The leaves are starting to fall here in New England, which means it is time for a QuickBase service update. The development efforts for the Fall 2006 release concentrated on:

• Major enhancements to View functionality
• Additions of vCard and iCalendar support to bring data to your desktop
• A new way to add tables for easy application evolution
• Updates to our Sales and Project Management ready-made applications
• A new Application Library for access to over 200 ready-made applications
• Additional QuickBase for Corporations features
• And more…

As always, we look forward to your feedback, and thank you for your support.

-- The QuickBase team

We’ve added several new features to Views that will help you change the way you look at your reports and information. Now at your fingertips are:

Dynamic Views

Now you can change your views directly from the column headings. For example:

• Add a new column or hide an existing one
• Sort or group in a new way
• Change the order of your columns
• Even change the justification and supply alternate column headers

Dynamic views are the fast and easy way to look at your data differently or re-format a report quickly!

To use this feature: Simply open any Table View and click on any column heading to choose the appropriate action.

Personal Views

We all look at the world in different ways. What’s right for you might not fit how someone else looks at it. Our new personal view feature is all about supporting individual users and the groups they work in. With Personal Views, you and your users can now save their own views, just for them, not selectable by other users.

To use this feature: Make a change to a table view, either using the new Dynamic View features, or through the View Builder. When you look at the view now, you’ll see Save, Save As, and Revert to the right of the view title. Select Save As, and select Personal View.

Calendar Views

One of our most popular types of views – Calendar Views – have been revamped. We’ve focused on readability and navigation. This includes adding more fields that can be displayed and a hover feature that displays even more information.

To use this feature: This one is as simple as using and/or changing any calendar view to see the results.

When printing a table view, you can optionally include the view description, matching criteria or current date with your print out.

To use this feature: Select Print from the mini-menu bar of any table view. When prompted, select Print the view as a table and check the content you would like to include on the printed view.

Navigating Views

We have added an interactive display that includes the current page number, as well as the total number of pages returned for any view over 1 page. From this display you can move to the next or previous page, or directly to any desired page.

To use this feature: You can find the multi-page navigation controls by selecting the arrow to the right of the Results in the mini-menu bar at the top of the view or in right corner of the border at the bottom of the page.

Want to get your contacts and meetings out of QuickBase and into your email or contact manager? You can now do it with a click with our new vCard and iCalendar support. Both of these standards are supported by Microsoft Outlook®.

We’ve added this support via new field types in QuickBase, appropriately named vCard and iCalendar. These fields are mapped to your existing fields for this information. Like other QuickBase fields, an application administrator can add multiple vCard or iCalendar fields and decide where to place them on forms and views. vCard and iCalendar fields display as icons on display forms and table views. If a user clicks on the icon, the event or contact is automatically added to their default desktop calendar and/or contact manager. In addition, if you use QuickBase email functions, the vCard or iCalendar information will be included as attachments for each vCard or iCalendar field.

To use this feature: From your application, select Customize > Fields & Tables from the main menu. Select the appropriate table tab and then click on the Add New Fields button, specify the field name and then select vCard or iCalendar for the field type. Click Add the Fields and then choose the form(s) to which you would like the new fields added. To define the field mappings, click on the new fields in the Fields list and map the desired fields.

To add a vCard or iCalendar entry to your calendar or contact manager, if that software supports vCard or iCalendar, simply click on the appropriate icon in the form or table view, or send yourself an email of a record to get the new field as an attachment.

Something we love about QuickBase is the ability to quickly and easily evolve your application as your needs change or you want to track more things. One form of evolution is to take a field and convert it to a table, so you can track more information about that field.

For example, consider this situation… you have a project management application where you only had one contact per client. Now, you want to have multiple contacts at any one client. You want to turn the field “Client Company” into a master table, with many contacts as the details to that company.

QuickBase now will automate the process of converting an existing field to a table by automatically creating a new table, adding the appropriate number of records, and converting the original field to a reference field with the correct values. You can optionally move additional fields to the new table at the same time. QuickBase will add the additional fields to the appropriate master record and replace the original fields with lookup fields.

To use this feature: From any table view, click on the column heading of the desired field and select Turn this column into a table…. If you would like to bring additional related fields to the new table, click on the Additional Fields… button and move the desired field(s) to the Fields to Extract: list and click the OK button. Select Next>>> and, if desired, enter a new name for the table and records to create finish the process.

With our Fall release, we’ve added “right-sized” applications in Sales and Project Management, and one should be just right for you.

Manage Your Sales Team: Right for most medium size sales teams with moderate complexity, the Manage Your Sales Team application allows you to track contacts, leads and opportunities. Reporting by lead, by rep, by deal, by activity, and by company allow you to understand where your deals are coming from, and how they are progressing through a sales cycle.

Sales Force Automation: Right for large or multi-tier sales teams with a complex sales process, or a complex post-sales cycle with renewals. Process orders, manage contacts and store and share marketing materials. Monitor product sales, calculate commissions and even track the competition with Sales Force Automation.

Track Team Pipeline: For the smaller, less complex teams that just wants to track their pipeline and their activities, the Track Team Pipeline application offers robust reporting and a simple interface to keep your sales opportunities on the move.

