Low-Code Databases VS Enterprise Solutions

Have you considered bringing your database online instead of relying on traditional enterprise solutions? You may be wondering what the benefits are in using a Low-Code Database and how it may impact your business and processes as a whole. In many cases, moving to a Low-Code Databases offers some distinct advantages, and this article will list some key reasons business choose to rely on Low-Code Databases.

 

Reason 1 Cost:

Perhaps the most obvious reason for moving away from an enterprise platform, is to help your businesses’ bottom line; Low-Code Databases have lower costs than even some of the most economical enterprise solutions out there. The reason for this is, with an enterprise solution you have to pay for the license to use the software, which by itself is quite high, and then there are fees associated with software maintenance and development for customization. With Low-Code Databases, you are essentially renting the software, which does not have to be installed directly onto your hardware, so you will only have to worry about a monthly subscription fee. You are also able to control cost, as you can scale up or down and quickly adjust things like storage space or number of subscribers as needed.

Reason 2 Advanced Availability:

A distinct advantage to moving to an online database is harnessing the convenience and accessibility of the cloud. You can access your database and work from virtually anywhere, and from any mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. In addition, this ability for data to be accessed and exchanged from anywhere also enables you to connect your employees, partners, and clients, no matter where they are. Many businesses today use a global workforce, and an online database allows for an easy solution to the hurdles of communication and data accessibility.

Reason 3 Less Resources in Maintaining Tech Infrastructure:

As mentioned earlier, the lower cost is often listed as an appealing reason for businesses to switch from enterprise solutions. However, besides just limiting the amount of financial resources that need to be put into database solutions, having your database online also reduces the amount of time and labor required. This is because with online Low-Code databases, they take care of a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Updating, patching, and monitoring is done by the vendor. With enterprise, the responsibility lies on you, since you are essentially taking ownership of the software when you purchase the license. Moreover, most online databases offer some type of back-up service and secure storage in the event of hardware failures or server crash. Again, with enterprise, these solutions are solely the business owner’s responsibility.

As the technology and availability of cloud computing continues to increase, there is a growing number of Low-Code Database offerings that can meet the need of a variety of businesses. While there are some exceptions (such as in cases where the business does not prefer to rely on internet access for database management, or cases where only custom software would suffice for the business needs) a Low-Code Database is a smart solution.
You can create your online database using the following web-based platforms:

QuickBase

TeamDesk

Caspio

TrackVia

Zoho Creator

Advantages of Online Database Software

Businesses are increasingly taking up the option of online database management systems as it is convenient to incorporate into their operations. Other than the obvious benefit of having the database online, thus increasing the ease of accessing information from anywhere around the world, there are other benefits that are not commonly realized at first glance.

Advantages of Web-Based Databases

Investing in web-based database management software allows employees to maintain access and simplifies the tracking of valuable information on the database. The process of using such software involves access of a website to store, modify and manage data. For an organization that considers moving their database online, it is highly recommended that the benefits of the solution be at hand for optimum exploitation of this service.

Save Capital

Online database software saves organizations a great deal of money, as it is an alternative to buying a software program for the company. This method conventionally involves paying for a software program and an additional cost of licensing for every computer that uses it. This translates into high cost. Using an online database, however, is cheaper as computers used access the software online. In addition, the cost of investing in servers for storage of data is eliminated.

Flexibility

There is flexible use in online database software as a business only pays for the storage space they consume. This eliminates the trouble of purchasing new servers when there is growth or eliminating servers when they are not needed any more. This thus simplifies scaling up or down in an organization as one need not worry about extra costs from servers or database management.

Technical Support

Another benefit is that the burden of technical support is lifted from the company and goes to the organization offering the online database management software as a service. If there are any problems with the database management system, the organization is contacted and they are responsible for maintenance as it is always stipulated on the contract.  The IT department of the company receiving the service can therefore focus on other issues.

Easy and Collaborative Access

Using online database software allows all employees access vital information regardless of their location. Therefore, as long as one has access to the internet, work can be done at any time as information is available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. An added benefit to this is that employees at different locations can work on a project seamlessly despite not being in the same geographical area.

Data Security

Having the company’s information on some specific hardware poses a huge liability for a company in terms of data security. The hardware can crash, or get destroyed by natural calamity, risking loss of a large amount of data. Having online databases, however, increases data security. Data can be protected on the cloud through passwords and high levels of encryption. They, therefore, eliminate finicky hardware that is unreliable, and sophisticated to implement.

