QuickBase Reviews

Quickbase is our main repository of our assets, customer data and tracking of invoicing. As we developed Quickbase, it has quickly became the authoritative source of data , and as a result have started using it to access data via API from external apps. 

We have a very peculiar business, where no canned database would fit our need. By building the app in Quickbase, we were able to consolidate our CRM, all the customer resources, technical resources, and a slew of other items under one roof.

Best of all, the improvement on the app isn't a one-time deal because any time our business process has any modifications, we can immediately reflect those in our Quickbase workflows, as it is extremely easy to manipulate.                          .

The ease of use of Quickbase is second to none. Creating applications in Quickbase will take, literally, a fraction of the time it would take to create them in other database applications (which shall remain unnamed).                                    .

Reports, more specifically formatting reports. The reporting capability itself is pretty powerful in Quickbase; however, formatting those reports to present them directly to clients leave you a bit wanting. There are some 3rd-party providers that have some convoluted ways to create reports to MS Word, but they're too cumbersome. If this gets improved, it would be so close to perfection.

Update (05/09/2017) since my original review: Unfortunately, there is still no new report formatting available natively, and would still require 3rd party developers to help with that.                          .

This product his extremely stable. Every once in a while, you will notice a tiny lag in the interface, but otherwise, it's extremely fast, and is very stable.

I have not quite reached any limitations with scalability, but having seen its architecture, including its extensive API, Quickbase can be scaled within itself, as well as through its API to extend into larger and/or different systems.

Customer Service:

Customer service is excellent. Engineers are always very friendly, and happy to help. Response is usually within the same day. I've never contacted them by phone, so I can't speak to that, but email support has been satisfactory.

Technical Support:

The technical support is very good. The engineers are quite skilled, and can answer anything from a basic question to all the complex ones, and anything in between.

I have tried using Filemaker to create my solution, and MS Access, and a SQL database, all proved to be very cumbersome to work with, and required a deep knowledge in database architecture to accomplish what I really want to accomplish. I'm amazed that I was able to do it all myself in Quickbase. That's how easy Quickbase is.

Initial setup was extremely easy, even when starting with an app from scratch. Figuring your way around the app is very simple and help is always available, either contextually or readily available in the community.

The whole solution was implemented in-house. We have reached out to support a couple of times for some specific issues, but nothing major.

The amount of time that you would save by creating a Quickbase app that is specifically tailored to your company's needs is immeasurable. Keeping track of this kind of data, reporting in separate documents, and keeping those relationships intact would take hours of work.

Once the application is deployed, the ROI is almost immediate, and is translated in time savings, and quick access to information.

Quickbase is probably not the cheapest app out there. That said, it is worth its weight in gold. There is no other app that I know of in the market today that can do what Quickbase does.

Once you start using it, you will realize immediately the level of attention and effort that was put in building this platform, and you will immediately realize the value of it when it comes to its licensing costs.

For the most part, we tried Filemaker Pro and could not make it work for our needs. It was too cumbersome to create relationships, and the connections we needed were simply too complex to produce. Also, the interface wasn't nearly as user friendly and not easy to understand.

Quickbase is an extremely powerful solution. The level of details that is available to you within the platform, as well as the integration, and API that is available makes it a versatile tool for any company's needs.

Though everyone can make use of Quickbase, I will speak specifically to those who may not have database architects and application developers on staff. Quickbase will fill that gap by filling in that skill-set within the application, and allowing almost anyone within your organization who understand business process to build the appropriate Quickbase application.

Go for a trial run, and you can thank me later.

Update 05/09/2017: Quickbase has since introduced to new major features: WebHooks, and Quickbase Actions which made automated triggers very easy within Quickbase, as well as outside applications, without the needs to know complicated APIs. (especially the Quickbase Actions)

We have found countless features to put to use. Naming a few: Trending graphs, connected data, ability to use API. Also, the graphs are interactive and take you right to the data it's using.

