Tips & Tricks

November 15, 2007

Area Code to Time Zone mapping

Our US customers, especially the ones using Leads management or Calls tracking applications, kept asking us about adding a functionality that automatically fills in the time zone according to the area code for the US phone numbers as it would save them a great deal of time by instantly displaying timezones next to the phone numbers.

We created a sample Area Code to TimeZone mapping application to demonstrate this functionality. Please explore the application and review a Setup mode.
The application is based on two tables joined via many-to-many relationship.
"Phones" table contains sample phone number list along with the State/Time Zone offset extracted from the "Mappings" table.
Area code is intelligently extracted from the US phone number regardless of the format.
"Mappings" table contains mapping between the US phone number area code and the timezone.
Now you may add area code to time zone mapping functionality to your existing applications or hire us to do it for you.

November 14, 2007

How to Calculate Running Balance

Given lines with amount (positive for income, negative for expenses) in a table called Money, you want to calculate running balance. What should you do?

First you have to define order for lines. Standard Date Create column TeamDesk generates for every table can suit your needs - old lines will appear on top, recent on bottom. If you plan to reorder the lines, you may need to create another, editable Timestamp column, let's call it Date.

Next, let's create many-to-many relation from Money table to self, and specify "Date Created < Date Created" match condition (or Date < Date, if you decided for custom timestamp). For any given record this relation will create the list of preceding records. Calculating a total on the amount column will result to opening balance. Adding the total (via formula column) will result to closing balance.

Simple, is not it?

Running Balance application from Application Library does one step beyond separating operation from amount and calculating income and expenses. Feel free to explore.

October 05, 2007

Default Value for a Column

You have a table with the data, and want to extend it with new column? No problem. But what if you want to initialize existing records to some value? Default Value property will not work in this case. Obviously new records will receive default value, but not old ones. Is there something you can do?

Continue reading "Default Value for a Column" »

September 18, 2007

Using Formula Columns for Data Altering

After initial data upload has been completed, sometimes you need to convert it into another format or represent it in some other form. TeamDesk allows you to perform such modifications on the fly.

Continue reading "Using Formula Columns for Data Altering" »

September 13, 2007

Using Advantages of TeamDesk Import

To save your time and facilitate your effort on data processing, TeamDesk is enhanced with the import/export features. Pretty standard solution for an application of this type, one may say. Yet, TeamDesk uses these features to solve a variety of tasks and helps to lighten your work appreciably.

Continue reading "Using Advantages of TeamDesk Import" »

September 12, 2007

How to make money with TeamDesk?

We are receiving numerous requests about the availability of an affiliate/partner program for TeamDesk. Let's try to summarize our vision on how we could work together today:

  • You may provide setup consulting services to your TeamDesk customers and partners (we charge $200 per hour , so you may easily compete with us).
  • You may try to develop your very own application(s) template and sell it via TeamDesk Application Library using "contact author" option. You may offer your setup consulting services to your application customers at your rate.
  • You or your company may develop the application(s) in dbFLEX, promote and sell it to the customers at your price. dbFLEX shares the core platform with TeamDesk and provides re-branding capabilities (changing logos, copyright strings, support and billing links etc). Each partner will have own third-level domain in a form of subdomain.dbflex.net. You'll provide first level support to your customers. We'll provide second level support to your developers and charge you a low platform usage fee.

September 05, 2007

Reminders on time

Wonder how to send the reminder on a specified time? Or sending it 20 minutes after the record was created? Well, it's easy...

Continue reading "Reminders on time" »