VeilSpot Blog

This year’s Groundbreak celebrated the incredible things that happen when you pair technology with an emphasis on collaboration. Many of the speakers focused on the importance of cultivating a company culture to drive business transformation. 

At VeilSun, we see collaboration as one of the core driving factors in successful lean planning and construction project execution. That’s why we’ve developed so many construction technology solutions that improve both efficiency and collaboration – connecting the office and the field throughout the lifespan of a project.

With over 3 million construction businesses in the United States alone, there are a lot of people out there navigating the same industry pain points – no matter what size or sector of the industry your company might fall under. Major companies, general contractors and tradespeople alike are all trying to get projects completed on budget and on time.

From safety concerns, to lean planning and invoicing concerns, you might be surprised to learn that updating your company’s software might be the answer to many of your problems. 

Last year, VeilSun demonstrated our unwavering commitment to giving back to our communities through a variety of charitable activities and donations. As a close-knit team with offices in several US cities, we take pride in making a positive impact in our local areas, with a focus on engaging in hands-on service whenever possible. 

From packing boxes of food for those in need to donating to organizations that support education, disability services, and community building, VeilSun's generosity and dedication to social responsibility have left an indelible mark on our communities.

If you’re working in the construction industry, it’s almost certain you’ve heard of lean planning. It’s by far one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to run construction projects of any size. 

Studies have shown that projects using lean planning are 70% more likely to come in under budget and 200% more likely to end ahead of schedule.

But too many people in the industry aren’t leveraging this incredible planning system. Or, if they are, they’re not doing it efficiently. Pull planning with sticky notes is the standard practice, but it’s also outdated and inefficient. Once written out on sticky notes, pulls then have to be manually entered into the schedule – leaving room for input errors and wasting valuable time. Managing pulls in hard copy also doesn’t allow for the inevitable schedule changes and resulting adjustments to dependencies.

Quickbase is an incredibly agile low-code platform designed for ease of use. Nevertheless, users can benefit greatly from outside expertise in customizing their applications. That’s why Quickbase created a certified Quickbase Partner program – to ensure users know who to turn to for help, and get the maximum value for their investment.

Recently, Quickbase updated the program to create new rankings for its solution providers. VeilSun is proud to announce that we’ve achieved the highest possible rank: Elite status.

On the surface, investing in a healthcare compliance program may not seem like the best way to improve your revenue stream. However, the truth is, being out of compliance results in major fines. That’s a lot of revenue to waste on a solvable problem. 

Paying massive fines every year shouldn’t be treated as a cost of doing business. Healthcare compliance programs with the right infrastructure can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. VeilSun helped a major healthcare provider go from paying huge annual fines to running a continual compliance program that yielded zero issues on their next audit. Not a single fine.

We also saved them more than $100k on out-of-the-box software that wasn’t working. It doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg to implement a functional, streamlined system to manage your compliance needs. You can save huge amounts of time, money and effort with an affordable, customizable solution that ticks the right boxes and keeps your organization compliant.

No matter the size of your construction project, there’s always a ton to keep track of. From manpower to supplies to machinery, you have to manage a lot of moving parts, and the schedule inevitably changes. The good news is there are easy-to-use, affordable tools that can simplify and streamline your construction project management.

Whether you’ve got a five-man team or are managing dozens of subcontractors, you don’t have to spend a ton of money, time or effort getting everything you need in one place. Most of the out-of-the-box construction project management software is expensive, highly complicated and more than a lot of companies actually need.

Every company is different, so effective construction project management tools need to be flexible and easy to customize. That's the beauty of working with Quickbase as the foundation of your construction project management software. It allows you to bring information together from a huge variety of platforms and databases, customize your displays and get all your project management needs consolidated into the same place.

Ditch the spreadsheets. Sync up everyone’s schedules. And do it at a fraction of the cost.

At VeilSun, our people power our success. We’ve worked hard to create a company culture that keeps work fun, interesting and, above all, supportive. 

We’re a fast-growing company not just because we offer exceptional services to our clients, but also because we know that the best way to ensure great work is by starting with a great work environment.

Just ask our team.

Quickbase released a host of performance enhancements in recent months, intensifying the speed and efficiency of applications built within the platform. You may have already experienced increased efficiency from some of these features – such as faster batch deletes, the new default record picker behavior, an improved find formula function and a more efficient summary operator, just to name a few.

We're proud to announce the addition of Jose Laureano as Chief Technology Officer. Laureano joins VeilSun during the company’s continued rapid growth highlighted by a 40% increase in revenue last year. He will be key in powering the continued growth of the company across multiple industries.  

Laureano’s career spans industry leaders in construction, financial services, healthcare, security and compliance. At Comcast, Laureano led the team who created the data tracking framework for Xfinity hotspots. At DowJones, he developed enterprise architecture systems for The Wall Street Journal website. His work with Johnson &  Johnson in healthcare technology and his background in finance and mortgage industries leave him particularly well poised to increase VeilSun’s market position.

Long time Quickbase users and recent adopters alike should take note of the recent changes to the Quickbase platform. From the exciting updates to Quickbase’s dashboard features to the retirement of actions and automations – these changes will inevitably impact your application. 

Thankfully, the Quickbase updates offer some truly great opportunities that outweigh any potential challenges from the functionality that is being retired. Regardless of how long you’ve been using your Quickbase application, reviewing it with these changes in mind will help you to both improve your existing functionality and future proof your application.

