Quickbase December 2024 Release Notes

Release date
December 15, 2024

New

Pipelines HTTP channel

Integrating with various web services can be a complex task. We're aiming to change that with an intuitive, powerful new channel. Available December 17, The Pipelines HTTP channel enables secure connections to third-party services when no dedicated channel exists or there are limitations of the existing channels.

Learn more about the HTTP channel.

This channel will cover integration and workflow automation use cases and features:

Secure handling of credentials via encryption
An intuitive and simplified authentication process through the creation of accounts
A flexible error-handling policy specified for each step and applied only for that step's execution
JSON and YAML schema parsing, simplifying their use in future steps

Note: This first version of the HTTP channel does not work with files, but this will be prioritized with future enhancements.

User tokens transfer API

Realm admins can now transfer the ownership of a user token between two users with our new user tokens transfer API. This ensures that your workflows in Quickbase will continue running smoothly even as your users change.

For security reasons, permissions must be manually reconciled.

Check out the new API in our REST APIs portal.

Suppression list controls for realm admins

Realm administrators can now remove users from the email suppression list from the admin console. This helps ensure their users receive expected email notifications from Quickbase. This is available for any email address in a domain registered with your company.

Intacct connected tables—tracking and billing changes

Sage has announced a new requirement that incoming integrations to Intacct must provide a Sender ID. With this update, Sage is also changing the way they track account usage for integrations. As a result, you may see a change in how much you are billed for Intacct. Connection owners, realm admins, and account admins will be contacted with instructions to update the affected connections.

Enhancements

Platform performance

We regularly improve performance across Quickbase to help customers solve more complex problems with larger datasets. Learn more about Quickbase performance and scale.

Summary and chart reports—sorting and grouping

In the November release, we made summary and chart reports faster. We've extended the performance optimization to include reports that are grouped by complex fields like formulas, summaries, and lookups.

Table reports—grouping

Grouping operations by Equal Values in reports that do not have additional sorting have been optimized significantly. This includes table and timeline reports on all pages.

Reports menu

Navigating within the reports menu is now even easier with a few incremental enhancements.

Collapse all button—In the Shared section of the reports menu, we've added a new Collapse all button, enabling you to collapse all currently expanded groups with just one click. This helps you navigate through shared reports faster, especially when dealing with many groups.
Ungrouped reports—Ungrouped reports are no longer stuck on the top of the shared section and can be moved up or down as any other group within the shared section. If admins have moved this group down from the first position (including in the legacy top navigation), end-users will get a notification when they open the reports panel so they don’t get alarmed if they don’t notice them at first.
Support for smaller screens—We've improved the responsive behavior of the reports menu for smaller screens. This makes it easier for you to interact with reports no matter the screen size of your device.

Fields and formulas

Field caching

We’ve extended summary field caching (available as part of the Advanced Performance Pack on Enterprise plans) to be available on certain types of formula fields. This is currently available on formula fields that do not contain user filtering or formula queries.

Summary fields

Combined text on email addresses—The Combined Text summary function will now work on email address field types. When summarized, this will become a List-Text field.
Combined user summary type—Combined User, a new function similar to Combined Text, is now available when creating a summary field. The concatenated value operates like a List-User field and can be used in email notifications
Wording improvement—We’ve improved the wording of the Add Summary field flow for clarity.

Updated dependency diagram

The dependency diagram allows builders to understand the flow of information between fields in their application by tracing the source of your fields. We’ve made significant updates to this feature, available December 20, to simplify building and troubleshooting apps. The updated dependency diagram:

Displays information in cards so more is visible at a glance.
Expands all cards without you needing to click.
Links to each field in a new tab.
Only shows each field one time, with multiple lines flowing in if applicable.
Shows recursion, which can happen when fields directly or indirectly reference themselves. Recursion in fields can lead to unreliable calculations.
Outlines fields from the same table with the same color.

Operations with Date/Time fields

Users can now use the ISO 8601 standard, in UTC, to query date/time fields and write to date/time fields in the XML API, RESTful API, and imports. In this format, data should always be passed as UTC and will not be adjusted for application time zone to ensure consistency.

`ToUser()` now accepts user IDs

Previously, builders needed to pass an email address or screen name into the ToUser() formula function. Now, ToUser() will accept a user ID (for example, 123456.abcd) from a text input.

Pipelines

Quick start pipelines

We are improving the speed, reliability, and consistency of certain triggered pipelines with new quick start functionality. Pipelines eligible for quick start will start up to 300% faster and usually:

Have up to three steps (the trigger and two actions).
Are driven by a human in a Quickbase workflow, triggering a few times per minute.
Operate on a low volume of data (less than 100KB).

The performance improvement will be launched after December 17 and will gradually roll out to all customers by the end of January 2025. You will be notified with an in-product message when quick start pipelines are turned on for you.