QuickBase has made our process more efficient over time. It has definitely given us the opportunity to create and store historic data using information we have not previously thought about tracking.

I think QuickBase should offer more web based classes on using javascript and API call out to create a better, more custom application. Even helping with creating stronger dashboards.

1 year

Yes, there was a slight learning curve being that Quickbase had been used by so little employees in our department so far. After traveling to cities like Boston and San Francisco, we were able to witness some of the power that could be unleashed with this tool.

Quickbase has only gone down a hand full of times. Each time, for only about 30 minutes max. This caused little if any distubance in our group.

We have not had any issues with scalability. This product has remained fast, simple, and ready to store countless records.

Customer service is completely wonderful. You can turn in a question and someone will get back with you rather quick if not within a day. They set an appointment with me and walked me through step-by-step a formula.

Technical Support is the same. You can turn in a question and someone will get back with you rather quick if not within a day. They set an appointment with me and walked me through step-by-step a formula.

We were using Microsoft Office for most data files and trying to utilize graph and communicate them over e-mail and powerpoints. We knew there was a better way.

Set up is easy if you know a few things about data normalization. If you are referring to the set up of a user in QB, that process was as simple as requesting access.

We use Trinity IS if needed. They were able to assist us with any business process that we were unable or too busy to create in Quickbase.

Return on investment (ROI) is the benefit to the investor resulting from an investment of some resource. A high ROI means the investment gains compare favorably to investment cost. This is not applicable to me.

A business arrangement in which one company gives another company permission to manufacture its product for a specified payment. This is also not applicable.

Salesforce was initially something we looked at and are still looking at purchasing. Quickbase came first and it's a good thing because Quickbase and Salesforce are about to utilize each other by connecting data.

I do not have any questions regarding this solution. Other than why is there a 120-character count required responses? Even though a few of the questions were not applicable to my situation.

QuickBase provides a great way to generate reports quickly from large amounts of data. Information is easily organized using tables and one-to-many relationships. We have utilized lookup formulas to help automatically populate fields regarding employee workgroups with many fields.

In our organization, we keep track of the seniority of thousands of employees, as well as their particular workgroup and the location of that workgroup. QuickBase has allowed us to easily categorize these employees, workgroups, and work locations into separate tables and then relate them to one another for comprehensive reports. It has given us lots of visibility for our workers.

Sometimes it can be difficult to figure out how to overlap functions. For example, it isn't as easy as it would seem to make a line graph overlap a bar chart. Sometimes easy functions like this take a much longer than expected time to complete.

We have used QuickBase as a solution for one year three months.

In deployment we had some initial pushback from employees, who had been used to another system for over 10 years, for the process we were changing from.

Stability is constantly changing. Often times when we call with a large problem, we are redirected to "Trinity," Intuit's consulting and development group, who will then ask us to let them build the app for $XX rate.

Yes. Scalability issues resulted because of a lack of our knowledge in data normalization and data structuring. As with any system that keeps track of information or generates reports, you must have a strong system from the very bottom otherwise it will not be very scalable.

Customer service is great. All you have to do is open a ticket and a representative will be there to help you out. They call usually on the same day. I was able to learn QuickBase in less than a month because of their help.

Technical support and webinars help greatly. It is a huge asset to be able to see how QuickBase functions in many different scenarios (on a weekly basis) because of the webinars.

Yes, but our previous solution was really no solution at all. It was really just a place-filler that had no place being where it was. We used Microsoft Word tables to keep track of our employee records.

The initial setup was very easy. All it took was "creating an app" (or selecting an existing one), and building what you wanted to see right into it. Very, very straightforward.

We implemented through an in-house team that had about three months experience. The solution required a short user-guide to basic functions, which were picked up quickly based on their user-roles.

Our ROI is unable to be determined at this time. However, long term this solution is determined to help the company greatly with hiring forecasts in our maintenance department.

It may be worth your investment. Do your research and find out exactly how QuickBase can work for you. There are so many functions and capabilities. It would be a shame to not utilize something that you are paying for.

