10 More Tips & Tricks to make you a better builder

 

In this episode of Build It With Tim, we'll explore 10 essential tips and tricks to enhance your experience within the Tadabase platform. Our goal is to unveil some hidden features and provide valuable insights to empower you as a builder. Let's dive into a summary of these tips and how you can use them effectively to optimize your application building process.

Tip 1: Page Versioning Page versioning allows you to revert to previous versions of your pages, ensuring you can undo any accidental changes. By leaving version comments, you gain a detailed history of edits made by different users.

Tip 2: Page Status Option Toggle your page status from on to off to control page accessibility. Disabled pages show a 404 error, useful when your app or a specific page is under construction or no longer functional but you want to keep it for reference.

Tip 3: Efficient Page Navigation Filter pages by layout or security role and enable the 'show slug' option to quickly identify specific pages, especially in large applications.

Tip 4: Read-Only Mode Lock down your application's front end in read-only mode, allowing viewing but preventing data creation, deletion, or editing. This feature is valuable when you want to showcase your app without allowing modifications.

Tip 5: Table Connection Overview The Support option in App Settings provides insights into table connections, helping you understand how different data tables interact. This visual aid enhances your understanding of data relationships within your application.

Tip 6: Post Actions in Scheduled Tasks Scheduled tasks now offer post actions. After processing records, you can send emails or trigger webhooks, enhancing automation capabilities. This feature enables you to notify stakeholders or integrate your app with external services.

Tip 7: Rapid Updates in Scheduled Tasks and Forms Enable rapid updates in scheduled tasks and forms to improve data processing efficiency. This feature delays calculations until all records are processed, ensuring speedy data additions or updates.

Tip 8: Preserve Form Values Enable form value preservation to allow users to save their progress and resume filling out forms later. This feature is particularly handy for lengthy forms or multi-step processes, preventing data loss due to interruptions.

Tip 9: Build an Audit Trail Create an audit trail by adding a connection field to the user's table and a date-time field to your data table. Implement a table rule to capture the user and creation time whenever a new record is added. This trail provides transparency and accountability within your application.

Tip 10: Outgoing Webhooks Utilize outgoing webhooks to send data from your Tadabase application to external services. Configure webhooks in the Automation tab, allowing your application to communicate with other platforms seamlessly.

We hope these tips empower you in your Tadabase journey. Each feature is designed to enhance your app-building capabilities and provide a seamless experience. If you missed our previous tips and tricks video, you can access it by clicking the link provided.

Thank you for watching this episode of Build It With Tim. We're here to support your app-building endeavors. Stay tuned for more valuable insights, and happy building!

Features Discussed:

1. Page Versioning (Time: 0:53)
   Learn how to use page versioning to revert to previous versions of your page. For example, if you accidentally delete a component, you can restore it by selecting a previous version from the page history dropdown.
2. Page Status Option (Time: 1:34)
   Learn how to toggle the status of a page on or off. For example, if a page is under construction, you can disable it, showing a 404 error to users while you work on it.
3. Efficient Page Navigation (Time: 2:32)
   Learn how to filter and show page slugs for efficient navigation. For example, when dealing with multiple pages, use the filter and slug options to quickly find specific pages within a layout.
4. Read-Only Mode (Time: 3:38)
   Learn how to enable read-only mode, which locks down the application to prevent data from being created, edited, or deleted. For example, it’s useful when you want users to view but not modify data during a maintenance window.
5. Table Connection (Time: 4:22)
   Learn how to view connections between tables, helping to understand how different data tables interact. For example, use the table connection graph to troubleshoot why certain data isn't accessible across tables.
6. Post Actions in Scheduled Tasks (Time: 5:16)
   Learn how to trigger post actions such as sending an email or triggering a webhook after a scheduled task completes. For example, use this feature to notify users when a batch processing task is done.
7. Scheduled Tasks (Time: 6:18)
   Learn the rapid update feature that delays equation processing until after records are updated. For example, use this in scheduled tasks or form submissions to speed up data processing for large datasets.
8. Preserve Form Values (Time: 7:30)
   Learn how to preserve form values so users don’t lose progress if they need to pause or their tab closes unexpectedly. For example, this is useful for forms with many inputs or multi-step forms.
9. Build an Audit Trail (Time: 8:33)
   Learn how to create an audit trail by capturing who created or modified a record and when. For example, add "Created By" and "Created On" fields to a table to automatically log user actions.
10. Outgoing Webhooks (Time: 9:30)
    Learn how to send data out of Tadabase using outgoing webhooks. For example, automate the sending of data to external systems or services when new records are added or updated.

 

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Transcript Summary

Introduction

Hey everybody, this is Build It with Tadabase. On today's episode, we're going to talk about 10 tips and tricks for building applications with Tadabase. I've done a video on this in the past with 10 other tips and tricks, and I'll make sure that it shows up at the end of this video. We're going to explore some of the finer details within the platform today and discuss some features or options that maybe you didn't know existed. Either way, I hope all 10 of these tips and tricks can help you build applications inside of Tadabase and make you a better builder. Let's jump right into the builder now and get started.

