Blogs

Scroll and Load Forms / Embedded Report Ajax

By Harrison Hersch posted 07-25-2018 00:02

  
You may have recently heard, either from one of our Quick Base Solution Providers or on the Community, about Scroll and Load Forms (aka Embedded Report Ajax).
The feature effectively makes it so embedded reports do not load with the form. They load when the report comes into focus (i.e., scrolling or if it is nested in a tab).

 This feature will have the most value in one or more of the following scenarios: 

  1. The embedded reports are not shown immediately when forms load (they aren't visible at the top).
  2. The performance profiler shows that the embedded reports are contributing to load time.
  3. The embedded reports, even if loading quickly, are not often used. I.e., if you have a Customers form with an embedded report of Activities that isn't viewed often by users, putting that in a tab called "Activities".
We have been piloting this feature with some partners and would like to gather more feedback from users. If you are interested in having this feature turned on for your realm or a specific application as part of Early Access, please have your account/realm admin open a support case and our Care team will escalate the request to have it enabled.

Currently, the feature is limited to table and summary reports.

If this pilot goes well, we will evaluate turning this on platform-wide. Note that there is an override an app admin can use to turn this behavior off at the form level if needed, in extenuating circumstances.

Please feel free to post any questions or comments here.

Comments

Sini Wickramasinghe
01-18-2019 03:09

Hi Mark, just wanted to let you know all went successfully!!! Thank yo so much again!! Its a great feature if your need extra second or two to complete automations/webhooks that are working in the background before the users see the refreshed data.

Sini Wickramasinghe
12-20-2018 22:01

Thank you so much for your quick response Mark! Will follow your instructions and let you know how I go!

QuickBaseCoach Dev./Training
12-20-2018 21:58

I suggest asking for the Scroll and load to be implemented for your Realm. 

Then put the child table in a tab on the form that is not the main tab. Then by the time the user clicks the tab to see the children table, the automaton or Action will have completed.

Sini Wickramasinghe
12-20-2018 21:44

Hi Mark, I have already requested Support yesterday but I have been told that it is not going to fix the issue I stated above. Initially I was told it is available but then a different response. Is there anyway I could get some further help on this would you have any suggestions for me? I am happy to provide you with the two ticket numbers that were closed off as well.

QuickBaseCoach Dev./Training
12-20-2018 12:49

Scroll and load forms are on the road map for general availability. Until then. They are available on request in early access. I have enabled that for some of my clients and for my own work in my own developers account and in my mind they are working perfectly.

You can just put in a support ticket and request early access for typeahead drop down and they gather up all the requests and do them once a week. I suggest you get to them before Christmas!

Sini Wickramasinghe
12-20-2018 04:42

Hi Harrison, I know it's been 5 months since this conversation had been discontinued, but is this Embedded Report Ajax feature still available? I have some child records embedded in a Parent Form that I'd like to see update when the parent record is saved, but currently unless I manually refresh the page (allowing the webhook to complete the processing in the background), the child records are not updated.... 

Alex Gale
07-27-2018 14:30

Ok. It's not the most important idea but I suppose it's good to have it on there. 

QuickBaseCoach Dev./Training
07-27-2018 14:30

Nice enhancement suggestion - basically the Report Link field on the form would have a form property drop down similar to the Form level drop down override as to how it should load.  ie it would follow the form setting or have it's own override.

Harrison Hersch
07-27-2018 14:29

Probably "Forms and Data Entry".

Alex Gale
07-27-2018 14:27

Which category should I post it under? 

Harrison Hersch
07-27-2018 14:24

Thanks for the feedback. Would you mind posting this as a distinct feedback item to Uservoice? That is where we consolidate and review feedback for the teams.

Alex Gale
07-27-2018 14:18

I don't think we are actually having performance issues, and its possible that this is just a personal thing.

On forms where I am not using the feature to avoid having to refresh the page, which I mentioned as my main use case above, I will probably be turning the feature off.

It just feels slower to wait after the page has loaded for more things to load, even if the overall wait time is the same or decreased. I think it's just a user perception thing, but that's obviously important. 

As for the details of my app, I don't think I'm doing anything special here. I just have a couple main forms that might be displaying 4-5 different reports of child records on one page. 

Alex Gale
07-27-2018 14:15

No I meant in a situation where, for example, I have two embedded reports on a form. One benefits from this feature, so I want it to only load when it comes into focus. The other embedded report, however, I want to load with the page. 

Harrison Hersch
07-27-2018 12:32

Hi Alex - first, thanks for the feedback. You currently can turn this off for an individual form. So if you had a pretty simple form, it would make sense to turn it off.

That being said, I'd like to understand a little more about your scenario where your users are feeling like the page is slower. The average for those calls is extremely fast so perhaps there is something in your app I can help with or better understand what is going on. If you'd like to meet on this, please let me know your email address and I'll reach out.

QuickBaseCoach Dev./Training
07-26-2018 21:55

re:  Would there ever be support for turning it on/off not just at the form level, but for individual reports? That would be a nice feature, as it would enable reports that don't require the feature to work as normal.

Did you mean "apps".  I don't understand the reference to reports.

Alex Gale
07-26-2018 20:07

I'm in the early access, and it is working great for certain forms. We wanted it because there are quite a few automations in our apps that create child records, and users kept having to refresh the parent to see the new child records. This feature has eliminated that entirely, which is fantastic. 

That said, it does make the forms where it is enabled feel slower. Even if the initial load is faster, you don't notice that so much as you notice the fraction of a second you spend waiting on the reports to load. I feel that if it is enabled for all apps it should be off by default. 

Another minor criticism I have is that the three different options in the form properties are not very descriptive. It took me a while before I figured out what each individual option would do for my form. 

Would there ever be support for turning it on/off not just at the form level, but for individual reports? That would be a nice feature, as it would enable reports that don't require the feature to work as normal. 

Evan Martinez
07-25-2018 13:24

Hi Jeroen,

You can also submit a support case by follow the link here. 

QuickBaseCoach Dev./Training
07-25-2018 00:29

:) This is not Quick Base user care support. You will need to put in a support ticket at the top of your Quick Base screen.

Jeroen van Drie
07-25-2018 00:18

Please enable this for our account, much appreciated!