No. QuickBase was being used for other functions within our company and seemed like the best fit for the problem we were trying to solve.

Be knowledgable. It can be an extremely useful program, but you will only get out what you put in. Put the hard work in and reap a great benefit!

In our business many of our folks work in the field. We created a killer timecards application to manage project labor cost. We process 300 timecards a week and upload them into Intuit QuickBooks and process payroll with Intuit Payroll Services.

Our Human Resources app manages personnel and benefits data allowing us to reconcile benefits providers' invoices and the company's costs of benefits.

In the Construction business, we recognize revenue and cost using the Percentage of Completion accounting method. I wrote a QuickBase app to do Work In Process calculations.

These apps and others I have created increase our productivity and allow us to manage our back office with with just a few employees.

9 Years

None at all because you can take one workflow challenge at a time and create a more efficient and productive solution at your own pace.

Never.

QuickBase is the most easily scalable software product I have encountered in my 30 years of software solution implementations.

Superior.

Superior.

We graduated from spreadsheets and MSAccess. We switched because we needed a web based solution.

Easy because you do not have to drop entire software product on your employees all at once.

I developed all the applications for our company.

ROI is a more productive back office team where QuickBase is the first choice solution vs. human beings.

QuickBase is the only product where I can translate the manner in which our company does business into a software solution(s). I have yet to find a workflow challenge or unique project requirement that I cannot satisfy with QuickBase.

The quick creation of reports, notifications, and new fields has made using this product very useful. As we are constantly starting new types of projects that need different data to be captured this is a must.

With the notifications and reports administrative time has been cut by more than half. As these functions are needed first on a daily basis in order to schedule that day this has made an amazing impact on our day to day business.

Documentation of how to customize beyond the basics is very difficult to find. Most items are some form of the user base rigging something to imitate the desired behavior.

3 Years

There were no issues with deployment. The QuickBase support team was very helpful in making sure everything worked and were able to help resolve any issues prior to deployment.

Yes, we had speed issues but this was solved as we had some unusual characteristics of how our database was structured. QuickBase was able to help advise on the needed changes and help resolve the issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues. We do not use it to the extent of other organizations and so I do not see this every being a problem. Currently we manage over 7000 projects in our main database without issue.

I would give CS a 9 out of 10. They are very responsive and helpful. The support portal is easy to navigate and the cases are easy to follow and view their status.

I would rate their technical support as 8 out of 10. They are very helpful but cannot or will not help with certain areas of customization. This is usually the types of customization that other users have had to resort to odd implementations of javascript or other languages as the software has not been upgraded to included some functions.

We were previously using excel and so the need to switch to a better means of project management was felt by everybody. This was a service that we were somewhat familiar with from some of our clients and so was looked at first.

Straightforward. The UI makes it very easy to get up and running. At its easiest setup can be as simple as importing a current excel file. This then allows for the creation of reports and notifications which will make access the data faster and more manageable. Beyond this takes more time but does not increase much in difficulty.

We went with an in-house approach to implement QuickBase. This did cause some issues due to the need to learn the service first but was not overly difficult. This did have a downside as we did not have an expert in-house to create the highly useful databases that a vendor is able to do.

We save roughly 50% on the associated tasks. We have not taken the time to really calculate the ROI as it is noticeable that our day to day business is much more efficient.

Ultimately the setup cost was a couple months of overhead for (1) employee creating everything and testing the database.

Upper management may have looked at other options but did not really take much time with this if they did. We were already familiar with the service as we had clients who were using it.

I would make sure that when planning the database you make the effort to make sure that your structure allows for all the useful report types to be created. The biggest issue we have is we cannot use Gantt charts easily as our database is not setup to create these well.

You can easily import old Excel data to a new App. Once you have an App, the possibilities are endless. You can create custom reports and slice and dice the information with ease. I strongly recommend this product to anyone who has challenges at their organization regarding information and data management. It has opened up new possibilities and reduced the stress levels for those who are using it.