Gathering Information Online

Having the database online allows data to be collected through web forms with cloud computing solutions. Information can be easily collected from customers and employees, and then automatically entered as a new record into the database. These web forms come in several templates and companies can further customize them as required. Information can also be gathered through tables in emails. An online database therefore increases the number of ways information can be collected, stored, and simplifies collection of information.

Globalized Workforce

Several companies have gone global, while others have it in their long-term plans. Going global is accompanied with challenges on data exchange and global communication. Online databases offer a perfect solution through cloud computing. Data can be accessed from anywhere in the world, as long as there is an internet connection.

Increase Project Efficiency

Project management involves a plethora of individuals and tools to be effective. By having a pre-built application in a matter of minutes by using the online database allows projects to be deployed faster. These pre-built applications an easily be customized to suit ones needs thus increasing project efficiency.

Even the Playing Field

Small organizations face high competition from large organizations in the same line of business. With online database software, small organizations are at liberty to make use of some of the tools used by the large organizations, thus allowing them a fair chance at competing. They do not need to purchase big servers used by Fortune 100 companies that do not fit their budget. They simply pay for what they need.

You can create your online database using the following web-based platforms:

QuickBase

Caspio

TeamDesk

TrackVia

Zoho Creator

Salesforce Alternatives: Options for Small Businesses

Salesforce is credited as one of the best CRM systems out there. And probably – it is. The only thing is that Salesforce may be the best CRM system for Enterprise. On the other hand, for the small companies or individuals it is a sledgehammer to crack nuts. Moreover, you have to consider that companies don’t run on CRM alone. They need various pieces of business software to run their business properly. That's why the quest for Salesforce alternatives always has been and still remains relevant.

Too Small?

Lately, Salesforce tried to expand their presence in SMB by presenting three small business CRM solutions for $25, $65 and $125/user/month. IMHO, for startups and small businesses the price over $40-50 per user automatically makes affordability a great issue. So here is what you get from Salesforce for relatively reasonable $25:

• Up to 5 users, only 1 list;
• Automatic data capture;
• Customizable sales tracking for one list;
• Intelligent follow-up reminders;
• Contact auto-complete;
• Shared address book;
• Sent-email notifications;
• Smart mobile apps;
• Chrome extension.

Not impressed? So am I. Looks like while trying to win SMB Salesforce turned too "small". For that price, functionality is way too limited. Also, it's not flexible: you cannot customize it for your company needs. This means you'll probably have to change the usual ways of your business rather than adapt the system to fit your demands. What's more, the system inherited general Salesforce drawbacks:

• Complexity (there's a good chance that you'll need to hire someone to manage it);
• Hidden costs (third-party solutions from AppExchange may be awesome, but they cost money);
• Not too friendly UI.

For many SMBs, these factors are enough to start looking for Salesforce alternative.

Where to Seek Alternatives to Salesforce?

When seeking alternatives to Salesforce, you'll first have to decide what exactly you need – specifically CRM system or a comprehensive software to satisfy all your data management needs including CRM – like online databases.

CRM systems

At this point, everything is clear: you search for Salesforce alternative that is cheaper and simpler, right? Then you might want to take a look at these ten systems, which made it to my personal TOP:

• Base CRM (they have probably the coolest Android app);

• Highrise;

• Pipedrive (great for closing deals, poor for customer follow-up after the deal);

• Nimble;

• Insightly (integrated project management functionality is a huge plus);

• PipelineDeals;

• Nutshell;

• Capsule (arguably, one of the best CRMs for beginners);

• OnePageCRM;

• Really Simple Systems;

• Less Annoying CRM (nice name, huh? :);

• Stitch Labs.

Bottom line: these CRM software products all have couple things in common. First of all, affordability: they all have offerings under $25/user – even when you grow beyond a handful of users. Secondly, they obviously put MUCH effort in staying dead-simple to use.

Online databases

Before I get to online databases, I'd like to stress out one point that made me mention them in the post about Salesforce.com alternatives. If you are a startup or a small company you have to keep in mind that sales data is just one type of data you'll have to handle. Finance, marketing, legal, project management, and maybe even HR – you'll have to set this all up. You can't do it with Salesforce, which means you'll have to spend additional funds to buy corresponding software. Another option is to purchase the customizable software. And that's where online database steps in.