Tip 1: Page Versioning

Page versioning allows you to go back in time and revert to a previous version of your page. In this example, let's say I accidentally delete a component from my page and realize later on that I've made a mistake. I can simply go up to the page history dropdown next to your page title and revert back to a previous version of the page. In addition to this, by leaving version comments every single time you save a page, you'll be able to see exactly what was worked on and by whom.

Tip 2: Page Status Option

When you're viewing a page inside the page builder, by navigating to the settings tab, you can toggle the status of a page from on to off or off to on. When you save a page with the status disabled, a red dot is going to appear inside your page tree. When somebody tries to access this page through your live application, it's going to give them a 404 error, indicating that the page is not found. There are a number of reasons why you might want to do this, such as if the app or the page is currently under construction and you want to disable that page so that nobody has access to it while you're working on it, or if you simply don't want the page to be functional inside your application anymore but don't want to delete it in case you need it again later. From here, you can navigate to your app settings and the 404 error page to define a custom message or redirect to another page when somebody tries to visit a disabled page.

Tip 3: Page Navigation and Filtering

As your app grows larger over time, you might end up with a significant number of pages, and navigating through those pages can sometimes be difficult or tedious. We have a search bar up at the top of the page, but the tip I'm going to show you is filtering and showing the page slug. At the top of the dropdown, you can quickly find a page within a layout by filtering for that particular layout. You can also filter by page security, meaning which role a page is secured by. Additionally, by enabling the "show slug" option, you can view the actual page slug that appears inside your browser address bar inside the URL of your application. This is useful if you need to find a particular detail page by its slug rather than by its title.

Tip 4: Read-Only Mode

Read-only mode locks down the front end of your application where it's still accessible and can be viewed, but no data can be created, edited, or deleted. To enable read-only mode, navigate to app settings under general settings, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you’ll see the option for read-only mode. Enabling this option allows you to define a custom message, and when saved, the live application is still visible, but if you try to add, edit, or delete any data, you will be restricted from doing so.

Tip 5: Viewing Table Connections

Inside the support option in your settings menu, you have the ability to view details about the connections between the tables inside your application. This helps you get an overview of how different data tables are working together, where the connections live, and how they interact with other data tables. You can view this in text form or view the table connection graph, which is super helpful as it provides extra insight into your application. For example, if you wanted to know something about a supplier from the purchase order level, it's not possible if there's no connection or related connection from purchase order to suppliers.

Tip 6: Post Actions in Scheduled Tasks

Inside scheduled tasks, we have the ability to update a table and trigger post actions after the task is completed. Post actions allow you to send an email to a specific email address or trigger a webhook. These are the two options available to you. After the task is completed, you can receive an email letting you know it’s done and how many records it processed.

Tip 7: Rapid Update in Scheduled Tasks

Rapid update waits to process equations and calculated fields until after all records have been processed within your task. This is useful if you simply want to update the date and time of a particular field inside a data table across many records. Enabling rapid updates ensures that the equations are processed later on after the task is completed. Additionally, this option is available inside a form component. When adding a record using a form component, you can navigate to the options tab and choose "update equations behind the scenes." This ensures that data is added or updated quickly, and all calculations are done shortly thereafter.

Tip 8: Preserving Form Values

By enabling the option to preserve form values, you can start filling out a form and return to it later without losing your progress. If you need to take a break or if your tab accidentally gets closed, you won't lose your progress. When you return to the page, the values you entered will still be there. After you fill out the form and click save, the memory is purged, and you can start again. This feature is incredibly helpful when filling out a form that takes an extended period of time or when working with a multi-step form with many inputs.

Tip 9: Creating an Audit Trail

To build an audit trail, you can add fields to track who created a record and when it was created. By adding a connection field to the users table called "created by" and a date-time field called "created on," you can then navigate to the rules tab of your data table and create a table rule. The rule can be set to automatically capture the logged-in user who created the record and the current date and time when the record was created. This allows you to see exactly who created a record and when it was created.

Tip 10: Sending Data with Outgoing Webhooks

You can send data out of your Tadabase application using outgoing webhooks. We touched on this in the post action of scheduled tasks, where you can send webhooks from scheduled tasks as a post action. By entering a URL endpoint to receive a webhook, when the task is completed, a webhook is sent out, similar to how an email is sent. The more common use case for outgoing webhooks is through the automation tab in the outgoing webhooks section. By adding a new webhook, you can send data by entering a webhook URL and triggering the webhook based on certain events, such as when a new record is created. You can also add conditions to ensure that webhooks are only sent when necessary. After webhooks are sent, you can view the logs to see what data was passed.

Conclusion

We've reached the end of our 10 tips and tricks for today's video. I hope you found them all useful and informative to help you inside the Tadabase builder and to build better apps. If you haven't seen the first tips and tricks video, it's right here available for you to click on now and take a look. Thanks so much for watching this week's episode of Build It with Tadabase. We'll see you next time. Take care!