If you’ve set up any of your essential workflows in Quickbase, it’s likely that you’ve used automations or actions to streamline your processes. These features allow you to reduce repetitive tasks and the number of clicks needed to transfer data from one system to another. Moving forward, however, Quickbase is consolidating action and automation features into their pipeline function.

The good news is that pipelines are a similar means to fully integrate your data and automate key elements of your business processes. With Quickbase pipelines, you can connect your SaaS tools (such as GMail, Slack, or OneDrive), and streamline how data moves between interfaces. For example, using a pipeline to connect Quickbase with your Salesforce account will make adding or updating contacts synchronous across both databases.

Making accurate, data-driven decisions is important in today’s rapidly changing business environment. In order to do that, however, you need a great reporting tool and a well-designed dashboard view. Quickbase recently released a powerful update to their dashboard functionality that goes far beyond just offering a prettier design and easier development experience.

It’s not hyperbolic to say that the new Quickbase dashboard features will revolutionize the way you see data, work with data and report on data in your Quickbase app. These updates offer tremendous potential for leveraging data across all of your applications, cutting and filtering information in ways that previously just weren’t possible.

Adding custom code to Quickbase Apps is a useful way to extend functionality and create quick solutions for your company’s needs. JavaScript makes up the vast majority of custom code that developers have added to Quickbase apps, which means it’s likely that you have some in your app. Until recently, this was an excellent and encouraged approach to customizing your applications. However, there are some upcoming changes to the way that Quickbase will be handling JavaScript. These changes may limit functionality in ways that could negatively affect your application. Importantly, if you don’t take action to address these changes soon, the consequences could be significant.

Changes coming in June and August will mean that the JSI in your app will no longer be editable, and your app might break.

When deciding which low-code app development platform to use, people often find themselves making a decision between two powerful tools: Quickbase vs. Power Apps. Both are strong contenders for solving critical business problems, automating processes and improving productivity and collaboration. However, each has its own strengths.

Microsoft Power Apps is touted as “a suite of apps, services, connectors and data platform that provides a rapid application development environment.” The goal of the tool is to provide a space for app development that doesn’t require a tremendous amount of technical expertise. The platform has several key strengths, particularly for enterprise organizations already using (and paying for) the Microsoft suite of tools. 

In a comparison of Quickbase vs. Power Apps, however, Quickbase comes out on top as a more flexible, versatile and easy to use platform.

In our work as Quickbase Consultants, we see so many companies who could be doing more with their existing Quickbase apps. Because Quickbase integrates with virtually every major app or platform, it’s an absolute powerhouse if you know how to put it to work. It’s just that many of the most useful Quickbase API integrations aren’t immediately obvious to those who haven’t been working with the platform as long as we have.

The other challenge is that too many organizations try to make the wrong app into their operating platform. Accounting software is designed for accountants. Collaboration tools aren’t designed to manage your inventory. Quickbase, however, is designed to be what you need it to be.

If you’re already using Quickbase to manage your data, you know what an incredibly robust tool it is for a wide range of uses. That being said, the standard Quickbase timeline report doesn’t offer the kind of flexibility that most project managers need. 

Too often, project managers end up pulling data out of their Quickbase system and into another program only to find there’s no way to then port that data back into Quickbase. The result is a frustrating and cumbersome process that fails to leverage the potential of your existing database.

Among the most ubiquitous project management tools out there, Smartsheet is a handy resource for simple data entry and tracking. However, as a project management tool, there are a number of key areas where it simply falls short. When making the comparison between Quickbase vs Smartsheet, the versatility, security and range that Quickbase offers make it the better choice for any kind of large-scale project.

As one of the most adaptable and user-friendly tools on the market, Quickbase can help you build custom workflows for virtually any of your organization’s unique needs. Whether it’s simply improving your scheduling workflows or helping you manage digital pull planning for lean construction, Quickbase is exceptionally versatile. Its low-code, user friendly structure also means you can build a custom app without a sophisticated development team on staff. Working with a Quickbase Consultant, however, might be a better, more efficient and readily accessible solution to getting your app built quickly and effectively.

Making it in today’s fast-paced business climate means aligning yourself with the right partners. You need partners that can help you leverage technology in innovative ways and can drive your efficiency while also generating synergy to deliver mutual success. With its low-code, scalable platform, Quickbase enables partnership like this like never before. Whether you are wanting a Quickbase partner that can design and build applications, or you need to find a partner that can help customize your existing applications, VeilSun can help.

As the #1 Quickbase Solution Provider, we know just how robust and versatile Quickbase can be. We also know that on their own, out-of-the-box Quickbase extensions don’t always serve the exact needs of every company. Even if the tools in your Quickbase toolbox are working relatively well, it’s likely that there are opportunities to supercharge your apps and make processes less cumbersome and more efficient.

If you’re already tracking tasks in a Quickbase app, are those tasks specialized for people in the field? Does your scheduling tool offer the flexibility you need to make real time adjustments or factor in delays? Is the interface for your Gantt charts intuitive enough for all of your users? Do you have partners in other countries who need information automatically translated?

To ensure a project is completed on time and under budget, lean construction planning is the vastly superior approach. Lean construction projects are 70% more likely to come in under budget and 200% more likely to finish ahead of schedule. In order to maximize the efficiency in your lean construction projects, it’s important to streamline your pull planning process.