To make long story short, the custom online database is like Lego: you build precisely what you need of different software "blocks". Moreover, unlike Lego, you can shape the form of these blocks – add required or remove unnecessary functions. Thus, once taking some time to tune the system (if needed – with the Support assistance) you can develop not only a CRM alternative to Salesforce but accounting, estimation, project management and other apps. Generally, any other type of business software a small company may need.

And yeah, the vast majority of vendors offer the price per user per month from $5 to $20 with a minimum of three-five users to start. Here are several online database vendors you might want to consider if you have just realized that you'll need more than just CRM:

• Caspio is one of the leaders of the industry; probably that's why it's one of the most expensive as well;
• QuickBase is a bit complex, but good tool for team collaboration (or was a good tool?.. Little birdie told me that after Intuit had announced that it's selling QuickBase, many staff people are looking for another job);
• TeamDesk is minimalistic in design, but dead simple and at the same time surprisingly powerful and affordable one-stop shop for data management;
• TrackVia focuses on building quick, graphical apps;
• Zoho Creator lets you build advanced apps with scripting, but requires decent coding skills;

• Knack is a simple database builder for beginners.

The essence of online databases is that instead of spending thousands on multiple solutions for various tasks, they allow small businesses to invest in a single SaaS. This solution then lets companies build virtually any type of business software they may need, be it CRM, ERP, BPM, EAM, SCM, HR, or some other set of capital letters :). Thus, small companies save valuable time, money, and resources.

Pick Your Salesforce Alternative

Let me sum it up: you can replace Salesforce either with another cheaper and simpler CRM system or with a versatile tool like an online database that will deliver you more value beyond CRM. Both kinds of alternatives to Salesforce.com are more cost-effective. The choice is up to you to make!

Let's check the situation with some dynamics in forms. Can users count on it?

I am about to test the ability of web based systems to control column behavior depending on data in other columns. For example, such options as hide, show, mark as required or change column value when some condition on other columns are met.

So, lets find out the peculiarities of such functionality in Quickbase, Caspio, TeamDesk, DabbleDB, TrackVia and Zoho Creator. We'll try to look into the specifics of its implementation and if there is such possibility at all.

Update

Sabina Iseli-Otto from Dabble DB:

"Well, you get a short answer from us: we don't support dynamic column behaviour at all."

Update2

Matt Strenz from TrackVia:

"The ability to have dynamic data entry forms that will show different fields or options based off results in another is not something that is currently available in TrackVia but this is on our roadmap of enhancements to make in the future. We’ve done this at no cost to customers on a case-by-case basis for Website Forms."

Which web based databases have native client for iPhone?

Don't want to disappoint you, but most web based systems don't offer native client. They rely on iPhone almost full Safari version as web browser and that's it.

DabbleDB officially confirmed the system didn't have native app. Therefore this affects the possibility of working within the system through Safari web browser in their knowledge base.

Zoho Creator announced they had optimized web layout for iPhone and even created special mobile version.

I've also found indirect confirmation on TrackVia forum the system works on iPhone.

I guess Caspio, TeamDesk and WorkXpress are also available through web browser on iPhone and iPod touch.

Check out the good news now.

Recently Intuit guys have announced on their blog their partner MCF Technology Solutions presented new iPhone application in called PocketBase. Instead of accessing QuickBase via the iPhone’s web browser, MCF Tech has leveraged QuickBase’s API to present QuickBase applications with native iPhone functionality. Currently the application doesn't allow to add/remove records, you can view it only.

I think this is the step in the right direction, because working with such an app is far better than through browser. Anyway mobile devices have a way smaller screen and require other approaches to resolve this issue.

What do you think?

Update from Andrew Catton:

Dabble DB pages are optimized to work both with iphone and android (we think this is the right way to do it, as the pages interfaces are much better suited to a small mobile screen than the core app, and you're more likely to be quickly entering data or checking a pre-defined view in this scenario). More details here.

Calculator to compare prices of web based systems

Now you can compare prices and choose the solution easier.

Just with one clik the calculator I've added to the blog shows which web based system is more affordable for you.

Update:

Recently TeamDesk has changed their prices. The calculator is updated as well.

Calculating working time. Let’s sum up.