Outlook trigger on moved or deleted email message

Pipelines will now register an event when an email message goes to the inbox, but is then moved to a different folder or deleted. This enhancement, available December 17, will provide better visibility and event tracking.

Pipelines will issue a single trigger, holding information about the email message moved or deleted from the folder. The pipeline will not continue to execute its next steps.

Read more in our Microsoft Outlook channel help article.

Revamped Pipelines tab in Connection Central

The Pipelines tab within Connection Central provides admins with key information about the pipelines associated with an app, resulting in easier collaboration and faster troubleshooting. We've revamped this tab to provide more valuable insight than ever.

App admins can now view and interact with the following information:

Name and owner of the pipeline
Direct link to the pipeline
Pipeline status and last triggered date
Summary of all successful and failed runs of the last 24 hours
Resources details (fields, tables, and apps the pipeline accesses)
Channels and tags
YAML export

Connection Central Pipelines enhancements will be available starting December 18. Learn more in our Connection Central for app admins help article.

QBL version 0.5

Starting on December 16, Solution APIs for Export and Create will work with QBL version 0.5. This includes legacy forms to all the previously supported schema.

Document Creation and custom emails—including reports

We’re delivering a few reporting improvements to Document Creation and custom emails:

Document creation—Include reports from any table in your app using the Report widget. Table reports with groups can also be added as customizable tables, offering styling options for grouped data.
Custom emails—Include reports from any table in your app. We’ve also updated the toolbar in the editor to include more options and be consistent with document creation. In addition, users can now style the tables added from the toolbar option using the table design menu.

Quickbase Exchange—new landing page

Users of the Exchange will now see a new and improved landing page. It allows you to easily find what you need through:

A side navigation panel with popular categories
A dedicated section for Quickbase University apps
Tailored sections of popular resources and categories

Note: You can still use the search and filter features for more advanced searches.

Quick insights

In October 2024, we released quick insights, which allows you to access predictive insights directly in your apps. With this release:

Quick insights now include personal reports, which were previously disabled.
Users on Business and Enterprise plans can choose to load additional insights to learn more about trends in their apps. Previously, only up to 6 insights were shown.

Sidebar navigation

We've made several improvements to sidebar navigation this month:

Keyboard shortcut—We have added a keyboard shortcut for you to quickly collapse or expand the sidebar: Ctrl + [
Visibility—The sidebar will also no longer appear for users whose only available option is App home. These users can instead select the home icon on the left side of the page next to the table control in the page bar or select the app name in the global navigation bar to go home.
Page load—We've released the first of multiple planned enhancements to improve initial page load. Additional enhancements will be rolled out over the next month.
Styling—The test as a user or role functionality now features updated styling to better match our updated navigation designs.
Support for smaller screens—We've improved the responsive behavior for smaller screens on all report types. These will be rolled out progressively through the end of the month.

Beta opportunities

Here are some new features for you to try out while we're still developing them:

FEATURE	DESCRIPTION	HOW TO PARTICIPATE
New forms on Quickbase mobile	Mobile users can use the new forms experience to add, view, and edit records while on the go.	Join the waitlist in the Beta Registration App
Regex support in formulas	Quickbase now offers three regex functions in our formula language—allowing you to parse text so you can extract, replace, or match data in your table. Learn more below	Available for all with this release
Pipelines OpenAI channel	We’re introducing the OpenAI channel to help you streamline workflows, automate text-based processes, and leverage AI capabilities directly within your apps. Learn more below	Available for all on December 17
Search and reports—wildcard searching	Try the new WC (wildcard) query operator in API calls and the report builder. It allows you to use an asterisk `*` or question mark `?` as a wildcard character in search strings. Learn more below	Available for all with this release

Regex support in formulas

A regular expression, or regex, is a pattern made up of symbols and characters. Regex is used to match strings with specific patterns, similar to a very powerful text search.

Quickbase now offers three regex functions in our formula language, available for you to try while they're in beta. These functions allow you to parse text so you can extract, replace, or match data in your table. Learn more about Regex in formulas.

In-app function documentation and more examples will be provided in the January release when this feature becomes generally available.

Pipelines—OpenAI channel

We’re introducing the OpenAI channel to use in your Pipelines. This allows you to send prompts via the Chat Completion step and use the response from OpenAI in subsequent steps. Learn more about the OpenAI channel.

This integration unlocks new possibilities for streamlining workflows, automating text-based processes, and leveraging AI capabilities directly within your applications.

The OpenAI channel will be available for all plans and enabled for everyone on December 17.

To connect, users need to provide their own OpenAI tokens.

This channel can be enabled and disabled as any other Pipelines channel (via Admin Console > Pipelines).

