Quickbase December 2023 Release Notes

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12.17.23

Enhancements

AI Smart Builder (Beta) enhancements

Enhanced Reports Generated by AI

When you create apps using AI Smart Builder, the Summary dashboard now displays more insightful AI-generated information focusing on key business performance indicators (KPIs) that are specifically tailored to your industry, use case, and app schema.

Audit Log enhancements

It’s now easier to use the audit logs for the app creation process through AI Smart Builder.

• All creation steps can be identified by the user agent QB-AI

Optimized app creation

We’ve optimized AI Smart Builder to create apps faster than ever. You can now create an app in around 90 seconds. This helps app builders to efficiently create foundational apps to use immediately or continue to extend and iterate.

Exchange (Beta) enhancements

We'll be making some improvements to the Exchange Beta over the next several releases. In this release, we will deliver the following updates:

New resource cards

We’ve re-designed resource cards to have a more modern look and feel and have reorganized some of the information on the cards.

Enhancements to formula installation

When you Install a formula URL, we no longer require you to modify the display settings after the installation. Formula URLs that are intended to be displayed as buttons or in iFrames will be created with these settings automatically.

Advanced Data Encryption – key authorization via AWS

If you are using the Advanced Data Encryption feature, we hold the encryption keys specific to your realm, giving your IT department greater control over how your data is secured. This also gives you the option to integrate with your Key Management System, making it easier to rotate the key on your schedule (via AWS or Azure). This month, we’re improving the AWS integration to allow direct access embedded in the key policy so that Quickbase can use it. This is a different way of authorization than designating a role in AWS and explicitly granting access to it. For more details on this functionality within AWS, see their help article.

Learn more about Quickbase encryption key management in our help article.

FastField integration – support for multiple photos

If you are using the FastField integration to submit data to Quickbase, you can now leverage the multi-photo field type. In FastField, this field type lets you add multiple photos at a single time, which can now be sent to Quickbase. The FastField integration detects this field type and allows the photos to be submitted to a related table in Quickbase (like Files).

See Multi Photo Field (Video), for more information. 

RESTful API - retiring legacy HTTP headers

Earlier this year, we announced that we would be deprecating the legacy HTTP Response Headers in our RESTful API shown below, in favor of the newer “retry-after” header. We originally provided a two-month window but left them in place longer to ensure that you had time to update your code. Note these headers have been returned with static values since our API migration in Q1 ’23. Starting in this release, these headers will no longer be returned.  See RESTfful API help for more information.

x-ratelimit-limit -- Maximum number of requests per time window.
x-ratelimit-remaining -- Number of requests remaining before the reset time window is reached.
x-ratelimit-reset -- Remaining time, in milliseconds, until a new window starts.

Forms updates

Save options

You can now select which save options are available to your end users using the save options in the Form settings menu placed on the page bar:

Pinned section updates

Pinned sections in forms display, even when there aren’t any visible pages.

Field properties tab automatically closes

As part of our enhancements to the form experience, we updated the behavior when editing a field property. When you are done making changes, we automatically close the tab.

Coming soon: embedded reports updates

Embedded reports on forms will be getting an updated look and feel. The two toolbars will be combined to give you more space and make things easier to find. Follow along on the status page to find out when this update will be rolled out.

New fields available in Admin Console connected tables for Users

Beginning December 18th, the following new fields will be available in the Admin Console’s connected table for Users:

• Account admin

• Super user

• Receive security question reset requests

• # of apps managed

• Pipelines create permission

• App admin

• Can create tokens

• Access to Solutions

• Authentication

The existing Access status field will also include one new status - Guest. A Guest is a user without app access who has not been realm-approved.

You can take advantage of the new data for your existing connected tables, since the new fields will be available for selection if the connection owner chooses to add new connected data fields to the respective table:

Visit our help center to learn more about this capability.

Performance Analyzer updates

Update results

We’ve added an Update results link in the Performance Analyzer so you can quickly refresh the performance analyzer window to see new activities as you’re browsing Quickbase in your main window.

For more information, see Analyzing performance of apps.

Performance Management Updates

Scale your apps more effectively with new forms. App builders can now troubleshoot and improve the performance in the new form experience using the Performance Analyzer and Performance Insights (available on the Enterprise pricing plan).

Formula checker (in Open Beta)

Use the formula checker to review the result and runtime of each expression in a formula. You can enter a record ID and a field ID, and then run the checker. The checker displays each expression, the result of the formula, and the runtime of that expression. For more information see Formula checker.

Use this tool to better understand the result of a formula.

In field properties, select the Formula checker button

Pipelines Designer updates

Pipelines Designer now remembers your last used connections for each channel

You can now automatically see your most recently used connections when you create a Pipeline. This streamlines your workflow creation. For example, if you have a pipeline involving Quickbase, Jira, and Slack, Pipelines remembers and applies your last connection for each step within these channels. This streamlines your workflows and makes the step setup easier.

Pipeline channels and connections updates

Pipelines Outlook channel - working with shared mailboxes

We are enhancing and expanding Microsoft’s Outlook channel capability to work with shared mailboxes consistently and throughout all email-related steps.

Going forward, the Outlook channel will offer two ways to use the functionality of a shared mailbox with some specifics in the user flow and permissions required:

• Shared Mailbox field - Full impersonation mode

• From Address field - send-on-behalf mode.

If you are currently using the From address field to send emails on behalf of a shared mailbox, you may need to revisit and modify your pipeline.

Learn more about shared mailboxes and if you need to do anything in our blog post and in our help documentation.

Pipelines Outlook channel Reply to an Email step

We’ve added a new Conversation History option field to the Reply to an Email step. You can choose whether to truncate the conversation history in the already existing email body or to keep the history in the email body and add a new message to it.

Pipelines Amazon AWS S3 channel enhancements

The file size limit is now changed to 100MB. See Amazon S3 channel.

Pipelines Webhooks, CSV, JSON Handler channels enhancements

We’ve improved error message content for Webhooks, CSV, and JSON Handler channels, when interacting with the Quickbase REST API. Also, when an error occurs, a more detailed body payload is returned in the Pipelines Activity log. In addition to the description and details that can help out in the debug process, the qb-api-ray identifier gives you a faster tech support response.

Pipelines – when cross-realm connections are forbidden

If your cross-realm security does not allow Pipelines connectivity or it has been revoked, Pipelines now automatically reports the authentication error.

View Pipelines Step Runs in Platform Analytics

We’ve introduced a new tile in Platform Analytics that displays the number of step runs in the billing period. A drill-down report displays step runs by user or pipeline.

Open Beta

What’s fixed in Quickbase

The actual date of deployment of the fix will appear in the WHAT WE FIXED column unless the fix is deployed on the day of the monthly release

End of Support

SFTP Connections for connected tables– ending support for SHA-1

Quickbase is focused on continually helping our customers improve their security by using the safest security protocols and aligning with industry best practices for data security and integrity. For that reason, we have updated the SFTP connector used for connected tables (Quickbase Sync) to only allow connections to SFTP servers that use SHA-2. See this article in Community for additional information.

The current version of the SFTP connector (Version 1) will continue to be available until May 2024 to give connection owners time to transition their older SFTP connections to the new version (Version 2).
To update an existing connection:

1. Select the user dropdown on the Global bar, then choose My Preferences.

2. In the My Connections section, select the SFTP connection you want to update.

3. Change the Client Version from 1 to 2 and re-enter the SFTP password.

4. Click the Save button to save your change.