I’d like to sum up the results of testing in one place to make the picture of calculating working time capability more clear so users could see at once how good the system is solving this issue.

This is a brief description of what we’ve got trying to calculate future date or time duration within web based systems:

TeamDesk

TeamDesk almost completely managed to implement our task. The system’s only shortcoming was End Date calculation if working hours fluctuate every day. Nevertheless, it is the best result so far among the vendors pretending for a "no-coding" technique.

Caspio

Caspio Bridge’s capability of executing customer’s own code on server using SQL triggers opens wide horizons for implementing complex business logic in applications. The only problem is that you should be quite familiar with SQL in order to use it to the full extent. There also one more point that draws my attention: though I don’t know how data isolation is implemented in Caspio, but I think that possibility of running own code on server could present higher security risk of unauthorized data access.

TrackVia

TrackVia can perform complex calculation, but the system is not able to calculate End Date while accounting working days (not even talking about hours). The main problem is that the function weekdays is not designed for worldwide usage.

Zoho Creator

Zoho Creator proofed to be able to calculate End Date and Duration, correctly accounting working days and hours. I had no doubts in this tool even before starting our tests since "Deluge Script", which Zoho is based on, is actually nothing less than a programming language.

Dabble DB

Unfortunately, DabbleDB does not offer the ability to calculate duration for arbitrary "work hours".

PerfectForms

In PerfectForms behaviors are just another way of programming through flow charts. Besides, it’s more difficult to see complete app logic picture as each particular behavior distorts it. On the other hand "behavior" provides users with some flexibility so you can program business logic and calculations of the form.

QuickBase

As testing showed variable hours of operations and the weekends different from Saturday and Sunday can't be implemented with built-in QuickBase functionality. I think it’s possible in QuickBase, but only in case we always have 8 hours working day with Saturday and Sunday as weekends. To calculate working time and you will have to do some coding through one of six SDKs or HTTP XML API.

Taking into account all the peculiarities of calculating working time we can say it is not such an easy task for web based systems. If go programming way as Zoho Creator does the task is not that difficult, but it requires different skills. There is another option to implement through setup. In this case you should keep in mind that capabilities of these systems are pretty limited too. Of course, some of them can manage it better, this time TeamDesk proved to be the most advanced system calculating working time.

A real life could be more complicated than TrackVia could think

In the ideal world all the people would speak the same language, use the same alphabet and work Monday through Friday 8 hrs a day with a lunch break. In such an ideal world TrackVia would be a good tool for a working time calculation.

First of all, a special thanks to Matt Strenz, TrackVia Customer Support Engineer who created a sample database for me.

"We’ve added a database in your account that is using a calculated field to determine the number of working hours a date range would contain taking into consideration a 5 day work week of 9 hours a day and all the holidays you had mentioned."

Here are Matt’s recommendations how to implement end date calculation (Test 1):

"The first test you mention about creating an end date from the hours entered would be a more difficult calculation to do as this would require looping through the days to determine if they are a weekday or holiday and then to ignore them if so. Because this is a more complex issue it would have to be handled with a full programming language to allow for loops and variables. We built a simplified version in a database called End Date Calculation that you can review to see that this is using a dateadd() formula we have created which allows adding years, months, days, hours, or even minutes to an existing date field."

Here is how the database looks from the setup mode:


Here are calculation results:


Matt also explained how to implement duration calculations (Test 2):

"This is done using a weekdays() formula TrackVia offers which calculates the number of weekdays between two dates and datedif() to determine if there is a holiday that falls between the two entered dates. This would allow for a person to enter a starting and ending date for a project but would not take into consideration the times of day. The formula used can easily be updated to reflect a shorter or longer working day as well as changing the dates that a holiday will fall on."

Here is how the database looks from the setup mode:


Here is a complete formula that was used for the Duration Days calculation for your review:

weekdays(Start Time, End Time) - if(and(datedif(Start Time, year(Start Time)&"-12-25")>=0,datedif(End Time, year(End Time)&"-12-25")<=0),1,0) - if(and(datedif(Start Time, year(Start Time)&"-11-26")>=0,datedif(End Time, year(End Time)&"-11-26")<=0),1,0) - if(and(datedif(Start Time, year(Start Time)&"-11-11")>=0,datedif(End Time, year(End Time)&"-11-11")<=0),1,0) - if(and(datedif(Start Time, year(Start Time)&"-10-12")>=0,datedif(End Time, year(End Time)&"-10-12")<=0),1,0) - if(and(datedif(Start Time, year(Start Time)&"-09-07")>=0,datedif(End Time, year(End Time)&"-09-07")<=0),1,0) - if(and(datedif(Start Time, year(Start Time)&"-06-03")>=0,datedif(End Time, year(End Time)&"-06-03")<=0),1,0) - if(and(datedif(Start Time, year(Start Time)&"-05-25")>=0,datedif(End Time, year(End Time)&"-05-25")<=0),1,0) - if(and(datedif(Start Time, year(Start Time)&"-02-16")>=0,datedif(End Time, year(End Time)&"-02-16")<=0),1,0) - if(and(datedif(Start Time, year(Start Time)&"-01-19")>=0,datedif(End Time, year(End Time)&"-01-19")<=0),1,0) - if(and(datedif(Start Time, year(Start Time)&"-01-01")>=0,datedif(End Time, year(End Time)&"-01-01")<=0),1,0)

Here are calculation results:


Matt came to the following conclusions:

"Other date formulas available are datesub() which is the reverse of dateadd(), datetimedif() and datedif() which return the difference in either time or days, and weekday() which returns the day of the week a date falls on. Combining these formulas using if-then-else logic also available allows for all kinds of complex calculations to be made. We hope that from this you can see how complex calculations can be done in TrackVia and this will show how we have a wide range of prebuilt formulas to use for solutions to standard business problems."

My own conclusions:

Good news first: Looking at the "Duration Days" calculation formula, I think, nobody would say that TrackVia can’t perform complex calculations.

Bad news is that the system is still not able to calculate exactly what we needed. It looks like Test 1 had failed because the system is not able to calculate End Date while accounting working days (not even talking about hours). There are also some problems in the way durations were calculated for the Test 2. The main problem is that the function weekdays() is not designed for worldwide usage. If you are a TrackVia user from Israel, for example, the system would give you incorrect results because Sunday is a working day there.

As you can see, if you are going to add "working days and time support" functionality to your TrackVia application, you may need to research this system’s capabilities as well as its shortcomings to avoid surprises later on.

The Ideal Customer. Vendors define who he is.

So many times I’ve reviewed web-based systems from common user’s perspective looking for solutions that correspond to their expectations. This time my aim is a bit different. The other thing which is not less important is the vision of IDEAL CUSTOMER vendors have.

I’d like to clear up which user type attracts them the most and whom they would like to deal with. Because all these hype "we can serve EVERYBODY and solve EVERYTHING" almost all vendors proclaim only puzzles users rather than shows what to expect from the service.

So, I asked main vendors to specify their IDEAL CUSTOMER picture and this is their description:

Chris Basham from TrackVia:

A business (not a consumer).

Rapidly solving a business-critical problem (not a minor issue, or simply building a list of items).

Needs a sophisticated workflow application where each item in the app is valuable to the business, and each item is frequently processed/updated, with event-based alerts sent to users.

Requires a highly secure platform, with 100% availability and fast response time (no downtime or slow page loads).

Values "astounding" customer support, including live phone support during business hours, and hands-on help.

5 to 5000 users, of different levels of technical sophistication, will be working in the account frequently, with differing access levels to features, records, fields, etc.

The app is used by users who’re logged-in to the account (not by website visitors.

Treff LaPlante from WorkXpress:

"WorkXpress is focused on providing programmatic-level functionality faster and more easily than if using traditional programming languages. Our ideal customer is either a non-developer who wants to produce superior software functionality or a developer who wants to greatly accelerate their software development timeframes. The ideal customer is typically creating software to automate one or two departments, or in smaller businesses they are automating the entire company."

Frank Zamani from Caspio Bridge:

"The right customer is one who has a relevant project and appropriate skills.

As far as required skills, Caspio is a feature-rich and capable platform that is intended for tech-savvy business users. Tech-savviness is a spectrum, and depending on the user’s knowledge, or skills gained by using Caspio and our free training, they can learn to utilize more complex features to create truly sophisticated web applications. With this philosophy, customers don’t grow out of Caspio. There is always something new and exciting to learn and add to their web apps.


As for the projects themselves, we strive to offer capabilities that most common internal and public facing applications require. In particular, we uniquely make it easy and affordable to build and maintain

mass-scale apps that go on to have thousands of named authenticated users, and

are deployed to customer’s own site in a seamless fashion.