While the traditional sticky note approach to pull planning is a tried and true method, it’s also cumbersome, inefficient and full of opportunities for error. That’s why VeilSun designed QLean: to provide a virtual tool that offers continuous collaboration, built-in quality controls and exceptional time saving features.

Regardless of industry, ensuring the health and safety of your employees and customers is vital to keeping your doors open. The COVID-19 crisis has ushered in a whole new reality in terms of necessary safety precautions for everyone. Keeping up with state regulations, federal guidelines, and CDC recommendations, can be a lot to manage, even with an entire department dedicated to compliance.

Regardless of size, your company needs to adapt quickly to the new normal. Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be an overwhelming or expensive process. VeilSun has the experience and expertise to build custom, flexible, low-code tools to help your company stay in COVID compliance, keep your employees safe and keep you open for business.

How often do you run a check up on your Quickbase apps? Do you wait for a problem or frustrations to build and then go into trouble-shooting mode? If so, you’re very likely not getting the most out of your Quickbase applications. Just like people and cars, apps can benefit from periodic check ups to make sure everything is running smoothly.

Whether there’s been a procedural change since your app was built or a feature update you’re missing out on, it’s likely that your Quickbase app could be running more efficiently. And if you’re encountering problems, then it’s past time to sort things out. Nine times out of ten, it’s an easily diagnosable and correctable issue. Whatever is going on, it isn’t an issue with Quickbase — it’s a problem somewhere in the app itself.

Right now, we know it’s not business as usual. But, as your business continues to adapt its operations for continued remote work or a reduced staff reopening, this could be an opportunity to uncover new efficiencies. At VeilSun, we’re offering free Dream Sessions to help you evaluate four core areas of your business processes.

A Dream Session is an opportunity to collaborate 1:1 with an experienced Quick Base consultant to help you realize your Quick Base Dream. Together, we’ll examine what solutions apply specifically to your business challenges and can be deployed to help you have your most efficient year yet.

Across the globe, businesses are scrambling to adapt to the radical shifts in daily living brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. As most of us have experienced first-hand, transitioning to a virtual work environment can disrupt business processes and your overall efficiency. 

Don’t let the transition to remote work derail your business entirely. While you may not have had systems in place that are easily adaptable to the new work-from-home realities, you don’t have to invest in expensive or tremendously complicated new software programs. There are many tools and strategies you can quickly implement to get your company set up for remote work.

Originally published 8/22/2019; Updated 3/31/2020

For construction companies, keeping the work flowing is critical to every project’s success. That’s why there’s always such a premium placed on quality project management tools. And, although a lot of construction companies rely on the traditional method of sticky note pull planning, VeilSun is offering a better way for teams looking for digital solutions that will help them keep their projects on track in the age of physical distancing. This blog will give a brief summary of what pull planning is, why it’s so great for construction, and why QLean from VeilSun can be such a perfect option for taking your pull planning to another level.

Originally published 12/1/2019; Updated 11/19/2021

Curious about the pros and cons of digital pull planning and if it could be your solution for strategic construction project planning? We've posted several blogs covering what pull planning is, how it works for construction, and firsthand accounts of how the last planner system works in practice. This blog will continue the series by addressing common misconceptions of digital pull planning and outlining its distinct advantages compared to traditional pull planning. PLUS: How digital pull planning can be used with remote teams.

Originally published 10/10/2019; Updated 11/19/2021

No matter the size or scope, every construction project seeks to benefit from strategic planning and efficient execution. Even before the global pandemic made physical distancing necessary, construction companies were in need of a better alternative to the traditional sticky-notes-in-a-room solution. Enter digital pull planning.

With this software, construction companies can achieve strategic planning goals in a cost-effective, easy-to-implement way – even if your team members are remote. Plus, pull planning software lets you move faster and gives your trades real-time access into what’s going on. This blog will highlight six steps you can follow in order to keep your construction project on time and on task from start to finish, no matter where your team meets.

It’s kind of tragic that so many companies continue to waste time, money, and energy trying to manage compliance via spreadsheets and email. It’s definitely the norm, and it’s also why compliance audits are inevitably painful. But they really don’t have to be.

If you want to get out of the vicious cycle, the first step is to move your compliance management out of email and into a more functional, streamlined system. The good news is that compliance management software does exist, and it will make your job (and everyone else’s) much, much easier. No matter which system you choose, there are a few key capabilities to look for when deciding on a compliance software solution..

How well did your last compliance audit go? Chances are, it didn’t go as smoothly as you’d like. Without an exceptional system in place, they almost never do.

When it comes time for an audit or certification, what’s your process? Is it a seemingly endless flurry of email and spreadsheets? Or is it a managed, secured and vetted process that saves time, energy and money? Our guess is, it’s the former. And that’s what makes any audit such a painful prospect.

Regardless of your organization and what type of audit you’re facing (whether it’s HIPAA, HITRUST, SOC1, SOC2, PCI, or any number of others), it’s an enormous and cumbersome task. In an ideal world, you’d have a system in place for continuous compliance, which would make audits infinitely less painful. But if you don’t, then the inevitable scramble is frustrating, time-consuming and costly.

