filippo, Application Manager, Marketing at TD Bank
Jessica Curtis, Senior Vice President, Formation Healthcare Group
Joanna Schreck, Senior Manager, Operational Excellence at UBM

Quick Base Product Keynote

Before sessions began, SVP of Strategy & Product Management, Jay Jamison, took the stage to lead our Product Keynote presentation.

Jay walked through our product roadmap for 2018, giving insight into how Quick Base’s will deliver on Trust, Simplicity, and Power. Product managers joined him on stage to discuss features that were newly released, as well as what’s coming soon, including:

New ‘My Apps’ Page
Audit Logging
Advanced Data Encryption
Enterprise Identity Management Integrations
Quick Base Automations

We’ve got some more news!

We’ve made a lot of improvement to our mobile experience over the last several months, and we’re not done yet. The next step is to make it easier for users to access the Quick Base mobile experience. So, we’re working on a native Quick Base mobile app that provides direct access to Quick Base from a phone or tablet without having to go through the mobile web browser!

In addition to the native Quick Base mobile app, we’re excited to announce our new Builder Program! This program is a low friction way for Builders to use Quick Base for learning and developing skills, and is designed to attract and nurture vastly more Builders. Learn more and sign up for updates here.

We felt the energy in the room, and are so excited to be able to share this information with our customers and partners. We look forward to working with all of you as you continue to build and evolve your Quick Base apps!

Offsite Party at Stubb’s BBQ

We’re off to enjoy an evening of this beautiful Austin weather, great music, and delicious food at Stubb’s BBQ. Don’t miss the headliner tonight, The Roosevelts, playing the outdoor ampitheater!

Check back tomorrow for the final recap of EMPOWER2018. Be sure to check out our Facebook albums with photo highlights from the Pre-Conference, Day 1, and Day 2.

EMPOWER2018 Tuesday Recap

Jessica Hawley — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 20:00:59 +0000

Day 1 is coming to a close, and if it’s any indication for what’s to come, we can’t wait for Day 2! Here are today’s highlights from #QBEMPOWER18:

Morning Keynote with Greg Verdino

Greg Verdino, a business futurist and expert on digital transformation, took the stage to help attendees learn how to win in the age of digital disruption and thrive in the face of exponential change. He brought a fantastic energy and mindset to jumpstart the next 2.5 days of learning and innovation. Take a look at his keynote presentation below or read more on his blog.

Here are some of our customers’ favorite quotes and ideas from the keynote:

Ask this question to your business leaders: “Are we continuing to act with yesterday’s logic?”

“If you’re doing business the way you always have, you are going out of business.”

“The gap between people and business is much easier to bridge than business and tech innovation.”

“The last great experience someone had with any company is the new standard experience they expect from every company.”

By 2045 a single processor will be as powerful as all human minds combined… whoa!

Thanks to our Quick Base Heroes for sharing these!

Breakout Sessions

The first day of the conference means a full day of learning across 24 different breakout sessions. These sessions span three different tracks and are led by Quick Base experts, including our own employees, partners, and customers. Speakers shared their knowledge to help attendees be smarter about app planning and deployment, master the product to get the most out of Quick Base, and drive strategic growth to stay in front of the competition.

Some of today’s sessions include:

A no tears approach to peeling the integration onion
Turning data into decisions: Quick Base as a strategic asset
Magic Quick Base examples (part 1 & 2)
Managing Quick Base in your enterprise: security and compliance deep dive
App Aesthetics: Why design matters and where to actively consider it

Any many more! We’re looking forward to another 24 unique sessions tomorrow.

Afternoon Keynote with CEO, Rick Willett

Rick Willett, CEO of Quick Base, took the main stage where he shared our vision for the future and led discussions with some of our most innovative customers, including TD Bank, HomeSquare, and Avant Healthcare.

Quick Base is CUSTOMER OBSESSED, and we strive to empower those closest to the work to solve problems and do what matters in their companies. We believe that every employee in every organization can benefit from access to Quick Base.

Got questions? Don’t miss Rick’s Town Hall on Wednesday 6/6 from 3-4pm where you can ask him anything!