We no longer have rogue Excel files floating around the office. All of our information is in one place at one time.

More customization with Branding.

6 months

Nope. Single Sign on and API calls to the databases may take a little time. More of a company challenge than a Quickbase issue.

Nope.

Nope.

A lot of resources are available. Not as easy to pin down the development team.

Average.

Yes, Excel. Too many versions in too many places.

Straightforward. Sign the agreement and off you go!

An outside vendor team. Would not use them again.

You can customize an application to best meet the needs of your business is invaluable! As your needs change, you can update your application to change with you.

We no longer have tons of Excel spreadsheets floating around the office to track various things, we can now track and update them in one place.

I wish it had a better calendar feature.

Over five years.

No.

No.

No.

10 out of 10.

10 out of 10.

Yes, we previously tracked our cases in Access and couldn't be any reporting on our results without exporting.

Straightforward, easy to import our old data and create reports to display it.

In-house.

Unsure.

It's worth it.

Yes, off the shelf case management systems.

• Allows users have anytime/anywhere access.
• Ability to create the box to fit your workflow. You are not forced to fit into someone’s box or idea of how your company should be run
• Fits small and large companies

• Saved us one or two full-time employees each and every year
• Ability to collaborate and transfer information from one staff member to another
• We have grown and changed the system as the business grows and changes

QuickBase deficiencies are only filled by third-party developers. For example, we need a third-party to create and save a document in PDF, MS Word, or MS Excel format. The document saving capability is probably the feature that we most often have to procure from an outside provider.

We have been developing on QuickBase for ten years.

Being a cloud platform, there will always be momentary downtime. However, QuickBase stability and reliability has always been good.

Maintenance is generally scheduled when traffic is minimal and is communicated to users well in advance.

Scalability is one of the key QuickBase features where you are able to start small and add feature sets to your application as needed.

Your application and ability is only limited by your own imagination. The sky is the limit with QuickBase. If you can dream it, QuickBase can do it.

QuickBase empowers its users with product help and an open API. They also have great documentation about how to use the API functionality and how the “coding” is different from other programs.

One of the core goals of QuickBase is to build a community of “citizen developers”. QuickBase is a platform which is considered low-code or no-code. You do not have to be a programmer to build or maintain the system.

We use QuickBase as a system to run our business. It started out as a simple CRM and grew into a ticketing system, asset management, and scheduling tool.

Previous to QuickBase, we used custom fields in QuickBooks, Outlook, Excel, sticky notes, employee memory, and everything else that did not work in concert with each other.

We used what was cheap, easy, and right in front of us. This became an option that was not in the best interest of the company. It was neither scalable for the growth of the company nor helpful for the sanity of the employees.

Our setup was pretty straightforward. We knew what we were doing wrong and knew what was missing with the other systems. We had a plan.

For companies that try to implement QuickBase and do not have agreement on internal processes, the development and setup can be that much harder.

The pricing for QuickBase is pretty straightforward, It is based on a per user/per month licensing fee.

The licensing fee is not dependent on user usage. The best way that we describe it to potential users is like getting your driver’s license.

The DMV charges the same for a driver’s license for both a person that just uses it to drive to church on Sunday and carpools or walks to work during the week, and for another person who drives hours each and every day.

At the end of the day, both are paying the same amount for the privilege of being able to drive the car.

QuickBase is the same. If you are in the system once a week and just use it to view reports, or if you are the plan administer and have QuickBase as your main focus day in and day out, the cost is the same.

Since we came from a multiple tools environment with holes in our process and systems that a truck could drive through, we knew when we saw QuickBase that it was like nothing else out there. It was almost an instant light bulb of knowing that we were at the right spot.

If you are looking to implement QuickBase, make sure that you have a vision and your team is aligned.

You do not need to know how to build the vision, but you need to know what the end result is. More importantly, your team needs to be aligned with that vision.