If you thought QuickBase was a powerful database before you are really going to be impressed with the addition of formulas, summary and lookup fields to our forms.

This isn’t just hiding or showing fields or sections on a form. This is controlling your form with formulas, changes to lookup, summary and reference fields.

This opens up many new possibilities for forms:

Say you have projects and you have a field called [Project Type]. You use that to describe whether it is a Marketing, Sales or Support type of project. Every time you add a task you need a different set of fields to show based on the project type. Before you would have to create a long task form with all the unneeded fields showing. With form rules now sensitive to lookup fields your project type can now control what your task form looks like. It’s fast, easy and simple.

How about a better way to keep on top of your project’s issues? Say you want to see your issues when they are open but want them to go away when closed. Using a Summary field you can now have them pop up when opened and disappear when closed.

Here’s another one, let’s say we are working on a task and it is overdue. How about using form rules to pops up an alert screen, switches the priority to high and require a note be entered? You can do that too.

We also enhanced our QuickBase alert functionality. You will notice them in applications and on your My QuickBase page.

“I cannot express how excited we are for the dynamic form rules. First conditional drop downs and now this! Christmas was early this year! Thanks QB Team!”
-Melissa

“This is incredible!!! I am so happy to be able to have more power over my form rules! This will save all those creative workarounds I was used to dreaming up! …Conditional Drop Downs & Form Rules!!!! Thank you QuickBase!!!”
-Hunter

“Thanks for listening and making it happen. Keep the enhancements coming!!”
-D.J.

Check out the video to see how you can use this new feature and review the release notes http://quickbase.intuit.com/resources/node/2004 for a complete item listing.

If you have any questions be sure to let us know or pop into any of our 10 free weekly webinars at http://quickbase.intuit.com/webinars/.

Have a blast!

Bill Lucchini (our general manager) posted on the Intuit Partner Platform blog about 10 great things that he heard at the ‘Startups and the Cloud’ event we hosted last week.

At the end of the event (or at least the part before the cocktails) I gave a closing where I recapped ten great things I heard. Several people came up to me afterward to request that I publish the list… so, here it is…(in the order I heard them during the day):

• Vishy Venugopalan from Longworth Ventures set a great baseline for the day with this overview of cloud computing.

• Scott Cook shared some great stories about the early days of Intuit from failed ads and trouble meeting payroll to the breakthrough insights that helped Quicken take off…

Read the entire list…

Although, we post a release announcement at least a week in advance so you can plan for the downtime, we continue to test our releases right up to the end. As can sometimes occur, we found a serious issue late in the process.

After numerous discussions, we made the difficult decision to postpone the release to ensure that the problem is appropriately fixed and tested before we release.

We are continuing to assess the issue and I will post an update to this blog as early as possible next week.   Thank you for your understanding and I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Robert McDonald

QuickBase Product Manager

To everyone who voted for QuickBase in the 2009 Webware Awards, thank you for your vote! QuickBase was named one of Web 2.0’s best business productivity solutions!

In May, Webware announced its annual list of Webware 100 award winners. QuickBase was on the list and recognized as one of the top offerings in the web productivity category.

Click the image to see the full Webware 100 list

The 2009 Webware 100 Awards recognize the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications on the Web today. After receiving more than 6,000 nominations for inclusion in the Webware 100, the editors selected 300 finalists. But the Web’s users made the final cut, voting more than 600,000 times to select their favorite 100 products. QuickBase was one of just 10 products to get the award in the productivity category.

Rafe Needleman, editor at Webware and CNET commented that “This annual listing has become such an essential resource for people who want to learn more about Web 2.0 and the many ways it can help them stay connected. The Web 2.0 community and our editors ultimately selected the very best sites, services and applications that have made a lasting impression.”

We are rolling out another update to QuickBase.

Here’s a quick look at some of the new features that will be coming out with the June product release.

Formulas in form rules…huh?