Search and reports—wildcard searching

A new query operator, WC (Wildcard), is available in API calls and report builder. It allows you to use an asterisk * or question mark ? as a wildcard character in search strings. This helps you search for relevant information even if you're unsure of the exact spelling or further details.

* finds any number of matching characters. For example, Jo? will match Joe and Jon but will not match John, whereas Jo* would also match John.
? finds a single matching character. For example, Jo? will only match Joe.

What's fixed in Quickbase

Note: Pipelines bug fixes take effect on December 17. All other fixes take effect on December 15.

ISSUE	AREA AFFECTED	DESCRIPTION OF FIXED BUG
QBE020096	Pipelines	Some Pipelines instances incorrectly showed a step run cap of 500.
QBE020094	Pipelines	Some simple operations (like renaming or adding a step note) disabled pipelines.
QBE019084	Pipelines	There was an issue with billable step runs calculations with the JSON Handler channel.
QBE019833	Pipelines	The impersonation message covered the user menu options.
QBE020021	Pipelines	The Give Feedback button was not working.
QBE020090	Pipelines	Some error messages were shown for successfully executed steps.
QBEO19188	Pipelines	Creating a version of a pipeline containing a Quickbase - Search Records step with a filter on a user-type field (for example, Record Owner) and the value left blank (is/is not ) resulted in failure.
QBE020178	Pipelines	An API error occurred when attempting to make a new connection to some channels.
QBE020097	Document Creation	Borders for table cells were not able to be preset or set to None.
QBE020098	Document Creation	The Report selection dialog was not fully accessible for keyboard navigation.
QBE020161	Document Creation	In certain document layouts, tables would overlap one another.
QBE020140	Document Creation	The search value was kept in the Add elements even after users close the menu and reopen it.
QBE020141	Document Creation	The report widget in the document builder page wasn't fully accessible for keyboard navigation and screen readers.
QBE020142	Document Creation	The form widget in the document builder page wasn't fully accessible for keyboard navigation and screen readers.
QBE020160	Document Creation	When users added a customizable table in their document template and chose a report that filters the related records, if the user selected the same report again, the related records wouldn't be filtered on the report link.
QBE020156	Document Creation	Chart reports weren't being displayed in the report selection in the report widget in the document builder page.
QBE020157	Document Creation	The spaces and paragraphs with multi-line fields didn't render in the output of the document.
QBE020162	Document Creation, custom emails, and form print	Combined Text fields did not render on DOCX fields, and displayed in red on PDF, custom emails, and when printing a form.
QBE020027	Custom emails	Hard-coded CC and BCC email addresses were sometimes ignored.
QBE019973	Navigation	Accessing links built using table aliases in the new nav URL format would result in an infinite loop
QBE019974	Navigation	Drilldown reports created from summary reports and charts filtering on UTF-8 encoded characters incorrectly returned no records in sidebar navigation.
QBE019992 QBE020105	Navigation	In some circumstances, table aliases were not being transformed into dbids in the URL when using sidebar navigation.
QBE020002	Navigation	Kanban and Calendar reports using Ask the user filters returned no results when accessed from a table's home page in sidebar navigation
QBE020003	Navigation	Legacy report headers failed to stick to the top of the page when using sidebar navigation.
QBE020101	Navigation	The chevron divider icon between table name and page name has been restyled to deter users from clicking on it accidentally in sidebar navigation.
QBE020103	Navigation	Inserting a table ID from a different app into a URL properly redirected to the correct app, but did not update the app ID in the URL in sidebar navigation
QBE020104	Navigation	While setting up a new Quickbase connected table, the page refreshed unexpectedly under certain circumstances when using sidebar navigation.
QBE020134	Navigation	Going directly to dbpage in the new sidebar navigation URL pattern incorrectly rendered Quickbase Chrome.
QBE020164	Navigation	Tooltips for elements on the right-hand side of the page in the global navigation bar were missing.
QBE019953	Forms	The section element toolbar disappeared in certain situations related to the Collapsable and Collapse by default settings.
QBE020126	User registration and verification	The new version of forms and the AddRecord API were able to bypass the Control new users setting.
QBE020060	User registration and verification	In limited circumstances where new users were invited into an application, a search on that user was performed, and then an import was done with the same user value, duplicate users were created.
QBE020139	Imports	When importing records into a table that exceeded the size limit, a proper error was not returned.
QBE020042	Connected tables	When refreshing a Dropbox connected table, an error (Value too long for type character varying) would sometimes appear unnecessarily.
QBE019828	Connected tables	In the Admin Console Connected (ACC) tables, the Access table's App-Level Permissions field was sometimes inaccurate for users added to the app as a member of a domain.
QBE020146	Groups	Groups with a large number of users created by SCIM sometimes failed to load. We've improved the performance of managing the users of any group with SCIM users.