Diagramming Your QuickBase Apps
How to create blueprints for your app before you build
Benjamin Buday
Sales Engineer, Intuit QuickBase
#EMPOWER2015
Benjamin Buday
Sales Engineer, Intuit QuickBase
From Boston, Massachusetts
Two years with Intuit QuickBase
Trains users, builds proof-of-concept apps
May have seen/heard him on QuickBase webinars!
#EMPOWER2015
Diagramming a QuickBase App
Agenda
•What is diagramming?
•Why should you diagram your app idea?
•What are some ways I can diagram?
•Defining Basic QuickBase Terms
•Diagramming Examples
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What is Diagramming?
Diagramming is creating a visual display of your new app idea, showing how data will flow through the app.
TasksProjects
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Why Diagram an Idea First?
• Helps you decide what tables you’ll need
• Helps you decide how to relate them
• Helps you avoid unnecessary relationships, tables and fields
• Helps you decide in what tables fields should go
• Provides blueprints to any future owners/builders
• Can be used as reference to help new builders start their own apps
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What are some ways I can diagram?
• Software
– Microsoft Visio
– Gliffy
• By hand
– Paper
– Whiteboard
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Defining Terms
• Tables
• Records
• Fields
• Relationships- Special Fields
• Lookup Fields
• Summary Fields
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Defining Terms - Tables
• Tables – containers that collect similar records
- A Projects table to capture projects
- A Tasks table to capture Tasks
- A Customers table to track your clients
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Defining Terms - Records
• Records – like a document – captures specific information by way of fields. Tables are comprised of similar records.
- Projects
- Orders
- Activities
- Calls
- Customers
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Defining Terms - Fields
• Fields – pieces of data hold a specific value and are part of a record. Many field types exist and can be used for a number of purposes.
- Text fields
• Project name
• Description
• Status (multiple-choice)
- Numeric fields
• Financial values
• Quantities
- Date fields
- User Fields
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Defining Terms - Relationships
• Relationships – relating tables to one another. Relationships allow you to tie records of differing tables together, such as Projects and Tasks, or Customers and Activities.
- Relationships are chiefly one-to-many, meaning one record in a table can have many records from another table, such as one Project having many Tasks.
TasksProjects
ActivitiesCustomers
Invoices
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Defining Terms – Lookup and Summary Fields
• Relationships allow you to make two special fields that interact with data between two related tables:
- Lookup fields – allows the details/child table to look up to the master/parent table and pull information down
- Summary fields – allows the master/parent table to summarize numeric and date values from the details/child table
#EMPOWER2015
Defining Terms – Lookup and Summary Fields
• Relationships allow you to make two special fields that interact with data between two related tables:
- Lookup fields – allows the details/child table to look up to the master/parent table and pull information down
- Summary fields – allows the master/parent table to summarize numeric and date values from the details/child table
TasksProjects
Fields
• Project Name
• Project Manager
• Priority
Fields
• Task Name
• Assigned to
• Status
• Hours Allocated
• Project Name
Fields
• Project Name
Lookup Field
#EMPOWER2015
Defining Terms – Lookup and Summary Fields
• Relationships allow you to make two special fields that interact with data between two related tables:
- Lookup fields – allows the details/child table to look up to the master/parent table and pull information down
- Summary fields – allows the master/parent table to summarize numeric and date values from the details/child table
TasksProjects
Fields
• Project Name
• Project Manager
• Priority
• Hours Allocated for All Tasks
Fields
• Task Name
• Assigned to
• Status
• Hours Allocated
Summary Field
Fields
• Task Name
• Assigned to
• Status
• Hours Allocated
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Apply Your Knowledge
• Thinking of building a new app? Try diagramming it first and see what your preferred diagramming style is – your methods will evolve the more you diagram
• Have an existing app? Try diagramming it. Since app diagrams can be good blueprints for future app managers, try taking an existing app you built or inherited diagramming it out.
• Get some more ideas from QuickBase experts. QuickBase Sales Engineers will be on-hand during Empower and would be happy to help you get started with diagramming. Also, our QuickBase Service Providers would be happy to help.
THANK YOU
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