dbFront.com - Recent questions in Features (Done)

How can I can I use dbFront to connect to a SAAS service that uses OAuth?

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 21:25:59 +0000

Many external services require OAuth authentication to enable account access. How can I manage that with dbFront?

Ability to position the Advanced Search above the table

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 18:13:13 +0000

I want to simplify things for the user direct them to filter down the database first.

To facilitate that I want to position the search above the table.

How can I move the form buttons below the form

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 19:29:57 +0000

I would like to move the buttons below the form to make it cleaner for my users.

Dynamically Refresh Stored Procedure Results

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 17:49:47 +0000

It would be very useful if the results of a stored procedure could automatically refresh themselves as a process completes on the database.

Two of many use cases are:

You are monitoring an external process and monitoring a log table.
You are monitoring one or more processes that are using the SQL Server Service Broker to execute Asyncronously.

Parse Browser Query String parameter for stored procedure

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 17:13:32 +0000

I need to pass information from one screen to another and have a RunProcedure call on the second screen use that information.

I plan to add a query special parameter from the OpenURL call but then need to capture that parameter and pass it to a procedure on the second screen.

Add If-Contains visibility expression

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 16:21:54 +0000

The "If In List" expression works when I want to check if a value from the current record is in a list. But I want to check the opposite direction. I want to check if a field from the current record contains the specified value.

Prepare Form Data Before Load

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 13:41:08 +0000

I need to do just-in-time preparation of the Form Data before it is loaded and visible to the user.

The issue is that I need to pull in data from a separate system so that the data will be relevant.

I know I can setup a background process on the database server to ensure that the data is always ready for presentation but that would create a pile of work and data churn on the server for data that would rarely be seen. Additionally, there is the risk that it wouldn't be current.

Views can't trigger processing.

Is it possible to call a stored procedure to prepare the data just before the main form is loaded?

Have table open with advanced search already expanded

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 16:07:52 +0000

Sometimes, we have tables setup that are only used by users to search for data - so we use the "Table Only" layout option. It would be nice if we could have the ability on tables to have each pane open expanded or closed. As in, allow Details to open expanded or closed, form to open expanded or closed, advanced search to open expanded or closed, etc. Would be a nice bit of extra customization.

Ability to search integer datatypes for exact value (non-ranged)

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 16:07:34 +0000

Currently, in advanced search integer and date data types require you to enter a range of values. It would be nice if both of these would be able to be modified to allow you to input a single search value rather than a ranged search value.

Show Images in the Table Grid instead of Checkmarks

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 23:22:27 +0000

Our users would like to see the image or a thumbnail in the table grid instead of the checkbox which indicates that there is an image.

Enable Data Cleanup by Recognizing Disabled/NoCheck Relationships or Constraints

Fri, 22 Mar 2024 15:29:51 +0000

It is possible to create Disabled or Unchecked relationships. This often happens when converting structures or uploading data from external systems.

A big source is tables and relationships that were created by the Microsoft Upsizing Wizard or its replacement Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant. This is because Microsoft Access allows for the creation and use of relationships that are not checked. This also shows up when users have dropdowns/combo-boxes that allow users to select or create their own values.

This can create a massive headache for data cleanup. How can dbFront be used to help with Data Cleanup.

Show Field Preferences gear in table headers

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 14:51:45 +0000

One for the "not really needed but nice to have" pile - Render a Field Preferences gear in the table column headers, in addition to the form fields. Currently, changing settings on a table-only field requires you to add it back to the form, change settings, then remove from form.

Ability to RECEIVE and process GET/REDIRECT requests

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 23:07:18 +0000

This might seem out of scope for dbFront but the purpose would be to enable more complex integrations.

This might be for already authenticated users who are being redirected back to dbFront after some external processing by a 3rd party. e.g. Payment Provider or Authentication.
This could be for non-authenticated or anonymous links that perform a special lookup, security check or processing before allowing custom access.

The idea is to enable the crafting of a special URL that is processed by a stored procedure with the stored procedure returning a redirect URL after processing.

The procedure would be responsible for any validation and security.

Ability to download Attachments and Linked-Files with reports.

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 22:22:37 +0000

It is possible to include the attachment (BLOB or VarBinary) columns in reports but this only includes the attachments if the attachments are printable images.

I need to be able to export the report and all attachments (PDF, Docx, Excel, ++) to satisfy discovery and audit requests.

The client wants the contents as a single ZIP so they can be sent to https://www.srfax.com/

Add some way to style the custom layout view to make it easier to recognize.

Tue, 02 May 2023 20:34:11 +0000

Sometimes users accidentally switch themselves to their custom layout and it is not always very easy to recognize. This can make for time consuming support requests as we try to figure out why their screen is different from others.

Ability to have a Stored Procedure process the WebRequest results

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 17:45:45 +0000

Triggers are great but it would be much better if we could specify a stored procedure to process the WebRequest results.