All too often, GRC compliance becomes a complete nightmare of spreadsheets and emails. The process for many organizations is clunky at best and totally disorganized at worst. But it doesn’t have to be! Continuous tracking with automated workflows can eliminate the hassle of audit preparation and save your organization significant amounts of time and money.

To be well-prepared for an audit requires attention to workflow. So much has to be done to every specific piece of evidence, it’s no wonder that things frequently fall through. Each piece has to be requested, assigned, tracked, provided, vetted and reviewed, assembled and provided to the requestor… and trying to manage all of this via email inevitably complicates the process beyond measure.

Continuous tracking with VeilSun’s compliance system, on the other hand, will make your compliance less painful and vastly more efficient. Here are 6 benefits of an automated workflow tool for continuous compliance tracking.

We’ve talked before about the role of pull planning in construction. In order to get a better firsthand look at the importance of pull planning in construction, we sat down with an executive from one of the largest construction companies. They recently implemented QLean, VeilSun's pull planning application into the organization, to help convert from sticky notes to digital pull planning. We discussed pull planning at a high level, their experiences with specific tools they’ve used in the past, their experience with QLean, and some of their opinions on working with VeilSun.

For those of you who live in Denver, this blog will hit close to home. Literally. Since July 2018, it’s been nearly impossible to travel in or out of Denver International Airport (DIA) without encountering the MASSIVE construction project taking place throughout the main terminal. Originally scoped at around $1.8 billion (yes, with a “b”), the project has since spiraled out of control. This blog will provide a quick overview of the project, examine some common issues inherent in large construction projects, and finally offer some solutions on how to prevent large-scale disasters like this.

We just came back from another amazing week at Empower. Because we know some of you couldn’t attend, we thought we’d share one of the presentations we gave there. As you no doubt gathered from the title of this blog, it centered around artificial intelligence (AI) and incorporating bots with Quick Base. The results have been astounding and the reception at Empower was amazing. Enjoy!

We’ve talked numerous times before about how flexible Quickbase is and how perfect it is for enterprises. But we wanted to take a step back and give you a 30,000 foot look at just what Quickbase is at its core. Consider this your A to Z primer on all things Quickbase. Let’s jump in.

What is Quickbase?
Simply stated, Quickbase is a low / no-code application platform that makes it easier to build and deliver multi-user web apps. As we pointed out in the above links, Quickbase is secure and scalable for small business or the enterprise. It’s the perfect solution for businesses wanting to operate more effectively and efficiently.

How does Quickbase work?
Quickbase can be used to solve many different organizational issues for small and large businesses. (To say Quickbase is flexible is the understatement of the year—we call it the ‘Swiss Army Knife of Development’ for a reason.) As a case in point, here are a few of the ways Quickbase can plug and play in your day-to-day operations:

CRM
• Sales Management
• Opportunity Tracking
• Activity Management
• Proposal Generation
• Customer Portals
• Support Ticketing
• Quoting

Project Management
• IT Project Management & Support
• Construction management
• Marketing Management
• Materials Tracking
• Order Management
• Procurement
• Professional Service Automation
• Resource Management
• Task Management
• Timesheets
• Utilization Tracking
• Work Order Management
• Warranty Tracking

Financial Management
• A/P and A/R Management
• Budgeting
• Cash Flow Management
• Commissions
• Expense Tracking
• Invoice generation
• Job Costing
• SOX Compliance
• Vendor Management

Workflow and Process Management
• Approval Processes
• Assembly line management
• Case Management
• Compliance Management
• Contract management
• Content Management
• Document Management
• ERP
• HIPAA compliance
• Human Resources
• Inventory
• Legal
• Loan Origination
• Medical Coding
• Pharma trial management
• Product Management
• Property Management
• Strategic Objective Tracking
• Supply Chain
• Training Management

Reporting and Business Intelligence
• Executive Reporting
• Forecasting
• Real-time Job Profitability
• Goal tracking
• Process Performance

What can Quickbase do?
To get a bit more specific on the long list of capabilities above, we’d like to point out that Quickbase is an Application Platform as a Service (APaaS). That means that because it’s a web technology, Quickbase allows developers and non-programmers alike to build, secure, and deploy enterprise-grade Web apps quickly and inexpensively. Quickbase is used for any type of application for any type organization. (Just in case you’d forgotten in the last few paragraphs, we’d like to remind you again just how flexible Quickbase is. It can’t be overstated enough.)


Why Quickbase?
This question is actually pretty easy to answer. You need to choose Quickbase because there’s nothing else like it. It replaces all of your spreadsheets and interfaces with all of your existing software like QuickBooks. And it does it all with no or low code. It’s so easy and so powerful to use.
o What does low-code mean?
Low-code is a new way of creating scalable Web apps that require little or no coding. Low-code apps are easy to build and cost a fraction of traditional custom Web apps cost to build.

Quickbase Costs
Cost is one of the top concerns when considering any purchase for your enterprise. We’ve covered this topic in greater detail before, but we wanted to put the highlights here in one place for easy reference. According to a Forrester Total Economic Impact Low-Code Platform Study of Quickbase, there were four distinct cost benefits associated with implementing Quickbase.

