QuickBase: The Missing Manual

Chapter 6. Using QuickBase’s Prebuilt Applications

Ready-made things always seem like cheating somehow—not quite as good as the real thing. Well, that may be true of clip-on neckties and store-bought brownies, but it’s definitely not the case with QuickBase. The next chapter shows you how to create your own application from scratch, but that’s not always the best way to go.

Many business functions and processes share common ground, no matter what organization you’re with—like tracking time, assigning leads, or managing contacts. QuickBase comes with dozens of prebuilt solutions—called templates—that already handle those tasks perfectly. Not only is starting with a ready-made application faster than designing a whole new one, it takes advantage of the design and programming work done by QuickBase developers who’ve spent countless hours polishing these templates. Your time is much better spent figuring out what you need in a solution, as described in Chapter 5, so you can tweak the template to meet your needs.

There are templates for managing purchase requests, creating a knowledge base, running a Web-based survey, tracking time and billing, sharing documents, managing leads or work orders—and more. All you have to do is choose the template you want, click a button or two to create an application, and then enter, upload, or import your data. This chapter takes you on a tour of QuickBase’s template gallery and shows you how to create and adapt an application from a template.

A Tour of ...