Dynamic form rules are used by application designers to make forms behave differently based on specific conditions. They set the condition and tell QuickBase what action (or actions) to perform. Until now, derived fields such as formulas and lookup fields were not available for use in form rules.  With this release, that limitation is now gone.

From one of our development partners during the beta test:

“The new formula rule mods are amazing!!!! What a huge difference this will make for creating more user friendly forms.”

I certainly hope you’ll feel the same way.

Not to alarm you, but…

We’ve improved the Alert system that lives on your MyQuickBase page. QuickBase now visually alerts you when you get a new alert, distinguishes between high and low priority alerts and whether or not you’ve read them. The alerts management UI also now lets you delete alerts in bulk.

In addition, we have added a new alert to warn application managers if one of your application tables is approaching it’s size limit.

Notice to night owls

If you are QuickBasing, a new term I just made up, at 4:30AM Pacific on Sunday, please use the downtime required to launch these new features to contemplate how you will take advantage of the new form rules functionality. We have scheduled the upgrade window from 4:30 to 4:50AM. Long enough to make an egg sandwich.

Enjoy!

Here’s the seventh and final tip for boosting project team productivity with customizable web-based software. If you’d like all the tips in one easy to read PDF file, click here to request them.

Tip #7 – Anticipate needs for security, service and support
Many SaaS providers have made extensive hardware and software investments that offer an exceptional level of security. That said, not all providers are alike.

When you’re evaluating a potential solution for your Web-based project management needs, consider the following:

Data security
Where is the data hosted? What systems are in place to protect your data? Look for a solution that provides the utmost protection for your business information.

Service and support
What happens when you need help? Who’s available to get you started – and to assist your team as needs arise? Look for service and support policies that can bring rapid relief to your occasional challenges.

Years of experience
Is the provider a new player or a proven partner? Who are its clients and what are their satisfaction rates? Previous history is one of the best predictors of future experience.

Here’s what QuickBase offers in the areas of security, service and support:

QuickBase Data Security
Your QuickBase application data is stored in the same facility that handles millions of tax returns via TurboTax for the Web each year. QuickBase uses industry-standard, 128-bit Secure Socket Layers (SSL) protocol to ensure your information is neither intercepted nor corrupted during transmission over the Internet. In addition, QuickBase uses encryption technology to help protect your data when stored on disk.  Click here to learn more about the security, reliability, and confidentiality of QuickBase.

QuickBase support resources
Whether you are new to QuickBase or have been using it for years, the QuickBase Support Center provides everything from answers to common questions to detailed instructions.

QuickBase support resources include live technical support from the QuickBase Customer Success Team, online product help, live online training, and the QuickBase community forum.

Test drive QuickBase support
When you’re trying out QuickBase during a free 30-day trial you have access to all the same support resources as our customers – that includes live technical support.  Plus, you have assistance from the QuickBase Concierge Team.  Their job is to help you more quickly determine if QuickBase is a fit for your needs.

QuickBase experience
QuickBase is a proven solution backed by Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, QuickBooks and Quicken.  Over 56 of the Fortune 100 and thousands of small and medium sized businesses rely on QuickBase.  And, QuickBase has been serving customers for over nine years.

What do you think?
Please share your thoughts about and experiences with QuickBase’s data security, service and support. Have you worked with the QuickBase Customer Success Team? The Concierge Team?

What’s next?
This is the final tip in this series. It’s time for some reader feedback. Did you find these tips helpful? Do you have a favorite tip? Or maybe a team productivity tip you’d like to share that wasn’t covered?

What other topics would you like to see covered in the QuickBase blog?

On June 11th Intuit is hosting a free conference to talk about what it’s like to start a software business in today’s technical, economic, and business environment.  See my post on TheAppGap for more info on this free event.  Should be a great gathering of industry thought leaders including venture capitalists, CEOs, and analysts.  If you’re in IT, software engineering, or some related field it might worth coming and engaging in the conversation.