Highly productive people don't blame circumstances, or conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice. Stephen R. Covey 

QuickBase is web-based collaborative database application that allows business people to create their own custom applications without writing code .

As such, we use it to house multiple databases for easy access from any terminal with internet access.


Below is the default quickbase panel shown in "details" view. This view is accesible by clicking on display and selecting details instead of icons.

You will notice 3 highlighted parts of the panel. The box highlighted in red contains the latest quickbase news. The yellow part is a list of the application names you have access to.  To the right of it you have a red box where the application manager's are named. These manager's are in charge of each respective application and can grant or revoke access as needed.


Clicking on any of the application names will open that specific application. I have opened an application i maintain, "Packer Label Reports"




The above is the default application page. You will notice several shaded areas. They are as follows:

To the top is an area in black. A quickbase application can house several different tables within itself. You will have a list of these tables laid out horizontally in this area. This current application only houses one table.

In the far left, you will notice a red shaded area. This is the list of shared reports in the selected table.  You can also view a list of this reports by clicking on the table name located in the black shaded area.In some applications, the red area is hidden. The list can still be accessed by clicking on the table name.

To the right is a shaded blue area.  This area will display data or information about the current table. In this case, i have chosen to display information regarding this current table.

In between the blue and black area, situated to the right, is the button. This button will allow you to create your own reports for personal or shared (with appropriate access) use.



You can customize your own reports within any application in quickbase. You can manipulate the data to show whatever information you specify. This is done by clicking on the table and selecting create a new report.  In the example below, i have clicked on the Packer Label table and will select "Create a New Report"

This will bring up the Report Builder screen. I have went ahead and kept it selected on Table. Below is that default view.


There are three relevant criteria used to create your own personal report. In order listed they are Filtering, Sorting/Grouping, and Columns to Display.  Additional Options allows administrators to create formulas and other advanced techniques.

Filtering
Under this heading, you tell quickbase what information you want it to display in your report.  You do this by selecting any field, then by selecting which data you want to include/exclude, and finally by entering the value you want included/excluded.

Above i am selecting which field i would like to filter by.  Everytime you select the pulldown menu "Select a field..." you will see an entire field list of the current application. In this case, i will select actual labels.

Now that i have selected my chosen filtered field i must choose what to do with the data.  The middle pulldown menu will showcase all of the report actions available.
is - specifies that only exact fields will be shown
is not - will return all data that does not have exact specific values
is less than - returns any data less than the numeric value specified
is less than or equal - returns values less than or equal to the numeric value
is greater than - returns data greater than the numeric value
is greater than or equal - returns data which meets or is greater than the numeric value
contains - returns all data which has that particular string of characters
        i.e. pho will return: telephone, phonograph, and hiphop but will not return pothole
does not contain - will return data which does not have that specific string of characters.
         In the example above, pothole will be returned while the other three examples will be omitted.
Starts with - returns data in which the beginning of the word starts with that specific string. (Pre-fix searching)
       i.e. pho will return phonograph but not telephone or hiphop
Does not start with - returns all that that does not start with the specified string.
       In the above example, telephone and hiphop will be shown.
After you have chose which data you would like to include/exclude it is time to enter the value. The value is entered in the furthest right field.

I.E.
  If i would like to create a report in which all data appears that actual labels is over 2000 i would do the following.
Select Field Actual Labels
Select Is Greater than or Equal
Enter 2000

Sorting/Grouping
After you choose what data you would like to review in your report, you can customize how to sort the data. 

On the left, you choose how you would like the data sorted.  These are self explanatory.

To the right you select which field you would like to sort by. Using my sample report created above. If i would like to sort my data by the highest amount of actual labels, i would do the following:
Select "sort from high to low by" on the left hand side then select "Actual Labels" on the right hand side.

Columns to Display
Once i have selected what data i would like quickbase to retrieve and how i would like it sorted, it is time to choose what columns i want displayed.  When a report is first created, it will display all fields as columns and might be a bit convulated.  You can choose to remove columns on the following screen.
You will notice to windows and 5 sets of buttons.  On the left you will have the available columns (which is a list of all available fields) followed by two buttons labeled "add to report" and "Remove".  Your columns appears next,, to the right you will notice 4 sets of arrows, and finally set to default columns, remove all columns, and set to default order.
Select a column from available columns and click on add to report. The report will display your data in columns ordered by what is under Your Columns. You can remove columns by selecting the field and clicking remove.  You can also re order your columns by selecting the column you want moved and clicking on the appropriate arrow key. By selecting the double arrow key, you move the selected field to the very top or the very bottom.



This is the report builder default panel.  You can access this screen by clicking on the button located to the top right of any report you are currently viewing. The screenshot shown above is a summary report.

1.  You can name your report and give a short description of it's intended purpose. This will be viewable by others.
2.  Here i have selected to summarize this report by the category sheets.
3.  In this summary i am choosing to group my rows by packer number.
4. I would like quickbase to summarize my data from high to low by sheets.
5. In this section i want quickbase to filter out only the data i would like to view. In this example i only want data where 4 is the plant and the information is from 12-31-07 until today.

The area's highlighted in the blue box are your save/display buttons.
Display - shows your report with the current chosen parameters.  No changes are made since it is not saved.
Save - Saves the current report.
Save As - Saves the report after prompting you for a report name.  Allows you to create a new report from a previous report without over writing it as long as a new name is chosen.
Save & Display - Saves the current report and displays it for you.




The image above is a screen shot of an application I maintain in quickbase. You will notice an area highlighted in shaded blue.  This menu appears anytime you left click on a column heading.  It is the sorting/filtering menu.

Sort Oldest to newest will do just that. It generally appears on date column's. Conversely, newest to oldest does the opposite.
Group oldest to newest will sort the data for you and group data that is the same.
Sorting & Grouping will open a new window.

  Here you can sort like the feature in report builder. Select what criteria you want sorted first, and click on more lines to add more sort criteria.  If you don't need an additional sort requirement click on "Remove"
Move this column allows you to change it's location in the current view. (you can also left click and hold, drag and drop where you would like it)
Hide this column removes it from current view
Add a column allows you to add a column from the application that is not currently being shown.
The last two options are only available to administrator's and are of no concern for this course.

Quickbase has an assortment of videos detailing it's use. The videos/online tutorials can be found here.
https://www.quickbase.com/db/93htvp8y?a=q&qid=13