• Reduced time and cost to develop applications. Organizations saw a 60% to 85% reduction in development times, with an average of 8 weeks saved.
• Faster time-to-business value. The four composite companies represented in the study saw an additional business value of $4,418,835 over the three years of analysis.
• Avoided headcount in IT. Deploying Quickbase saved companies an average of two IT employees.
• Faster time to update and maintain applications. Achieved dramatic time and cost savings by using Quickbase to update and maintain their applications.

VeilSun has always been unapologetic evangelists for Quickbase. Hopefully with all of the amazing proof points found above, you can see why. As always, if you have any questions about how we can help implement Quickbase for your business, get in contact with us. We’re happy to talk.

Quickbase is an incredibly robust tool for developing the customized apps you need to streamline your company’s processes. As with any tool, though, it takes time and energy to learn how to use it properly — and that’s probably a waste of your internal resources.

The first time I built a customized app with Quickbase, it took nearly six weeks. Now, I can build one in just a few days. Too many companies make the mistake of wasting in-house resources trying to building tools on their own.

We love what we do. We feel really fortunate to be in this industry, partnering with the people and companies we are, and creating the work we do. It’s really a dream come true for all of us at VeilSun. Without a doubt, one of the top reasons for our success is the powerful set of core values we try to live by—and up to—every day. We’re very proud of them. That’s why we want to use this blog to take a little deeper dive into some of those values to give you a better picture of who VeilSun is, and why we do what we do for you.

VeilSun is proud to have been awarded Quick Base's 2019 "The People's Choice Award." Now, we’ve mentioned this before, but we’ve never been huge fans of blowing our own horns. But coming back with this award from the QSP Summit, a big annual conference where Quick Base Service Providers, like VeilSun, get together and hear from Quick Base about the upcoming year, has us really excited! 

There are few things more satisfying for us than building an app from the ground up. But it goes beyond that—we like to know it’s going to get used. One of the best ways to make that happen is to give it a “personality,” a little bit of flair (shout out to Office Space!) that helps it stand out to the end user. This blog will take a look at three ways to give your app “personality” that is customized to the end user/customer. They are: name, blueprint phase, and user adoption (plus tweaks).

What’s better than improving your productivity or increasing the ways you’re able to interact with your data? The answer, of course, is nothing. That’s why people have been using Power BI with Quickbase for years. But with a recent release, the way Power BI interacts with Quickbase has changed for the better. This blog will highlight the new Power BI connector while showing you how VeilSun’s expertise can make it matter for you.

Does Quickbase Integrate With Bubble?

Yes! As much as things continue to evolve in the world of programming, one thing doesn’t change: the quest to make things easier. Quickbase has already perfected this art, which is why it’s become the programming platform of choice for so many companies. But we wanted to take a little time in our blog to tell you about another resource that’s just as easy to use and can be paired with Quickbase to turbocharge your productivity: Bubble.

Bubble is great for many reasons, including its intuitive, drag-and-drop interface and its sweet user portal. But instead of touting its features and benefits, we thought we’d show you them via a real-world case study.

The Rural Physicians Group works as a matching service for hospitals that have more patients than physicians. They match physicians with full time gigs to fill shifts at rural hospitals. They use Quickbase with a great deal of success in figuring out logistics, like which physicians they have and which physicians are credentialed where. They are also use Quickbase to forecast revenue, like what they pay the doctor versus hospital and how much they pay physicians to cover a set of shifts, etc.

What they wanted to do was start using that information to optimize the scheduling of physicians. Currently, they use an antiquated scheduling system that just isn’t efficient. As a service to providers (they think of doctors as clients too), they wanted to make the scheduling process more interactive. So, they turned to Quickbase and Bubble.

When it comes to developing an app, there are obviously a lot of moving pieces contained within many different phases. This blog post is going to take a look at the one phase where we see most apps fail: the adoption stage. 

This is it! The final part of our talk, “Building a Better Death Star,” given at EMPOWER 2018. As a follow up to part 4, this entry takes a look at real-time budget accountability. Some estimates put the cost of building the Death Star at around $852 quadrillion. At that scale, we’re guessing budgets were also kind of a big deal. Down here on Earth, we operate with smaller numbers, but that doesn’t make them any less important. Let’s explore how Quick Base can help you make a galactic impact on your budget accountability.

Anyone who’s been a CTO for a while knows the amount of effort that goes into building, securing, and maintaining full-stack WEB applications. They also know Web app development demand usually outstrips DevOps supply.

Just today, I was thinking back to when I was the CTO of a brand-new start up in the geolocation space.  

We’re rolling ahead with part 4 of our talk, “Building a Better Death Star,” given at EMPOWER 2018. As a follow up to part 3, this entry focuses on managing risk in the field. Considering they had to evade Force Chokes from their team lead, the guys building the Death Star were clearly well versed in how to manage risk. Let’s see how that plays out for the rest of us with Quick Base.

In the Low-Code world, it’s mostly about fast and cheap.

We’re excited to jump right in to part 3 of our talk, “Building a Better Death Star,” given at EMPOWER 201

8. We’re following up to part 2, Imperial Best Practices: Managing Projects and Resources with this entry about scheduling from a project management standpoint. But we’ll skip the fancy intros—when you’re trying to crush the rebellion, time is of the essence.

Denver, CO, Release: August 28, 2018

VeilSun, a growing cloud computing professional services firm specializing in low-code / no-code development and the Quick Base platform today welcomed Ty Shewmake as their Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Shewmake has been charged with helping VeilSun shape the technology future of this PaaS development leader.