For us customer size is of no consequence."

Kirill Bondar from TeamDesk:

"Our ideal customers are ones who set up an application themselves and get the most out of it. We've seen it many times: they start changing and tuning their application and can't stop because of opening possibilities to automate this and that and even more and improve it further, and quickly become addicted by the process. They enjoy the process of improvement because our customers are business people typically - not the developers - and the opportunity to do it themselves is like climbing the peak with ready application as the reward.

Such customers will have two major advantages over the rest:

A full control - they know how their application works and they do not afraid to change it.

A speed - noone knows their business process better than they are; they do not need to write the specifications and explain it to developers, they just do what they need. They can try to do it in different ways to see what works best for them or quickly adopt their application to the changes in business process."

Paula Selvidge from PerfectForms:

"PerfectForms is designed with the business user in mind as the target audience. Our goal is to empower the person closest to the problem to create the solution that meets their needs.

Now, with that said, I fully understand and agree that application development encompasses a wide range of unique skills. I think the complexity of the solution that the customer intends to build is a key factor for consideration. I feel business analysts tend to have the best broad skill set, in regards to identifying requirements, designing interfaces and understanding workflow which enables them to create, usable and effective, complex applications in tools like PerfectForms. Admittedly, it is possible to use any of these development tools to create some very poor applications. The inherent product challenge is offering the power and flexibility for more advanced users, while still providing an interface that supports less experienced or novice users. I believe PerfectForms is straddling the middle at this point but this is not where we strive to be. We will continue to enhance our product and find ways to effectively help those that don’t have the optimal skills for application development to build solutions that meet their needs.

In terms of our market focus, we target SMBs. We are at a price point that falls in the strike zone for smaller group budgets, which tend to be business focused, so they are empowered to quickly purchase a tool that meets their needs without the lengthy enterprise evaluations. For those groups, they tend to select PerfectForms as a solution because they lack access to IT resources or are prioritized lower for development since their deliverables may not be as ‘mission critical’ to the organization."

As you can see, the question is not that easy as it seems at first but some of them managed to shed some light on this point anyway.

Which type of database does your vendor rely on?

In the majority of cases users have no direct access to database back-end that their system uses for data organization/storage. Usually you manipulate data with interface or API. One can say it doesn’t really matter from the end user standpoint.

But still the choice of the database back-end defines system possibilities and ideology in many respects. This is the reason why I questioned vendors of products I review in my blog which database they use (if any), the reason of their choice and what kind of advantages it offers.

Avi Bryant from Dabble DB:

"We use a custom, in-memory object database. This allowed us to more easily provide the flexible data migration, sophisticated data types, and fast interactive querying that we wanted to offer our users."

Frank Zamani from Caspio Bridge:

"Caspio utilizes Microsoft SQL Server for its database. From day one, back in 2000, we knew that employing a powerful and scalable database is of utmost importance to us. We initially chose Oracle but soon encountered issues operating Oracle on a Microsoft stack. As a result in, our next release we dropped Oracle and replaced it with SQL Server.

The criteria remain high reliability and high scalability within a Microsoft stack. The result of our choice is evident in our ability to power some of the most demanding web applications for our enterprise customers."

Jim Salem from QuickBase:

"QuickBase chose to build a proprietary database to store app data. There are three reasons:

1) Scalability
Traditional relational database platforms are targeted towards supporting a relatively small number of potentially very large databases. Because of this, they run into significant scalability challenges when trying to host millions of independent databases. QuickBase’s architecture avoids these traditional scalability issues entirely. It can continue to support more and more applications just by adding additional hardware. Our application density (number of active applications hosted per server) is significantly higher than other online databases.

2) Performance
We chose an "in memory database" architecture because it’s significantly faster (and simpler) than traditional database architectures for the size problems that QuickBase targets.

3) Native Support for Easy-to-Use Web Data Types
We wanted to avoid the complexity of traditional databases leaking through into QuickBase’s UI. Unlike traditional databases, QuickBase was built from the ground up with the web in mind. Primitive QuickBase data types include email addresses, URLs, and versioned file attachments. These all require special coding (and overhead) on traditional databases. In addition, we implemented an easy-to-use relationship model that our users find simpler than the SQL "join" operations and index configuration required on traditional databases."

