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How to Build a Data Collection Form in 5 Steps

Data collection forms are critical to countless workflows - as diverse as client onboarding, field services, project discovery, incident responses, qualitative research, product surveys, and much more. In fact, they’re the building blocks of any data-centric process. Today, we’re diving deep into everything you need to know. Specifically, we’ll be covering the basics of what data collection forms are and where they’re used - as well as what our priorities are for creating effective solutions.

Ronan McQuillan

Feb 29, 2024

10 Microsoft Access Alternatives for 2024

For a lot of businesses, finding a suitable Microsoft Access alternative for their needs is becoming pretty urgent. See, Access has been rumored to be reaching its end-of-life for a few years now - although Microsoft hasn’t unveiled any formal plans for a retirement party. Even so, in 2023, Access feels like a bit of a product of a bygone era. Not to be outwardly critical, but in the age of cloud computing, low-code development, DBaaS tools, and even AI, it’s tough for legacy platforms to keep up with the needs of modern businesses.

Ronan McQuillan

Feb 20, 2024

How to Send Form Data to an API in 4 Steps

Populating API requests is one of the most basic, universal use cases for web forms. However, building forms to do this manually can be a laborious, time-consuming process. It’s also beyond the skills of most non-developers. But there is a better way. Today, we’re checking how Budibase can be used to send form data to APIs. Specifically, we’re going to see how we can create and store dynamic REST requests, along with custom UIs, to populate them in a matter of minutes.

Ronan McQuillan

Feb 19, 2024

How to Create Form Validation Rules

Form validation is essential to the accuracy, integrity, and consistency of our data. It’s also one of the key ways that we can enhance user experiences around data entry and management workflows. These enable our form UIs to check that submissions comply with any rules that we have as part of our data model - as well as giving feedback to users where submitted values aren’t acceptable. However, implementing this can present some pretty serious challenges.

Ronan McQuillan

Feb 15, 2024

How to Send Form Data to JSON: 4 Methods

Web forms are some of the most basic applications around. But the value we get from them really depends on what we can do with the data we gather. Most form builders are kind of limited in this regard - largely restricting us to their built-in databases. We can also go down the route of building fully custom forms. This provides greater flexibility, but it also requires a lot more from us in terms of time, effort, and expertise.

Ronan McQuillan

Feb 14, 2024

How to Create Forms for SQL Databases in 3 Steps

Databases are vital for every business. But as soon as you create your database, a question arises. How can you maintain the information you store? Of course, you could write out queries manually, but you’ll also want a way for less technical staff to enter data. This means building forms. Today we’ll look at how to create forms for SQL databases. You can also use forms to limit access to your database.

Ronan McQuillan

Jan 3, 2024

Create a Form to Enter Google Sheets Data in 7 Steps

Obviously, Google Sheets is great for collaboratively managing all sorts of data. There are big downsides here too though, especially if you’re working at scale. One solution is using a form to enter data into Google Sheets. Today, we’re going to look at exactly how you can do this in Budibase. There are a bunch of other ways you could do this too, of course. We’re biased, but we think Budibase is the best option.

Ronan McQuillan

Jan 1, 2024

The Future of Databases | 8 Data Management Trends

Databases are not new. Having ways to be able to store data, query it, and serve it back to our users has been a key focus of web application development for decades. But, that doesn’t mean things have stood still. Today, we’re checking out the future of databases - with 8 data management trends and 11 real-world examples. Relational databases that were developed in the 70s still provide the backbone of most modern IT.

Ronan McQuillan

Oct 17, 2023