Following Rick, our Chief Technology Officer, George Mashini, also took the stage to discuss differentiated technology, Quick Base’s architecture vision, and how Quick Base has a no-compromise approach when it comes to being both powerful and simple compared to other platforms.

Customer Award Winners Announced

The Quick Base Customer Award winners were announced at the networking party! We are proud to have a community of such outstanding customers who have developed strategies and use cases that take Quick Base to completely new levels. Congratulations to the following winners:

The Pathfinder Award, given to the organization that moves the needle in new and different ways by reimagining how their business succeeds went to TD Bank.
The Catalyst Award, given to the organization that creates a culture in which motivated people are empowered people went to Relias.
The Impact Award, given to the organization that demonstrates the results of driving ideas into action for their organizations every day went to Vumatel.
The Quick Base Hero Award, given to the person for whom innovation has become part of the job went to Forrest Parker from CRH Americas Materials.

Be sure to congratulate these winners (and don’t forget about these amazing finalists!) if you meet them during Day 2 of the conference!

Check back tomorrow for the recap of Day 2 from #QBEMPOWER18! (Or, take a look back at the highlights from the pre-conference.) Be sure to check out our Facebook page with photo highlights of Day 1!

How Far Can You Push the Envelope on Workflow Automation?

Mariana St.Germain — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 09:00:01 +0000

Automating workflows is at the heart of solving problems with app building platforms like Quick Base. Business professionals have been pushing the envelope on creating complex business logic that matches their exact processes without writing code. And now, with Quick Base’s new automation capability, they can push that envelope a much greater distance than ever before.

I’m thrilled to introduce Quick Base Automations and doubly thrilled to do so surrounded by hundreds of passionate “Quick Basers” in Austin, Texas at EMPOWER, our fourth annual user conference. This capability enables you to create business rules with clicks, not code, so you can build dramatically more powerful Quick Base apps that solve unique problems in every part of your organization. You can now get Quick Base to do more things on a schedule and do multiple things in order automatically – without workarounds or writing code. This means less time spent on low-value work and more teams focused on the work that truly matters like raising the bar on customer experience and growing your business.

How Does Automations Work?

An automation represents a business rule that you define to automatically perform actions. It consists of a trigger and one or more actions.

The trigger is what starts your automation. It can be a change in your Quick Base app or a set schedule.

An action can add, modify, or delete a record. It can also move data across apps by running a table-to-table import that you previously created.

How Are Customers Using Automations?

With Automations, you have countless opportunities to automate your workflows. For example, you can automate the creation of new projects with a large number of steps, taking snapshots of sales data for the weekly sales trend report, or identifying VIP accounts based on deal amount and treating them preferentially.

This is how Chad of Projects Force, a technology services provider for the construction industry, describes their use of Automations in his own words:

“Quick Base gives us the power to formulate solutions for complex problems and build them in minutes. We manage real estate development projects that involve hundreds of residential units and a huge number of tasks are required to build all those units. Creating tasks in our Quick Base application used to take 30 minutes per unit but now with Automations, it happens automatically. This has freed our team to spend more time working with customers directly, helping us significantly improve our customer service.”

~ Chad Thomas, President of Sales and Service at Projects Force

Where Do I Begin?

You can access Automations from your app’s Settings page under Advanced Features.

If you need help getting started, check out Working with Automations, a 13-minute training video hosted at Quick Base University, that walks you through creating automatons. You can also consult the help documentation.

Want to see how far you can push the envelope and what workflows you can streamline with Automations? Just log in and build your first automation. I’d love to know what you think, please leave a comment below.

EMPOWER2018 Monday Recap

Jessica Hawley — Mon, 04 Jun 2018 23:50:42 +0000

EMPOWER2018 is officially here, and what a fabulous pre-conference day we’ve had. The competition was fierce in today’s App-a-thon, and dozens of Quick Base customers came together for a live Fundamental Training event. Did I mention the kick-off party on the roof deck that was led outside by a marching band? We’re loving Austin, Texas!

