Over the past few weeks we've been very busy wrapping up a large number of new platform features. Below are summaries of some of the more significant items we've deployed recently, although not a comprehensive list. Until we have time to update documentation and record a new set of Rollbase videos, please contact us if you need help diving into any of these features:
Sequential and Parellel Approval Processes
A new Approval object attribute enables you to create new Workflow Actions to invoke a sequential or parallel approval process for any record by triggering sequential emails to either the first assigned approver or all approvers on the list respectively. When an approval process is initiated on an object record you can optionally change the list of assigned approvers at runtime.
Only users who have been assigned the new "Approver" option can be added as approvers to any Workflow Action or record on the fly. In addition, by defining an appropriate number of Workflow Actions for approvals you can have predefined lists of approvers based on location, function, department, etc.
Online Surveys, Survey Recipients, Questions Library and Ranking
New
object attributes "Survey" and "Survey Taker" allow you to build
question and answer capabilities into any two related objects. For
example you may want to build customer survey functionality into your
custom Rollbase CRM application. To do this you might create:
- An object called Customer Survey with the new "Survey" attribute.
This attribute enables a "Questions" library for that object allowing
you to create any number of questions which can be attached to any
record to form a questionnaire. Each question's answer can be ranked to
assign kind of score or ranking to survey responses.
- An object called Customer Response with the new "Survey Taker" attribute. This
attribute enables a related Survey record's assigned list of questions
to be embedded in a portal or backend page where recipients can provide
answers to the questions.
Questions are like special kinds of fields whose values are designed
to be ranked and added to form an overall survey score. The following
Question types are currently supported:
- Checkbox
- Group of Checkboxes
- Currency
- Date
- Date/Time
- Email
- Integer
- Picklist
- Picklist (Multi-Select)
- Radio Buttons
- Text
- Text Area
- URL
Multi-Column Page Layouts
While the contents of any page Section can be organized in 1, 2 or 3-column layouts, up until recently Rollbase pages could only present Sections in a single column. Now in Generic pages you can specify whether to use a 1 or 2 column page layout. If a 2-column page layout is used each section can be placed in the left or right column, or you can choose to have a section span both columns.
To enable multi-column layout on any generic page:
1. Edit the page by clicking "Edit this page"
2. Click on the page title
3. In the Properties box change the new "Columns" property to 2
4. Now select any section and change the new "Alignment" property to Left, Right or Span
5. Notice that the page editor will update in real-time to show you a WYSIWYG layout preview
Tabs in View Pages
As your applications become more sophisticated, record view pages can become very long with large numbers of sections containing fields and many related lists below. To address this from a usability standpoint, now Pages can be organized into any number of tabs. You can create and manage page Tabs within the Page Editor, and easily move sections between tabs as well as re-order tabs as necessary.
To enable Tabs in any view page:
1. Edit the page by clicking "Edit this page"
2. Click on the page title
3. In the Properties box select the new "Enable Tabs" property
4. You will now see tabs at the top of the page. Click "Add Tab" to add as many tabs as you'd like
5. Click on any tab to go to that tab in the editor and use the Properties box to change the Tab label
6. Select any section and assign it to a new tab by changing its' "Tab" property
7. Notice that the page editor will update in real-time to show you a WYSIWYG preview
Posting Records to Portals
A new "Postable" attribute allows
you to define objects whose records can be "posted" to specific
portals. For example, you may have multiple portals representing
product catalogs. By enabling the "Postable" attribute you can choose
which portals each record should be shown on. In addition, in some
cases you can also specify which "New" form is used to respond to any
posted record. For example, you might select which request information
form should be used when a prospect wants more info on a product in one
of our catalog portals.
In addition, a new Workflow Event type called "Post/Unpost on Portal" allows you to control when certain records are posted to or taken down from specific portals based on any criteria and time delays you define.
