Note: This topic is for Realm administrators only. QuickBase realms can be set up only on accounts that have purchased a QuickBase Enterprise plan.
Maybe you share your QuickBase applications with your clients, but wish
you could send them to a URL that included your company name and displayed
your own branding on every page. Or perhaps you run a large corporation
with several different departments maintaining separate QuickBase accounts.
How can you keep track of all this activity and funnel charges into the
correct budgets? How do you monitor and control user access? For example,
maybe you want to get QuickBase in line with your corporate security policies,
matching your standard sign-in and access rules.
If you have purchased the QuickBase Enterprise Edition plan, you can request your own realm. The realm account structure lets you group multiple accounts under one corporate umbrella for the first time. Though, you’re not limited to only one realm, of course.
Here’s how it works: One company can have multiple realms. Each realm can contain multiple accounts. Each account can contain multiple applications (as pictured below).
What this means is that a Realm Administrator can control users across
many different applications and accounts. This is especially useful for
reasons you’re about to read about.
What a Realm offers
If you’ve been using QuickBase, you’re used to signing into www.quickbase.com to access your account and the applications that live within it. A realm is kind of like your own version of www.quickbase.com. You create your own domain—literally—when you send users to your custom URL (details follow below). Multiple QuickBase billing accounts (if you have more than one) and any applications related to these accounts, live within your realm. This setup provides you with centralized control over all these applications and their users. Special features and rewards that come with implementation are as follows:
Custom URL. You love QuickBase, but maybe you wish your application could live on your own Web site, under your own domain name instead of on www.quickbase.com. Through a realm, you can create your own custom URL to host all your applications. This URL can start with your company name, or whatever text you wish. For example, you could send users to: myfabulouscompany.quickbase.com or companyproject.quickbase.com.
Custom Branding. If you use QuickBase to interact with customers, you were probably glad to read that you could direct clients to a URL containing your company name. What could be better? How about making the pages under that URL look more like your own Web site with your own branding? With realms, you can enhance your QuickBase application by displaying your own logo and corporate colors in the header of each page.
Deny user access to all your QuickBase accounts at once. Say an employee, Bob, has departed and his boss doesn't know what other departments gave Bob access to their QuickBase account. With Realm-level controls, you can cut off QuickBase access to all corporate accounts instantly.
Implement custom password policies. A lot of network administrators have high standards when it comes to password security. If you have a special password format that you require members of your organization to use, you’d probably like to carry those requirements over to your firm’s QuickBase applications. No problem. Realms enable you to set your own specific password policies across all your QuickBase accounts and applications. You can:
Set password length
Require that users use both upper and lower case letters.
Force users to change passwords regularly by setting a password expiration period. You can require a change every 60, 90, 120, or 360 days.
Automate general user access levels. Realms provide you with additional gate-keeping features to help track and control access to your applications. A major tool in this arsenal is Realm Approval Status. You assign each user an approval status to set some overarching access controls. For example, limit application access to members of your own company.
Control user sessions. Do you ever worry that users leave QuickBase sessions open in their browser? Realms offer control over user activities. You can force a timeout after a certain period of time (like a day or so—this feature is NOT tied to inactivity.) In addition, you can take away your users' ability to stay logged into QuickBase across browser sessions and force them to enter their user name and password each time they access your realm.
Usage Reports: See who's using what. Are you in charge of controlling costs for your corporation? Do you need to bill individual departments for their portion of your QuickBase charges? If so, you'll be interested in Realm user analysis features. See who's on what applications and which departments they belong to. Additional controls let you see which applications are accessible to users outside your company.
Integration with LDAP. Does your firm use LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) for network authentication? If so, QuickBase can join the party. Use this feature to match QuickBase passwords with those you use on your internal network. Read more.
Integration with SAML. Does your firm use a single corporate sign-on for access to multiple resources? If so, QuickBase can accept authentication sent from these systems by integrating with SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language). Read more.
Note:
Realm Policies (set using the Policies
tab) are not applicable when an external authentication system has been
implemented via LDAP or SAML.
FAQ-
After I create my realm and start working in it, can I access an application
on www.quickbase.com?
Yes, you can access applications in multiple realms, using the same user
account and/or user name. The only catch is that you may need to sign
in with a different password in each realm, as the password requirements
could easily differ in each. (Why? Because Realm Administrators can set their own custom password
policies.)