The Quick Base App-a-Thon

In the third annual App-a-Thon, teams of 3-4 participants had just over six hours to build the best app to meet a given set of criteria, revealed this morning. This year, builders received a scenario where they had to help create an app for a fictional bar trivia company. Limited to 100 participants, builders vied for glory, bragging rights, and of course, the $5000 grand prize (there’s also $3000 for second, $2000 for third).

The first round of judging concluded today, and three teams will advance to the final round, held tomorrow night during the networking party in the Exhibit Hall. Judging was performed in a tradeshow format, where judges walked around and talked to different teams throughout the competition. In round two, teams will present for 15 minutes each in the demo theater in front of a panel of judges. Winners will be announced at the off-site networking party at Stubb’s BBQ on Wednesday (and walk away with a giant check)!

Quick Base Fundamentals Training

110 customers attended the Fundamentals Training today with the Quick Base University team. Our rockstar Customer Training Managers, Freddie Sabbs, Benjamin Buday, and Eliza Little, helped new Quick Base users become better and more confident builders. In this full day training session, participants focused on best practices to effectively plan and build apps. Next, they headed to the kick-off party to get fired up for the next 2.5 days full of education and inspiration! Get ready to make a significant impact with Quick Base when you leave the conference!

We kicked off EMPOWER2018 on a pool deck with a marching band

Are you as happy as we are to be in Austin? We kicked EMPOWER2018 off in style – starting with this incredible Texas Longhorn cake (do you notice the cow’s “brand?”) A big thanks to Sideserf Cake Studio for creating this masterpiece and for dropping it off in person!

This year, we hosted EMPOWER After Dark on the pool deck of the JW Marriott! The best part: attendees were led up to the party by this amazing marching band.

We’re excited to be surrounded by hundreds of our most enthusiastic customers and partners to start this week off right.

We’ll be sharing our favorite photos from the conference (including the hilarious ones from the photo booth at the kick-off party) on our social media channels using #QBEMPOWER18. Keep an eye out for those and let us know your favorites!

And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and check out our Facebook album with photo highlights of today’s Pre-Conference.

EMPOWER2018 is happening in Austin, June 4-7, 2018.

Follow the action on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and/or Instagram (#QBEMPOWER18) where we’ll be providing updates and sharing moments live from the event.

The Ultimate Guide to Attending EMPOWER2018

Jessica Hawley — Thu, 31 May 2018 14:00:48 +0000

As a Quick Base user, there’s nothing better to get you hyped up and ready to tackle your next project – and ultimately do what matters most in your job – than attending EMPOWER2018. If you’re looking to learn more, convince your boss, secure budget or plan your agenda, then this post is for you!

Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to EMPOWER2018 – your one-stop-shop for the who, what, when, why, and how of Quick Base’s annual user conference.

In the months leading up to the event, this blog post will be updated regularly with the latest news and contests, and all information you need to make the most of it. So bookmark this page and check back often.

Our event emcee, Davin Wilfrid, shares some advice on how to make your experience the best it can be:

Getting there

Convince Your Boss

Your manager wants to know that attending EMPOWER is worth your time away from the office and their travel budget – and that you’ll return with skills and ideas to share with your colleagues. If telling them that you’ll have over 45 unique breakout sessions to choose from, an exhibit hall packed with resources, and Quick Base staff at your disposal isn’t enough, we have good news – we put together a justification letter to help. Take a look, customize it, and you’ll have them agreeing in no time.

Purchase Your Tickets

Once your boss is bought in, it’s time to get your tickets. If you’re new to Quick Base, consider adding Pre-Conference Fundamental Training to your registration. If you’re a more experienced builder, compete in our annual App-a-Thon and your might walk away with the $5000 grand prize! Only planning to attend the main conference? The registration page has all the options available to you. If multiple Quick Base users from your company are planning to attend, you’ll save 10% when you register four or more attendees!

Traveling to Austin

The JW Marriott in Austin, Texas is the home base for EMPOWER2018. It’s only a 15-minute drive from Austin International Airport and just steps from some of the city’s the best attractions – including the Sixth Street Entertainment District and the Texas State Capitol. For more information, rates, maps, or to reserve a room at a discounted rate, click here.