Chris Basham from TrackVia:

"TrackVia is built on the LAMP stack (Linux / Apache / MySQL / Perl).
The reason that we chose the LAMP stack is that TrackVia is differentiated from our competition by 1) Security, 2) Uptime, 3) Fast page loads.

Unlike many technology companies, we actually don’t want to have our service run on the newest technology that’s available. We only want our service to rely on mature, "battle tested" technologies that have been around for so long that all of the bugs have already been discovered and fixed. For example, we don’t run the most current version of MySQL. We run an older version that’s more stable and predictable.

As a result of this philosophy, we are able to truly deliver on the 3 items above – security, uptime and fast page loads."

Kirill Bondar from TeamDesk:

"We are using Microsoft SQL Server for TeamDesk.

In fact, we are using it for all our products for about 8 years. It proves itself reliable and scalable, delivers good performance in almost every case and provides tight integration with server platform, web environment and development tools.

Just one fact: rather than storing formula or summary column evaluation results and tracking the changes in dependend columns to know when the value needs recalculating, TeamDesk, thanks to Microsoft SQL Server performance, just calculates it on the fly. Even with large data sets and a lot of interconnected tables, this way rarely causes performance problems."

Yoge from Zoho Creator:

"We use our proprietary grid storage that is based on MySql. The reason for our choice is open source solution allow us to scale the performance to the desired level."

Treff LaPlante from WorkXpress:

"We use MySQL. We began our R&D in 2001 on MS SQL backend, and in 2003 switched to MySQL. We made the switch primarily because we knew we wanted to save our customers licensing costs, however, it's turned out to be a great decision on many levels. First, MySQL has a talented user community that we interact with to share knowledge and code. Second, MySQL has established itself in recent years with all manner of enterprise as an accepted and in some cases preferred database. Finally, the available packages and options for MySQL have greatly accelerated our time to market with new feature sets."

Aditya Tandon from Wolf Frameworks:

"We support Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL database. Currently for our OnDemand model, we offer the MySQL database which helps to lower cost for our customers. For us, database is storage and we plan to add support for other databases soon."

Paula Selvidge from PerfectForms:

"When we began development of PerfectForms in 2006, we primarily evaluated Oracle vs SQL and chose SQL due to the factors outlined below. We are also going to support SQL Express by year end, since it will further reduce costs for our customers who want to pursue an on-premise solution.

We chose SQL over Oracle due to:

1. Reliability and scalability
2. Lower cost for customers
3. Consistency with our MS stack
4. Our API is built on asp.net, so going with SQL offered better performance
5. Less costly from a support, maintenance and resource perspective for us internally."

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading all the answers as I did. Frankly, I don’t want to make any conclusions here. But I think this information can help you choose the system that is of better use for you.

So, you can check out the summary on back-end database vendors provided us with:

Dabble DB	Custom, in-memory object database
Caspio Bridge	Microsoft SQL Server
QuickBase	Custom proprietary database
TrackVia	MySQL
TeamDesk	Microsoft SQL Server
Zoho Creator	Custom storage based on MySQL
WorkXpress	MySQL
Wolf Frameworks	MySQL (for hosted service option)
PerfectForms	Microsoft SQL Server

Do you really need these images and child records in TrackVia printed docs?

I’ve already tried to generate documents with several systems, but what if there is a better way of doing that? Well, TrackVia also gets a chance to show what can be done within the system. So, let’s check and see if it’s a good solution to create slick docs.

For this invoice I want to build a nice document:


Let’s just try standard print TrackVia uses for record printing:


As you can see the system doesn’t display child record content.

And now I’ll try to do it with a help of TrackVia Mail Merge feature that can be used to print one record or a set of records (any view) with a template that you create using Microsoft Word or a similar word processor.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t support child records as well, that’s why we’ll try to accomplish our task through Items table:


This is the look of mail merge template I created in word following instructions of TrackVia Help:


And that’s how it looks as I applied it to the above shown record:


You can see images are not displayed.

The good news is you can apply your template not only to one record, but to any view:


And that’s how the result looks like:


Conclusions:

Even though TrackVia doesn’t support child records and images by mail merge the whole approach is not bad. Besides, the system uses templates in RTF format what means you won’t have any problem generating the document with the look you want. So, if child records and record images don’t really matter TrackVia is a pretty good choice in this case.