What if use QuickBase worldwide?

Let’s get back to trying out how web based systems handle the issue of worldwide app use. This time I am about to check if QuickBase is good at it.

I start off from scratch by importing the data in different languages in order to clear up the systems works smoothly.


As the matter of fact QuickBase turned my data into such scribbles.


So, I decided to create necessary fields and tried to input the same info through form for record editing:


Unfortunately, I’ve got the same result.


The thing that QuickBase is not capable of recognizing the data in different languages really surprised me, so I decided to check my settings to make sure everything was ok.

I found out my IE7 default encoding is different from unicode . Just for experiment as the page was displayed I managed to set up unicode and after doing so the text in different languages was correctly recognized.


Let’s see how QuickBase handles globalization issue. In QuickBase time zone is set up for the whole account. You may check out how to change the Account time Zone here.


As I changed the time zone all Data/Time fields were correctly recognized for a new time zone.


It turned out this was the last good thing what can be done in QuickBase in case you want your app to go global. I didn’t manage to find any settings that allow changing Date/Number format according to the country.

Conclusion:

Even though it’s possible at a stretch to create the app for a workgroup outside of the US that will use different language and Time Zone as well, there is a limitation. One can use just one time zone and language, but date and numbers can be edited only in the US format.

In case your team members are in different time zones, let alone the data input in different languages, QuickBase can’t help you here.