Preparing for your time at EMPOWER

How to use your time well

Since you’ve promised to return to the office with new ideas, make sure you write your goals down before the event, and reference them throughout the conference. In order to do this successfully, you should prep ahead of time so you are thinking about these goals from Day 1 at EMPOWER. Here are some ideas to think about:

How to further maximize your company’s investment in Quick Base
Learn new ways to improve existing apps, or come up with new app ideas to improve efficiency of your team
Learn how new Quick Base product innovations can help drive your team or business in 2018 and beyond

Don’t forget to set aside some time for breaks. Plan to network with others – there is a lot of fun activities planned throughout each day and night of the week. Make sure to leave some time to relax and explore Austin!

Planning your agenda

You can look forward to inspiring keynote sessions, including the Quick Base product roadmap, 45 unique breakout sessions, meals, networking, and much more throughout your time at EMPOWER. Go into the event with a plan for which sessions you want to join; you don’t have to register for sessions ahead of time. Each session is first come, first served, but there will be repeats of the most popular sessions on Thursday, June 7th in case you don’t get a chance to participate in everything you want on Tuesday or Wednesday. We recommend having at least two options per time slot to make sure you’re getting into a session that is relevant to your goals.

When planning your goals, think about what you want to get out of the event and which session topics will help you achieve your goals. There are three session tracks this year:

Smart Planning and Deployment: Understanding your processes is critical to Quick Base success. This track is ideal for app builders looking to define business processes and app requirements, integrate disparate systems, learn best practices for rolling out a no-code platform, get users to adopt the platform, and more.
Mastering Quick Base: Instruction for users of all levels to help get the most out of Quick Base. This track will include topics on functionality how-tos, new product features, workflow automation, integrations, account administration, and leveraging Quick Base resources.
Driving Strategic Growth: Innovate faster and stay ahead of the competition with Quick Base. This track will help you calculate your ROI, understand how to use Quick Base as a strategic platform, learn about data and security updates, and much more.

We’re pleased to announce that the first round of breakout sessions have been announced! You can check them out on the EMPOWER site: www.empower2018.com. Don’t forget, the calendar of sessions will be posted on empower2018.com and in the EMPOWER2018 app once they are announced, so be sure to check back there for quick reference.

During the event

Get ideas, capture them, bring them back to your company

You joined a session where you learned an amazing tip about a workaround for an app building challenge you didn’t know how to solve before. This would be a great time to document the tip on your goal list from before! Or maybe you got an idea of how you could change an existing app you’re using to be more effective. How about an idea for a completely new app? Maybe you can better understand a new product feature or integration that will help you make a bigger impact on your team. Any of these scenarios warrant documenting your learnings and ideas so you have a running list of the actionable takeaways you learned at EMPOWER. Believe me, you’ll thank yourself for taking the few minutes during the conference when you’re on your way home thinking about what you’re going to share with your team and boss!

It’s also a good idea to draw a connection to business impact. After each session, we recommend documenting the following (even if it’s just a few bullet points):

How has this session helped me think about ways to drive the bottom line? Think about metrics such as cost savings, revenue growth, error reduction, process efficiencies, etc.

New this year – Women’s Leadership Breakfast

Did you know that 4 out of 10 Quick Base builders are women? Want to meet some of them? Join us on Wednesday, June 6th from 7:30-8:45 a.m. CDT for networking and professional insights from our panel of female executives and customers who have used Quick Base to advance their careers. Read our blog post for the full agenda and for more information on our panel members and host!

Resources you should know about

Registration booth

This is location #1 you should find when you arrive (although you may want to check in to the hotel if you’re staying there first). You’ll get your badge, bag of swag, and information you need to navigate the conference. Don’t forget to pick up a button (or a few) as a conversation starter. Look for them to easily spot people with similar interests or specialties as you!