A recognized IT leader and Quick Base Product Council member, Mr. Shewmake has been part of the Quick Base developer community since 2008. Since 1996, he has held CTO positions across industries from banking, to mining, to professional services. He joins VeilSun as the company expands its share of the exploding of the low-code / no-code marketplace, which is expected to reach $27 Billion USD by 2022.

As unapologetic Quickbase ambassadors, it’s a question we get asked all the time: how much does Quickbase really cost? And it’s a fair one. Knowing it’s such an important question, we like to think there are three different ways to frame the answer. This blog will discuss each of those approaches in greater detail.

In our last blog, we shared part 1 of our talk, “Building a Better Death Star,” given at EMPOWER 2018. This blog will cover part 2, Imperial Best Practices: Managing Projects and Resources. It’s clearly an important topic. After all, you don’t build a moon-sized ship without knowing how to manage your projects and resources. We’ll highlight five tips here.

As promised, here’s part 1 of the follow up to our talk, “Building a Better Death Star,” at EMPOWER 2018. This blog will cover Imperial Best Practices: Building Project Plans. Bear in mind that a lot of these are very common project management processes for project management professionals but are hard to institute without Quick Base.

As you know, we’re never ones to toot our own horn. However, sometimes outside entities intervene to give us confirmation that our quality-first approach is working. And that’s just what happened recently. VeilSun is (humbly) proud to announce we just received the Quick Base Gold Partner Award—an honor given to only five solution providers in the world. As with everything associated with Quick Base, winning this prestigious designation meant hitting a long list of quality performance indicators.

As we mentioned in our last blog, we recently got back from Empower 2018. It was filled with all of the knowledge sharing you’d expect, as well as great networking and exciting announcements. Perhaps the biggest revelation of the week came on the first day when the Customer Award Winners were announced. We’re proud to say the company we nominated, Vumatel, won The Impact Award, given to the organization that demonstrates the results of driving ideas into action for their organizations every day.

No matter the size of your company or project, construction project management is inevitably a massive undertaking. From managing the trades to scheduling resources, there are a lot of moving parts for a project manager to juggle. But it doesn't have to be a nightmare.

With the right tools for managing your construction projects, you can consolidate all those moving pieces into one place. That might look like an easy-to-use tool for digital pull planning or a customizable cloud-based app for all your project management needs.

Once you have the tools in place, then it's a matter of running your operations based on a set of straightforward principles: starting with a strong plan, managing resources effectively, scheduling for success, managing risk and creating budget accountability. 

We knew 2018 was going to be a banner year in many ways. In fact, we’d deemed it the Year of Experiences. And that’s why we’re so honored to be selected as Quick Base Partner of the Year for 2018.

We’ve talked before about how Quick Base really is the perfect solution for enterprises. It solves a lot for Enterprise IT because it’s a single, flexible, not pre-packaged platform that fits in so many places within the enterprise. Best of all, it gives them total control and complete governance with very little implementation. In this blog, we’ll take a little bit deeper dive into some more specifics of how Quick Base can solve enterprise problems.

For those of you who don’t know us, we’re VeilSun, a professional services firm that specializes in developing and integrating cloud-based applications. We also happen to moonlight as Quick Base evangelists. (Those last two statements aren’t accidentally related, by the way.) We love Quick Base for two basic reasons: it helps us quickly solve complex process issues and it allows us the flexibility to build custom systems exactly the way you want—minus traditional custom software costs.

We’ve talked in several of our blogs about how versatile Quick Base is. We’ve also touted how consistent it is in helping businesses streamline processes and maximize productivity. But what we haven’t done before is relate those benefits to a specific industry. For this blog, we’re going to do just that by looking at two of the trends happening now in construction.

In the past, when it came to project management, the construction industry either had nothing, or they’d cobble together some antiquated systems. Or, if they didn’t rely on disparate systems, they relied on something huge, like ProCore, a well-known large construction ERP. To make matters worse, construction companies usually find a platform and stay on it for 10-20 years. It’s a simple truth that they’ve rarely embraced innovation when it comes to how they work. In all, this was too much for the modern worker.

QuickBooks is the world’s most popular accounting software. So, chances are, you might be using it in your business. That’s why we wanted to put together a quick post that covers why it’s important to ensure Quickbase and QuickBooks integrate as much and as efficiently as they can.

If you’ve read any of our blogs, it’s abundantly clear that Quick Base is a Swiss Army knife of functionality for small to mid-size businesses. And yet, we find it really interesting (and more than a little perplexing, honestly) that a number of potential enterprise clients question whether or not Quick Base is a viable enterprise option. As you can probably guess from this blog’s title, we’re going to set the record straight by dispelling a few of the most common objections enterprises have when it comes to Quick Base. Three of the most frequent objections we hear concern security, control/governance, and continuity planning.

Happy 2018! We’re excited about this New Year, knowing it’s so full of new ideas. As you examine all of the promise and possibilities this year holds, it seems like the perfect time to step back and think about your business. It’s always easy come into a new year and fall into the rut of doing the same things over and over again and not thinking about where you’re going strategically. That’s why we want you to take the opportunity to explore solutions to your organization’s biggest problems. It’s not for the faint of heart, but this blog will provide a road map you can follow to get there.