That would allow for a cleaner separation of logic. Especially if the logic was at all complex.

Sticky Columns

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 16:44:33 +0000

Allow users to select Sticky columns in dbFront. We have a large number of columns that we want to enable in the Grid view but want to ensure that some columns are always visible.

Multiselect with composite primary key

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 23:00:29 +0000

Does dbFront support multiselect lookups, where one of the relationships consists of a composite primary key? I tried setting it up but it's only showing as One to Many. Not sure if it's unsupported or I'm doing something wrong.

Advanced Search Field Character Length

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 16:55:27 +0000

Is there any way to make an Advanced Search field longer than 50 characters? This generates so many unnecessary support requests because users cannot find something.

Quick Search - Exclude Fields in Table View from Quick Search

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 13:49:50 +0000

With regards the "Quick Search" it would be good if there was an option to select which fields are used in the search. For example, if there's a calculated field on the table view (as it's useful for users) such as a "Count" of records (in a SQL view)

If you then use a search which hits these criteria (e.g. search for a number), it then searches through this view for the value.

Graphically, it makes sense. But from a user experience, it can lead to a very slow search as it has to search the SQL view as well as the static data. Especially if the SQL view is very complex.

Alternative work around is to use SQL to store the information within the table itself, however this would mean that there needs to be a routine to move this data from the view and put in the table.

Allow Emails to be used as attachments

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 13:33:00 +0000

The document attachment feature works well - we use it to include photosgraphs, PDFs, Word docs and Spreadsheets. But is it possible to allow Emails (from Outlook) to be included.
I suspect the easiest user interface for this would be to simply drag and drop the (open) message.

Regards
Colin

Add send email option to action buttons

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 17:48:27 +0000

Add the ability to send emails from within the application to email addresses stored in a table. For example I have a list of users in my client list and I want to notify them of an outage, it would be nice to be able to click on a button and send an email out with the notification. You already have the email set up so that's one step out of the way. Thanks!

Download and Open Local Network resources

Wed, 23 Feb 2022 14:26:58 +0000

For understandable security reasons, Browsers are not allowed to open local network resources. Because of this URLs like [file://C:\YourFolder\YourFile.txt"] will not work. The browser will simply block the request.

For a more complete discussion see the related question.

This feature request proposes that dbFront could be configured with a specific set of safe folders, and for those folders only, allow users to download and view the files via a special link.

Run Crystal Reports

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 17:10:41 +0000

How can we run Crystal Reports from dbFront?

Active Directory ADFS Filter

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 23:07:28 +0000

At the moment dbFront appears to only support a single Active Directory.

We have a need to query multiple OU's in a Forest and select a very specific set of users. What changes do we need to make to the dbFront configuration to make this happen?

Show Number of Entries in Child Tab Caption

Fri, 28 Jan 2022 13:49:32 +0000

I try to improve the ui (table-over-tabs) for an 1:M relationship between two tables - User : Workitem.

When I select a user entry the form below shows all relevant user information(tab1) and "hides" behind tab2 if there are any workitems (the linked table). So I have to change the tab view to see if there is even anything there.

Is there a way to show if there are any Workitems for the user without switching the tab-view?

Some ideas I came up with but didn't managed to implement:
- Show number of records in the tab caption
- Change style to other color with css on empty table

Thanks
Christoph

Create a Database Home/Welcome page

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 20:48:10 +0000

dbFront has lots of places where you can configure user help but it would be great if there was a separate home page for each database that could function as a good starting point for more complex or rarely used databases.

General welcome guide,
Links to other help material,
Links / Buttons to common forms, reports, or other actions.

Ability to send HTTP POST requests

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 15:46:17 +0000

Our main ERP system (along with many other programs/services these days) has an API that uses HTTP POST requests to allow integrations with other programs.

Along with the new webrequest feature, this could open dbFront to a new level of integration with external resources.

Load PDF form data into database

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 00:43:39 +0000

We receive a large number of PDF forms. Currently we have to extract the data from each PDF individually into a csv file, combine the files and then load them to our DB. This is very time consuming. It would be great if DBFront could import PDF forms, preferably multiple PDF files at one time.

Allow regular users to customize their own layout

Sat, 06 Nov 2021 20:56:26 +0000

We have some power users that want to be able to adjust the column order in the table grid and on the forms. They would also like the freedom to make further changes.

What kind of options are there in dbFront?

Conditionally style table columns based on values.

Sat, 06 Nov 2021 20:13:29 +0000

There are a few columns where numbers are manually entered in. Is it possible to turn a cell red if the number isn’t within a certain range? There are about 5 or 6 cells we care about.

Retrieve data from an external JSON or XML service

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 18:53:21 +0000

I need to regularly extract data from an external system using a web request.

As example, I download and import the Exchange rates from the European Central Bank.

