Recent Coverage

Situational Software - The ‘Killer Application’ for Enterprise 2.0?
"In Situational Software, it’s much the same as there are a number of vendors such as Zoho, Coghead, Caspio, Longjump, Rollbase, who supply the framework that enables users to rapidly and simply construct the working environment they need."

"Most enterprise application vendors do not have a strategy for the cloud computing space"
"The third face of the cloud is in the form of the Application Platform Cloud. This space is occupied by companies such as Salesforce with Force.com, AppEngine, Rollbase and Bungee Connect."

Recent Updates and New Features: Q1 2009

CSV and XLS export now respects user time zones:
Date and Date/Time fields now respect the current user's time zone setting when field values are exported to CSV or Excel.

Related object now available as X-axis in charts:
Previously when building a chart, Rollbase did not allow you to graph related records on the X-axis, unnecessarily limiting the kind of dashboards that could be created. This limitation has now been removed.

More page-level control over Lookup fields:
As shown in the snapshot here, lookup fields now have a page-level Style attribute available in the page editor that determines how the lookup field is rendered in that form:

Options for "Selector" "Picklist" and "Hidden" are available:

• Selector: shows a type-ahead lookup field with a selector icon next to it that brings up a selector popup window used to select one or more related records
• Picklist: shows the lookup field as a picklist. A single-select picklist will be used for one-to-one or many-to-one relationships; a multi-select picklist will be used for one-to-many or many-to-many relationships.
• Hidden: hides the lookup field from the page. This option is useful when you want the lookup field to automatically populate with the record in scope, but hide the fact that it is doing this from the user.

In addition, a new checkbox is available called Use Record in Scope for New Objects. If this box is checked, the lookup field will be automatically populated with the last record of that type the user viewed.

New Workflow Event Type:
By customer request we have added a new workflow event type called Create Activity Trail Record to automatically create custom, template-based audit trail logs for records and their related records. As with other events you can specify recursion and time-delays as necessary, as well as define a condition formula to determine whether the event should run when triggered. All this means you now have an even greater degree of control over how auditing takes place in any of your Rollbase applications.

Rollbase offers Coghead customers a no-risk license option

Platform as a Service vendor Coghead recently announced its service will no longer be available as SAP acquired their assets and many competitors are now offering transition plans (e.g. QuickBase).

As most of our readers know Rollbase is now offered as both a subscription service and as a licensed product. For ISVs, mid-size companies and divisions within larger organizations not willing to take the risk of an unproven startup or looking for more control over the entire stack, consider licensing as an on-site alternative. Contact us for more information.

Update [4/15/09]: Contact us for pricing information on a Rollbase enterprise license. Rollbase also continues to offer the hosted option at $49/user/mo, with discounts available based on user volume.

Rollbase Integration with Google Apps

Today we launched the first integration of Rollbase with Google Apps, press release below. For a demonstration video see: http://www.rollbase.com/support/googleapps.shtml

Rollbase Announces Integration with Google Apps
Delivers Google Calendar Synchronization, Gmail and Docs Integration for all Rollbase Applications

SARATOGA, Calif., November 24, 2008 -- Rollbase, Inc., an innovator in Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) technology for business users, today announced the delivery of three new capabilities integrated with the Google Apps(TM) suite of communication and collaboration products. The integration of the Rollbase platform with the products from Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) enables companies of any size to reap the benefits of cloud computing (no hardware or software to download, install or maintain), and allows any Rollbase-native application to become integrated with any customer's Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs accounts.

"We are happy to have quickly leveraged the open Google APIs to bring powerful collaboration features to the Rollbase platform," said Matt Robinson, founder and CEO of Rollbase. "Now any application created with Rollbase can automatically use Gmail to send email, synchronize any event information with Google Calendar, and export application data directly into Google Docs & Spreadsheets, increasing the productivity of any Rollbase and Google Apps users."

Google Apps Integrations for Rollbase

Rollbase designed, developed and integrated the following three solutions with Google products:

-- Rollbase and GMail(TM) - to use the customer's GMail account to send any outbound email from within Rollbase, and storing that email in the user's Sent Items for historical reference within GMail.

-- Rollbase and Google Calendar(TM) - to enable the synchronization of all types of events in any Rollbase application with each user's Google Calendar

-- Rollbase and Google Docs(TM) - for sharing Rollbase data views and reports and making it available to internal and external audiences through Google Spreadsheets

Each of these integrations is now available to every Rollbase customer at no additional cost. For more information and a demo video about these new features see: http://www.rollbase.com/support/googleapps.shtml

About Rollbase

Rollbase is an on-demand application development and delivery platform for businesses to rapidly find, create, customize and share web-based applications using point and click, drag and drop tools within a standard Web browser. Rollbase brings the power of rapid application development to business users, IT professionals, and Web developers who may not have the time, resources or expertise to create on-demand applications using traditional software development methods. As a state of the art Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Cloud Computing Platform, Rollbase enables businesses to focus on application innovation rather than the software and hardware infrastructure behind it. In conjunction with the Rollbase Platform, the Rollbase Application Directory is an on-demand application ecosystem where users can browse, test drive, and install business applications built and published by experienced Rollbase users and partners with a single click. Rollbase requires only a browser and an Internet connection. Founded in August 2007, Rollbase is privately held and funded by angel investors. For more information please visit http://www.rollbase.com.

Google, Google Apps, GMail, Google Calendar and Google Docs are trademarks of Google Inc.

SOURCE: Rollbase, Inc.

Planned Maintenance: Saturday October 25th 10am - 1pm PST

UPDATE: We have received a number of requests to delay this move to the weekend so we have rescheduled the migration for Saturday October 25th from 10am to 1pm PST.

On Tuesday October 20th Rollbase will be unavailable from 6pm through 9pm while we move to a new hosting environment. More details to follow.