As we finish up an amazing 2017, I thought I’d share a more personal story that just happened over the holidays. So, let me set the stage. It’s Christmas Eve day. My wife and I were preparing to host a nice dinner for the rest of our family. (We’re fortunate enough to have double ovens, so we were well equipped for the onslaught of cooking/baking we were about to undertake.) Plus, we’d seen a lot of cool recipes on social media, so we were giving some new things a try, including what looked to be the coolest stuffing ever. But, without a doubt, the star of the show was going to be a massive, succulent prime rib.

Love it or hate it, Microsoft Excel is still a pretty entrenched piece of software for most businesses. And for good reason. When you stop and think about it, you realize Excel is a lot like an old family friend. It’s hard working. Pretty reliable. But maybe not 100% living in modern times. This post will take a look at Excel in a modern context and will show you why so many companies are moving away from it.

We’ve talked about it a million times before, but it bears repeating: the goal of every company is to get as much quality work done as they can as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. VeilSun understands that perhaps better than anyone. After all, that’s the whole reason Quickbase was invented in the first place. So, it makes sense for you to bring a developer on full time in house, right? Well, not so fast. This blog will take a look at that idea along with some of the benefits of outsourcing your Quickbase development. 

When it comes to choosing a CRM, we see more and more people comparing Quick Base and Salesforce than ever before. It’s an interesting phenomenon because it leads to two cyclical use cases: users dump Quick Base to go to Salesforce, and then they dump Salesforce to come back to Quick Base. This blog will explore a couple of reasons why that keeps happening and will shed a little light on why Quick Base ultimately delivers faster implementations with quicker ROI.

In the ever-present quest to increase productivity across their enterprises, businesses of all sizes are turning to a very familiar name with an ever-expanding suite of products: Google. After seeing how successful small businesses have been integrating the Google suite of products into their workflow, along with Google’s proliferation in business in general, companies on the growth path are now seeking new ways to replicate that success on a larger scale. That’s where Quickbase comes into play.

As Quick Base experts and evangelists, VeilSun is always looking for ways to help other businesses use Quick Base to drive productivity. This post will show you a few scenarios on how you can integrate Quick Base, NetSuite and Workato to get more done in less time while also saving money.

Shakespeare once famously wrote, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” As we saw Quick Base unveil its brand update at the Empower conference earlier this year, this quote really struck us. As we examined the idea of what’s in a name for the new Quick Base, we realized that, because the name itself didn’t actually change, the question we should be asking is: what’s in a space? This blog will take a look at the new Quick Base brand and highlight a few of the changes you’ll want to know about.

Chances are you’ve had one of these happen to you at one point in time: Performance issues. Lag time. Pages or forms taking a long time to load. You can’t even pull reports. You just know Quickbase is failing you. We say…not so fast. Before you throw the baby out with the bathwater and dump Quickbase, take a step back and look at what’s actually going on. This post will help you assess your needs and show you how to fix it with a 7-point check up.

You won’t find bigger Quick Base evangelists than the team at VeilSun. But we’re definitely not alone. In an effort to highlight a few of our colleagues who feel just as much love for Quick Base, we wanted to share a recent Q&A session we had with our friends at CCI. More specifically, we wanted to pick their brains about an innovative initiative they’ve instituted called the Ninja Program.

As a bit of background, CCI won the Catalyst Award at the 2017 Empower Conference, given to “the organization that creates a culture in which motivated people are empowered people. These organizations smash the limitations of “who” and “how” with the power of “wherever” and “whenever.” No wonder we’re such big fans. We not only love what they do, but how they do it.

In 1967, Star Trek aired a famous episode (for Trekkies anyway) called “The Trouble with Tribbles.” In the episode, the Enterprise had a small, fuzzy creature onboard called a Tribble that seemed harmless. Over time, however, the Tribbles began to multiply at an exponential rate. Their rapid growth posed some very real challenges for the crew which they eventually overcame. You’ll have to watch the rerun so I don’t spoil it, but it’s definitely a fun one.

More than ever before, productivity is the name of the game. It’s crucial to be able to access information from wherever you are so you can get more done in less time. That’s why so many businesses are looking for cost-effective ways to help their teams collaborate more efficiently. With the anywhere convenience of Google Drive and the power of Quick Base, businesses are finding just what they’re looking for. And now, with QDrive, you can get the best of both worlds.

Microsoft Access has been a stalwart in the database space for years. Ever since its debut in 1992, businesses everywhere have trusted it as their go-to database management system for workflows and data tracking. But, as with all things technological, if it doesn’t evolve, it dies. And that’s what we’re seeing with MS Access now.

In the past, English was the only language option when working with Quick Base. Unsurprisingly, this language barrier kept Quick Base out of certain foreign markets. But today, VeilSun is proud to change all of that with our latest offering: QTranslate.

Empower is always a great way to get in on the ground floor to know what’s coming. And this year is no exception. In fact, we’re more excited about QuickBase and the future of the platform than ever.

We know you’re busy — time is always of the essence. You never seem to have enough of it and you want to make sure you make the most of what you do have. That’s why we want to tell you a little about the upcoming Empower 2017 conference. To us, Empower has always been worth the time, but this year’s conference is going to be extra special. How do we know? Well, we just got back from the QuickBase Solution Provider (QSP) Summit and are really excited about the things we saw and heard. As excited as we’ve ever been, in fact. There’s some innovative direction we’ve never seen before.