Basic Project Manager: Keep your team informed while simply tracking your projects and tasks. This application covers the basics for you. With a QuickStart guide to get you going and customized Dashboards to get your team going, you’ll be reporting on what you need to keep your project on track, quickly and easily. Like our others, this application reaches out and touches you and your team as tasks and projects are updated. With the automation you need to keep projects on track, this application leaves you free to tackle the bigger issues that need your expertise.

Project Manager Plus: This application is an enhanced version of our Basic Project Manager. It was designed to allow you to track not only project and tasks, but also issues, documents, resources and time. Issue tracking gives you another level of detail on tasks to make sure nothing falls through the cracks; resource utilization and costs across projects to give you that higher-level view; and, document management goes by project and across project. You’ll also get a QuickStart guide to help you get the most out of this application.

Project Manager Plus – Microsoft Project® Starter: Microsoft Project users are able to get started immediately in QuickBase in a flash. Simply turn your .mpp files into a QuickBase application in just a few clicks. This application is tuned to Project’s functionality. After your import, you can go all QuickBase for managing your project, and if you need to replan, or you like to work out of Project yourself, you can synchronize with Microsoft Project.

Over the past few years, we’ve grown the number of ready-made QuickBase applications from five to sixty, but you keep wanting more. How about more than three times that number? How about having over 200 applications at your finger tips? Our Application Library was built with our own team applications, Intuit designed-and-used applications, and customer applications. (All customer applications were submitted by our customers. We would not copy your applications without your permission.) Take this opportunity to learn how different people use QuickBase. We have over two dozen categories to help you find what is right for you.

You can also contribute to the library by adding ratings and including your applications. Again, submitting applications is completely up to you. The library has instructions on how to do this safely.

Most applications are included in your subscription to QuickBase. You would simply copy the application, and start using it. If you do need more users, data space, or file attachment space to use this application, you simply add those as normal. We have added the ability for people to add applications with contact information, if they want to separately charge for their application. Those applications will be clearly noted.

To use this feature: Simply follow this link, and then the Application Library will be on your my QuickBase page. If it disappears at any point, just search for “Application Library” from your My QuickBase page.

Last Fall, we introduced the QuickBase for Corporations, which includes private branding, directory authentication, custom password policies and user administration features that can be enforced across QuickBase billing accounts. This Corporate Edition is designed for large corporations who are managing thousands of users under one billing account or managing multiple accounts across many workgroups. This Fall, we are announcing a new addition to the Corporate edition: a QuickBase application that helps you understand what's going on with the users and applications in your account.

• External access: Get reports about which applications are accessed by people outside your company, which applications are available to Everyone on the Internet and which external users use QuickBase the most.
• User access: See which users have (or have not) recently accessed specific applications or, learn which users can be removed from all your applications because they've been inactive. Additionally, you can view any individual user's usage information across all applications to see what applications they value.
• Workgroup and team management: Get a sense of which divisions or workgroups have the most applications and usage.
• Application manager usage: Learn about which application managers are driving the most usage and using the most application / file attachment space.
• Compliance tracking: Keep track of who's requested access to specific applications and when users were granted this access.
• QuickBase limit tracking: Automate notifications to application managers regarding removal of inactive users and users who have left the company.

This type of tracking is critical for advanced application and user management, in addition to being used for compliance information tracking. Best of all, this information is all updated in a QuickBase application so you can leverage all the reporting capabilities and emailing capabilities to keep the account management teams up to date with what's going on across your billing account(s).

To use this feature: Contact our sales or support teams to inquire about about upgrading to the QuickBase for Corporations.

And yes, there’s more...

There are many tweaks and adjustments we make to QuickBase with each release, including performance and administration enhancements. We cannot outline every single one in these updates, but the smaller feats below deserve a mention. If you like some other features you run across, feel free to comment on them in our Community Forum or on our blog.

While it seems backwards, sometimes you want to create a new sales contact (detail), before you have created the company (master) for that sales contact. We’ve added the ability for you to add this company directly from the contact form. This isn't just about sales, either; it works for any master-detail relationship you have defined. QuickBase will automatically relate the new master to the current detail record and update all lookup fields.

To use this feature: From a detail record, choose to create a new master record from the dropdown list or record picker view of the reference field. For example, from the Manage Your Sales Team application, select Add a New Contact... from the Contacts dropdown on the main menu. In the form, select <Add a new company…> from the Related Company dropdown list.

Reference fields are often numeric fields, which makes them difficult to understand when they are displayed on a form or in a grid-edit view. For this release we are introducing the ability to specify a related field, called a Proxy field that acts like a reference field for editing but displays as a lookup field.

To use this feature: Select Customize>Fields & Tables and click on the appropriate reference field. In the field properties page, click the drop down field labeled Proxy Field and select the appropriate lookup field.

We’ve added more functionality to the Copy Application feature. Now, by default, copied applications will include all elements of the original application, including custom pages and e-mail headers and all automatic e-mails, such as notifications, reminders and subscriptions. Emails are copied in a disabled state, so you can decide which ones you want to use. In addition, all users who currently have access to your original application are automatically copied to the access list of your new application.

This added functionality makes Copy Application a great way to develop, test and roll-out new versions of your application to your team.

To use this feature: From your application, select Goto > Miscellaneous from the main menu. Select Copy Application, then choose the desired Data and User & Roles options for the new application.