Mass Upload (Import and Parse Documents)
Now any object with the Document as well as Contact and Location attributes provides a new menu called "Mass Upload". This new tool allows you to place any number of Word, RTF, PDF or TXT files into a queue and then upload them via AJAX. Rollbase will parse each document and create a new record by attaching the document and populating name, contact and location related fields with information gatherd from the document. You can watch the process take place in real-time through a dynamic user interface.
Unique Indexes
As you may already know, many fields provide an advanced property called "Do not allow duplicate values in this field". By enabling this property no two records of that object type can have the same value in this field. By enabling this on more than one field you can define significant duplication protection. However, until recently you could not combine fields together to form a more advanced dup validation mechanism.
Now each object definition has a new component called Unique Indexes. A Unique Index is basically a list of fields which form a combined value that cannot be duplicated and hence, prevent duplicate records from occurring. For example, if a Unique Index consists of fields X, Y and Z, then no two records can have the same values for X and Y and Z. However, for example, this does not prevent two records having the same values for X and Y but different values for Z. This is a very powerful new way to define duplicate prevention based on your specific application needs (you can even use Lookup fields to define unique indexes).
Dynamic View Filtering
You may have noticed a new "Filter" link associated with currently selected Views. This activates the filtering component directly above the View on the current page you are viewing allowing you to qucikly filter and refresh your selected View without having to switch to full View Edit model and committing yourself to any changes to your filter criteria. This same type of dynamic filtering is also available for Reports.
Detailed Search Component
A new Detailed Search component can now be embedded in any Generic pages in Portals as well as backend Pages. This component allows you to provide a small object-specific search form allowing users to locate records based on specific criteria relevant to the situation at hand. For example, you may place a Detailed Search comoneont in the home page of a product catalog portal to allow users to search for products based on price range, availability, type, brand, etc. Like other page sections, this component can be configured to display fields in 1, 2 or 3-column layouts. In addition, for each field chosen to appear in the component you can specify the operator used in the search such as "equals", "greater than", etc.
Grid Edit Component
Now you can create and edit related records in a dynamic grid component in any New and Edit pages. Simply drop the "Grid Edit" component into any New or Edit page and save your changes. Then click "Configure" to select which fields should be used as columns in the Grid.
Grid Edit allows you to create multiple related records at the same time you are creating a parent record. For example, when creating a Purchase Order you might use a Grid Edit component to add an arbitrary number of Line Item records associated with the PO you are creating. (We will cover this new component in more detail in a future post.)
Filter by Related Fields
In all Views, Charts, Reports and anywhere else you can filter data in Rollbase you can now also filter on related field values. For example, suppose you have a Customer object related to a Partner object and the Partner object has a User lookup field called Partner Owners. Now Rollbase will let you create a filtered Customers View filtered by Partner Owners. This seamingly small addition greatly broadens the ways data can be filtered in Rollbase.
Ability to Filter by Viewed/UnViewed and Flagged/Unflagged
Up until recently you could not search for or define filters to find or hide records that have been viewed, not viewed, flagged or not flagged. This is now available in the filter mechanism for Views, Charts, Reports and object-specific Search.
ZIP Code Radius Search
The object-specific search page for each Object with the "Location" attribute now includes a new ZIP code radius search capability allowing you to find records within a certain mile-based radius of any given US ZIP code. This can be useful for finding nearby leads, contacts, etc.
Global Portal Pages
All portal pages can now be shared among any number of portals. For example, you may want to use the same New Lead form in three different portals without having to duplicate it. Rollbase now allows you to assign portal pages to the specific group of portals you'd like to use them in.
Document Template based Reports
Rollbase now allows you to go beyond 1, 2 and 3 layer Tabular reports to build custom document (HTML, TXT Word and Excel) templates to be used for report generation. Using a robust set of merge fields including filterable functions such as SUM, COUNT, etc, Rollbase now provides a powerful mechanism for generating reports in a format specific to each customer's requirements. (We will cover this new functionality in more detail in a future post due to the extensive merge field options available and the virtually limitless display and formatting capabilities.)