The service URL is 'http://www.ecb.int/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml'

Multi-column sort for end-users

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 19:36:18 +0000

I've gotten a few requests from end-users for more powerful on-the-fly sorting capabilities.
As far as I know only single-column sorts can be applied currently, via the column headers.
Something like the Default Sort tab in Table Preferences is what I'm envisioning (maybe limited to only show the columns that the admin has selected in Table & Form Fields?)

Search - Processing Dialog

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 17:11:42 +0000

It would be nice if there was a "processing" dialog when performing a search on a large table.

For example, a search may take 15 seconds to respond. (TTFB) In that time, the user may think that the website has crashed.

Round numbers to two decimal places?

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 15:37:46 +0000

Is there a way to round numbers to two decimal places? I have inputted 0.15 yet I am seeing 0.15000000590464.

Select Start of Week for Date-Picker.

Fri, 06 Aug 2021 20:14:35 +0000

Currently the date picker starts with Monday when it should be starting with Sunday based on our region.

Increase the Timeout for SQL queries and commands

Thu, 05 Aug 2021 20:30:49 +0000

How can I increase the timeout for SQL queries in dbFront?

Force dbFront to load a fresh copy of the data everytime.

Fri, 16 Jul 2021 13:42:34 +0000

We have tables, some with views that need to load a fresh copy of the data every time the user uses them in a lookup or elsewhere.

The issue is that we update these tables externally and dbFront does not recognize the updates because sometimes it is working with cached data. This shows up in multiple places:

When using fields from the Profile Table in the page headers,
When using dropdowns/lookups,
When editing other records on the same table grid.

It would be great if we could force dbFront to always load fresh data for these tables.

Conditionally hide child tables/relationships based on the main record?

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 20:20:21 +0000

I have a client list and I want to hide tabs (or tables) based on a selection. For example, if I have a client that we host the data I want to show the info and user tables but if we don't host them I want them hidden to clean up the view.

Save table grid changes directly to database without Save button

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 15:56:07 +0000

Our users have lots of data entry to do and they would like to edit within the dbFront table grid in the same way they currently use Excel. They simply want to make changes and have the changes automatically save.

These changes would not be for a child table. They would be on the primary table.

We don't want dbFront to cache the changes because we don't want to risk loosing the changes. We want those changes to save directly to the database without any further prompts or questions.

They don't want a Save button.

Pin table headers when scrolling down

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 12:20:22 +0000

It would be nice if there was an option to pin the header row when scrolling down. It gets difficult to keep track of what each column is, especially on a table with many columns with similar looking data.

Found this example:
http://www.mustafaozcan.net/demo/en/fixedtableheader/jquery-fixedtableheader-demo-en.html

Open URL after Data Update

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 19:55:54 +0000

Is there any way to have an action button perform multiple actions?
We have a custom URL protocol that launches an external program. I would like to also record in the table when the button is pressed (i.e. when the program/URL is run). Any way to do that?

Edit: I see there's a new "Server Directed" output format being developed:
https://dbfront.com/runprocedure#results
Might that be expanded to allow multiple action buttons to be "chained"?

Dismiss Administrative alerts and warnings

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 02:18:04 +0000

My dbFront setup continues to display the following alert.

Email Setup required in order to allow dbFront to send email alerts.

It would be great if we could dismiss these and other similar alerts.

Support for Full Text Indexes and search

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 16:07:54 +0000

The search functionality in dbFront uses LIKE which can causes table scans. This performs very poorly on large tables. It would be great if dbFront could support the Full-Text indexes available in all of the database servers (SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL).

This would be relevant for both the Advanced and the Quick/Simple searchs.

Generate a configuration backup with obfuscated (anonymized) data.

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 16:51:34 +0000

The purpose would be to migrate a safe copy of the configuration and data to a test, dev or training environment.

This data could be used for training purposes or to test/debug difficult-to-replicate production issues.

This would be especially useful when exporting config/data for dbFront support.

The obfuscated data should have the same characteristics as the source data but it should be impossible to extract any meaningful personal information.

Reporting: Track who created and updated a report.

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 16:10:05 +0000

We had a user create a new report menu item for all users and would like to track down who created that specific report but there was no audit information or log that could help us.

Allow table help to pull from a custom network Wiki

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 15:36:46 +0000

We maintain our user help in a local network Wiki. We don't want to duplicate that help within dbFront and would prefer if dbFront would allow us to simply link directly to our Wiki.

Allow use of Profile Fields values in the Page Header

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 15:07:24 +0000

It would be great if we could add additional data from the user profile table to the Page Header.

This would allow for enhanced customization, especially if view field values could be used.

Import directly from an Excel speadsheet

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 14:50:16 +0000

Currently the import process only allows CSV files. It would be great if XLSX files would also be supported.

Display URL Field as an inline iFrame

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 13:51:36 +0000

This is an extension to the feature request: Open and browse to a URL or UNC contained in the data, except that dbFront would instead display the contents of the URL in an iFrame directly embedded into the form.

This would make it very easy to integrate other network resources or systems into the current application.