Let’s be honest, the vast majority of apps created in Quick Base are proprietary, industry or customer specific apps and they are fiercely protected.  They are the secret sauce for many process focused businesses, they are literally some of the core IP of the business.  So it is no surprise, there is no way those great apps are going to be posted on the app exchange for anyone to download and use.  Many of the apps on Quick Base Exchange are thin, half-baked apps that are worth exactly what you have to pay – nothing!

Having said that there are two times when some of the apps are quite useful.  First, when you are a newbie and just getting started with Quick Base, especially if you are going it alone, it is useful to install and play around with a few apps to get a sense for Quick Base’s capabilities and some of the tricks.

ABC PROJECT MANAGER 3

For example, ABC Project Manager 3 created by Kirk Trachy is a simple example of how you can use Quick Base to keep track of project based work where you have many say consulting customers, and your key staff are assigned tasks and project responsibilities and simple time card tracking of effort and progress vs. plan can be tracked.  Undoubtedly, any real business would need to extend and modify this app, but the relationships, base reports and dashboards give you the right idea.

MAGIC BUTTONS – HAVING FUN WITH FORMULAS

Another example for newbies is Magic Buttons – Having Fun with Formulas again by Kirk Trachy.  Kirk is a longtime Quick Base employee and builds and shares apps that attempt to show what can be done.  In this case there are several presentations and lists of buttons and graphic images that will be helpful teaching you how to “present” your data in a more intuitive and visual way using the capabilities of Quick Base.

ABC PROJECT MANAGER TEMPLATE EDITION

A third useful app is ABC Project Manager Template Edition…you might need to send Kirk an email to get access to this app (ktrachy at quickbase dot com).  It extends Project Manager 3 to allow for generating new projects when templates would be helpful.  For example, say your company has a few standard projects with a bunch of tasks that need to get rolled out across many stores or many customers…so there are many projects that need tracking.  This app lets you build a “template” project and then create new “instances” of this project in a clean, quick and easy manner.  Again, the concept is quite useful.  There is also a useful youtube video detailing the setup required to implement this on your own.

The second case where Quick Base Exchange Apps are useful is when you are branching out into a new type of app.  If you have used Quick Base to solve one business, data or process issue, and now you want to expand with another app in another area of your business.  It makes sense to get a head start or see what is easy to implement.

If you need a solution for a specific business function, make a quick search in the Quick Base Exchange for things like…

CRM
Contact Manager 
Sales Manager 
Asset Tracking
Training Management
IT Helpdesk and Tickets
Document Management
Knowledge Base
Performance Reviews
Sales Funnel, Sales Lifecycle
Satisfaction Survey
Hiring and Recruiting
Meeting Minutes
Event Manager
Expense Tracking
Leave / Vacation Planning