3. #EMPOWER2015
A QuickBase Sales Engineer since 2013, Adam is a passionate supporter of the
Intuit philosophy of making complex processes more accessible. Having worked for
Homeland Security, providing automation support to an organization that is incredibly
large, and also at a startup with less than 50 employees, Adam loves to use his
experience, spanning the full spectrum of industry size, and is always trying to gain and
provide insights to an increasingly diverse community of QuickBase users.
About Me
Adam Hoover
Sales Engineer
4. #EMPOWER2015
① Back to Basics: The One to Many Relationship
② When Basics Aren’t Enough: Many to Many Relationships
③ Talking Back: Creating Reverse Relationships
④ Help from an Outsider: Using Report Links
⑤ Keeping the Connection Alive: Synchronizing Data
Relationship Therapy
6. #EMPOWER2015
Relationships in QuickBase are connections between tables of data, allowing those tables to
share information
• The problem of having stand-alone tables comes up when you have information in one
that you know is connected to information in the other
• A person may intuitively understand this connection, but software, like QuickBase, cannot
logically make that connection without being provided with some context
• A relationship allows us to tell software that the data is connected, which in turn helps the
application to give us access to all of the information we need, in the right place
Why do we need relationships?
7. #EMPOWER2015
Solving the problem of Stand-alone Data
• Here we can see a Project Record which
has plenty of information about a specific
Project and it’s properties
• Even with all the details on this Record,
and the ability to add additional Fields to
track more data, we cannot see any
information from another Record here
What problem does a Relationship Solve?
8. #EMPOWER2015
The problem can be seen from both tables
• Here we can see a list of people on a
Resources Table that is unrelated to the
Project we just looked at
• These Resources are all available to be
assigned to Projects, but when looking at a
specific Resource, notice that there is no
Project information available
What problem does a Relationship Solve?
9. #EMPOWER2015
QuickBase uses the concept of a One to Many Relationship
• This is a connection between a Parent table and a Child table, in this case “Projects” and
“Resources”
• Determining which table becomes the Parent, and which the Child, is done when we make
our selection from two possible directions for the relationship
Using One to Many Relationships
10. #EMPOWER2015
When planning out an application, it is
helpful to create a diagram of the Tables
and their Relationships:
① Add your Tables
② Choose the direction that data will
flow, by placing the Parent on top
③ Draw the Relationship between
tables
Diagraming a One to Many Relationship
Projects
Resources
11. #EMPOWER2015
① On the Settings Page, find “Table-to-
Table Relationships”
② When creating a new relationship,
select the other table to relate to
③ Choose the Parent and Child
④ Review the results and select the
fields you want to carry over from
the Parent to the child
Actually Adding a Relationship
13. #EMPOWER2015
The Child Table will also contain detailed information being looked up from the Parent Table
Viewing the Results
14. #EMPOWER2015
Relationships in QuickBase are clearly capable of solving the issue of connecting data, but
there are still a few problems that a One to Many relationship does not solve
① A relationship does not provide a way to relate Many records to Many other Records
② There is no function to lookup data that exists on a Child Record, from the Parent Record
③ Any unrelated data is not reportable using the fields created by a Relationship
④ Data from external sources or outside applications cannot be aggregated or synchronized
through the use of a One to Many relationship
The Limitations of One to Many
15. #EMPOWER2015
In order to solve some of the limitations, it is
important to know how Relationships Work
• A field on the Parent table is used as the
“Key Field”
• A “Related” field is created on the Child
table to store the Key Field value
* The Record ID # is used as the default Key, as it is
always a unique value
How do Relationships Work?
17. #EMPOWER2015
We can’t relate a Child to many Parent Records
• In the example with Projects and Resources,
Projects can currently have as many
Resources as necessary
• On the Resources table, a new Record is
created each time we assign a person to the
parent Project Record
• This will lead to duplications
The Limitation of a One to Many
18. #EMPOWER2015
A Many to Many Relationship is a third table
that helps connect data from the two tables
you are already trying to connect
① Add a Third Table to the App, in this
case we can create “Assignments”
② Then create a One to Many relationship
between each of the two tables we are
trying to connect, and the new Table
Diagramming a Many to Many Relationship
Assignments
ResourcesProjects
20. #EMPOWER2015
We can’t report on the details of a Child
Record from the Parent Record
• There is a report that shows Child Records
embedded on the Parent Record form
• The report only displays the child records, it
does not carry any of their data over
• A lookup field, which is reportable, can only
be created on the Child Table
The Limitation of a One to Many
21. #EMPOWER2015
In this Example we will add a Child Table on
which we need to see the “Current” Record
① Add a table and name it “Status”
② Projects will have many Statuses in this
example, as the user may want to track
the history of a projects status, or the
average time spent in a status
Diagramming a Child Lookup
Assignments
ResourcesProjects
Status
22. #EMPOWER2015
To solve the issue of not being able to see the
“Current Status” at the Project Level, we will
create a Reverse Relationship
① Create a Summary of the Max Record ID
② Create a second relationship between the
Parent and Child table, this time going in
the opposite direction
③ Use the Summary as the Reference Field
Finalizing the Reverse Relationship
Assignments
ResourcesProjects
Status
Summary
24. #EMPOWER2015
There are some circumstances where there will be two tables which are handled separately,
but users may still want to be able to look in one place for all the information they need.
• The Embedded report that we saw created automatically on the Projects table when adding
a new relationship, is actually a tool that we can use for this type of situation as well
• While using the Projects table we were working with earlier, if we add a list of Companies,
and a table of Contacts, we may want to see the Contacts for each Company on a Project
• In order to do that, we can create a new Report Link field on the Projects table, which can
display the correct data, even without a relationship
The Limitation of a One to Many
25. #EMPOWER2015
We will need to match at least one field on
Projects, to a field with the same value on
Contacts, using a third table may help
① Add a Companies Table
② Add a relationship from Companies to
both Projects and Contacts to get the
Company lookup field added to both
③ We can then match those Company fields
Diagramming Report Links
Assignments
ContactsProjects
Status
Companies
Resources
27. #EMPOWER2015
When there is data on a table in another application, or even on another platform, there are
situations where we need to be able to take that data and consolidate it in QuickBase
• This allows us to make QuickBase a front end for data, regardless of the origin of that
information
• Whether it is from separate QuickBase applications or from external tools, we can pull that
data into a single QuickBase table
• Once QuickBase has access to bring that data in, it is possible to build reports, dashboards,
workflow, and other Business Intelligence using that information
Why do we Import or Synchronize Data?
28. #EMPOWER2015
The first way to Import Data, is using a manual Import
① Using the Import/Export wizard in QuickBase, you can Import many records at once by
simply uploading a spreadsheet, or finding another table in QuickBase
② The wizard will ask you for the source data, and then give you an option of where in your
table you would like to put that new data
③ If you are using a Table to Table Import, to grab data from another QuickBase application,
it will store the Import for you, so that you can run it again as necessary
Table to Table Import
29. #EMPOWER2015
Another strategy to keep data synchronized is to use our new “Sync” tool, which will keep a
“Connected Table” up to date with data from another source
Sync
• Bill.com
• Intacct
• Netsuite
• Salesforce.com
• Zendesk
– More on this in
• Zuora
• Intuit QuickBooks
• Intuit QuickBase
– e on this in the
Sync
presentation
* For more information about Sync, please
join us for the Sync Presentation