Social center

A must-stop spot throughout the event. Visit the social center throughout EMPOWER for:

Swag giveaways
Contests
Questions about sessions & session tracks
EMPOWER2018 mobile app help
How to engage with Quick Base
To become a Quick Base Hero
To participate in our customer survey (you can view our State of Business Apps report from 2017 here)
Some friendly conversation
And much more!

Exhibit Hall

This is at the heart of the conference, and there’s always a reason to stop in. Meet with Quick Base partners, watch demos in the Demo Theater, network, and participate in a scavenger hunt here for the chance to win an Apple Watch! (And make sure to turn in your completed scavenger hunt card at the Social Center.)

Tech Bar

Need technical help with your apps? Make a 1:1 appointment with a Customer Success Engineer while you’re at EMPOWER!

Food

There’s a designated dining area where main meals will be served (meals are included with your registration). You will find coffee, tea, water and drinks at stations throughout the event.

Where to go for help

If you find yourself unsure of where to go, have questions about the EMPOWER mobile app, or need assistance with deciding on a session, you can always stop by the social center. There will be a table there dedicated to EMPOWER mobile app support and questions about sessions. When in doubt, look for a Quick Base employee or EMPOWER staff member (usually someone wearing purple) and they can assist you.

Meet other Quick Base builders like you

This is a great opportunity to meet with people who are in a similar job function and solving similar problems as you are with Quick Base. People travel from all over the country and come from all types of industries and job functions; you would be amazed by how much you can learn by having casual conversations with other Quick Base builders. This year, we’ll be providing buttons to wear to easily identify others who have similar Quick Base experience or interests. While you’re there, don’t be afraid reach out to speakers in person, on social media (don’t forget to use #QBEMPOWER18), or via the EMPOWER mobile app with any questions from sessions!

You may be able to catch up with coworkers on your team that you don’t directly work with day-to-day. Diversify the sessions you attend, and then talk about what you learned at one of the networking events or as you’re exploring the city.

Time management – staying connected with the office

While you’re at a conference, you want to be present and focus on getting value out of your time there. This can make it challenging to make time for your regular job. A good strategy is to block off times in your schedule to check emails and catch up with what is happening at the office. Making this choice ahead of time will alleviate any stress you may have about feeling like you need to balance both. This will be easy at EMPOWER since there will be wifi available throughout the venue for attendees, as well as many lounge areas to utilize for a quiet moment.

Explore Austin

Being in downtown Austin, EMPOWER attendees will be at the heart of the most vibrant areas of the city. This provides a great opportunity to explore if you’re interested in doing some sightseeing. From the entertainment district to world class restaurants to live music, Austin has a lot to offer! Take a look at austintexas.org for ideas and inspiration. (We’ll be arranging a group to walk over and watch the 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats emerge from the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge on Tuesday night. Look out for us in the JW Marriott lobby as the day is winding down after sessions are over!)

What to do after EMPOWER is over and you’re back home

Follow up with people you’ve connected with

There are hundreds of people to connect with at EMPOWER, and hopefully you will have a chance to network with others who you want to stay in touch with to share tips, tricks and experiences after the conference. Make sure to keep track of all your business cards, and plan to connect with people on LinkedIn on your way back from the event. If you’re a real conference pro, you may have already taken notes on the business cards you collected to remind yourself about conversations you had at the event.

To form really solid connections, you could consider sharing some of what you learned in sessions that you attended (take a look at your handy goal list) with other Quick Base builders, or a session you attended that they missed.

Prove ROI of the conference to your boss

Summarize what you learned. Outline new apps you’ve planned to build, improvements to existing apps you learned from the conference, key takeaways from the keynote speakers, upcoming features from the product roadmap, or highlight a new skill you have.

Share what you learned on social media

Last but not least, if you aren’t already part of the Quick Base community on social media, be sure to follow Quick Base on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn for post-EMPOWER content!

By now, you should have a solid idea of what to expect at EMPOWER2018 and ideas for how to reach your goals. Don’t forget to bookmark this page and check back for the latest and greatest. What are you most looking forward to at EMPOWER2018? If you haven’t registered yet, get your tickets now!