As one of the top reviewed solution providers for QuickBase, we know a thing or two about the best ways to use it to boost productivity and performance. And one of the best ways we’ve found to do just that comes from incorporating Workato. By letting you create a non-code based way to integrate cloud applications together, Workato gives you a quick and easy way to make systems talk with each other. This blog will take a look at why that’s important and offer four additional reasons why you should be using Workato to improve your workflow and output.

VeilSun is a professional services firm that specializes in developing and integrating cloud-based applications. More specifically, we specialize in QuickBase development, QuickBase consulting, cloud integration and other leading process improvement platforms. We’ve helped hundreds of growing companies achieve their business goals through a scalable technology vision. You can find us at our two main offices, one in Denver and one in Houston.

As a Platinum level sponsor, we’re excited to help all attendees and exhibitors embrace the possibilities only available at EMPOWER. In looking to foster the partnerships that help companies thrive, we hope attendees will visit our kiosk in the Exhibit Hall. Not only will they be able to meet our team firsthand and see demos of multiple use cases and tools, they’ll also have the chance to sign up for a Dream Session.

Coming out of business school, somebody once told me, “If you design a solution correctly, everybody can be a winner.”  It was up to the solution designer to capture every user’s requests, wants, and needs and to piece them together into a solution that creates high value for all of them.  Soon after, I entered the real world of system implementation and I soon realized that this advice was purely, 100%, unequivocally wrong.

                          5 Reasons Your Construction Business will Never Need Another Spreadsheet

                                  5 Reasons Your Construction Business will Never Need Another Spreadsheet

5 Reasons Your Construction Business will Never Need Another Spreadsheet

5 Reasons Your Construction Business will Never Need Another Spreadsheet

                                        5 Reasons Your Construction Business will Never Need Another Spreadsheet

Effectively running and growing a company requires leaders to stay vigilant on all aspects of a business. You can't effectively expand your market offerings if you don't have a clear sense of what's already working and what isn't. That gets a lot easier if you consolidate your operations into fewer programs.

With the right tool, you can manage everything from scheduling to compliance to accounting in the same place. Having a platform that offers at-a-glance dashboards and transparent executive reporting is vital for helping you effectively monitor your operations. Integrating all your disparate programs into one platform will help you take a broad view and set you up for strategically managing your business.

And strategic management is the way to take your company from just surviving to actively thriving! In this brief introduction, we'll offer an overview of a management model that thousands of companies use for strategic planning (including VeilSun). 

There has always been a huge disconnect in business between good process engineering and good process execution. In the good ole' days, this was solved through endless training and piles of paperwork.

I am not sure if you have heard, but there is a major QuickBase release this weekend. As a QuickBase-nerd, this is easily the most exciting QuickBase release I can remember. Check out the product release notes here. As a QuickBase Solution Provider, it includes many of the things that will help us and our clients bring their applications to the next level.

 “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough, we must do.”- Leonardo da da Vinci (1452-1519);

At VeilSun, a QuickBase Solution Provider, we’ve been fortunate over the years to work with some remarkable

clients – companies that are dynamic and forward-thinking. And within those companies, we’ve been privileged to team up with the folks who are looking to make a positive impact within their organizations – we sometimes call them change agents.  Insofar as our business is developing QuickBase solutions to project management problems, these change agents are invariably the people who are instrumental in pushing their company forward, whether it’s by moving applications and data to the cloud, driving process improvements, or influencing old ways of thinking. These key people are not necessarily in top management.  Rather, they can be at any level in a company that fosters innovation. We’ve been able to discern three characteristics that these special people have in common and wanted to share them with you:

• Innovative.  Not just coming up with ideas, but knowing how to apply them.  Change agents are curious, experimental, and, as we’ve witnessed with our customers, they try to apply their discoveries to the organization’s goals.  They are not necessarily “techies,” or experts, but are more likely generalists who have the vision of what will make a difference to the company.

• Diplomatic.  Rarely do we see a good change agent who is not diplomatic.  They are usually very good at working with multiple groups and moving them forward.  They usually have a good feel for what it takes to make something happen.  Often, they will combine their diplomacy with innovation to develop a “proof of concept” to motivate and impress a cautious boss.

• Supercharged.  Not hyperactive, but motivated with a purpose. With persistent determination, these change agents methodically spread their vision, achieve buy-in, and get the boss on board.  Along the way, they learn the rewards of patience. Even the best ideas can become better by listening to and incorporating the input of others.  

We’ve learned that being a change agent is not specific to a job title or area of expertise.  No matter what their position, they have a passion to positively impact their organization, their way of working, and to embrace new toolsets and methodologies to achieve their vision. We’ve been privileged to grow with these special clients 

Project Management is one of the most common uses of Quickbase. There are a lot of tools out there to

Building software customizable to your business needs is like building a custom home. You’ve got the blueprints and materials you’ll need, the crew to build it, and a timeframe when it should be ready to move in. After living in your new home, you may realize a few things that didn’t quite work out as planned. For instance, having that small office nook right next to the downstairs bathroom everyone uses probably wasn’t such a great idea after all; or the kitchen cabinet knobs you chose just don’t quite look as awesome as you dreamed up in your head (you mean all gold plated knobs clash with my stainless steel appliances?! WHAT?).