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Hey Folks! I'm the CTO of Fieldbook, we're really proud of what we've built here. In particular, I really like our API explorer that allows you to run real nod

Hey Folks! I'm the CTO of Fieldbook, we're really proud of what we've built here. In particular, I really like our API explorer that allows you to run real node code right in the browser to explore our API. (And see our realtime updates in action on the same page). That feature is powered by Tonic (https://tonicdev.com https://tonicdev.com) Its mad fast to setup a database with a REST api with Fieldbook, and we'd love to hear what you think / what could be better / etc.

codezero 11y ago
What does the premium plan offer that the free one doesn't?
- tmikaeld 11y ago
  And what are the usage limits?
  - benbernard 11y ago
    We want you to use Fieldbook as your database, so we don't limit the number of api calls or books you can have in Fieldbook! (we hate when you run up against an artificial limit and have to scramble to get your product back online). :) We don't scale as far as we want to right now. For a good experience, we're limited to about 10k rows in a book. Definitely something we want to improve a LOT in the future. More info here: http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/data-size-limits http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/data-size-limits
    - kevinr 11y ago
      Glad to hear you folks are looking at scaling. I love the idea, and for small stuff the app so far is great. My book with around 2500 rows and 20 columns I find to be significantly slower than I prefer, though. Unclear how much of that is backend versus frontend, but definitely a limiting factor for my use right now. In an ideal world it would feel as snappy as Google Sheets.
      - benbernard 11y ago
        Definitely hear you! We are working on some performance improvements right now, if you contact us in app, we might be able to figure out what is happening with your data. 2500 rows and 20 columns should still be snappy!
      - jasoncrawford 11y ago
        This is front-end and should be fixed soon, literally working on it now. Thanks!
- benbernard 11y ago
  The paid tier right now offers a couple of things, mainly focused on business administration. In particular, the ability to manage accounts in your organization (remove access once someone has left the company for instance) and priority support. More here: http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/plans-and-pricing http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/plans-and-pricing
mcrider 11y ago
This looks great! I've been on the hunt for a good CMS-as-a-service and have been a bit disappointed by the current options. Does fieldbook handle image uploads? Any other caveats for using this as a full-blown CMS?
- benbernard 11y ago
  We love using Fieldbook for CMS use cases. We think the public API coupled with public posts is a great fit for the API, too. We don't handle image uploads yet. Definitely something we want to support in the future. Of course, you can put urls in the cells and build things that way... Definitely something we want to improve in the future :)
scotty79 11y ago
Are you familiar with recent work of Chris Granger? Apparently so far he thinks that data structure you have in your app is most approachable for non-programmers: https://youtu.be/VZQoAKJPbh8 https://youtu.be/VZQoAKJPbh8
- jasoncrawford 11y ago
  Thanks, I agree with him on that point! We've developed the conceptual model and the UI for Fieldbook through hundreds of usability tests with users from a variety of roles and backgrounds. The model we have has been tuned to match how people naturally think of working with data and how they can best understand it.
newman314 11y ago
While it's nice that you have your own spreadsheet interface, how hard would it be to hook Excel in as a front end? I deal with large enterprises primarily and I've been looking for a nice relational backend for Excel for years. So breaking out the roles of a consumer vs. a creator, I would like end users to consume without knowing that there is a different backend to the Excel sheet they are using while still freeing up the creator to do what is needed on the backend. For example, we have extremely complex pricing spreadsheets that we use to estimate projects, it would be fantastic to be able to collate and manipulate data on the backend as well as data sources while being able to tell an end user to keep using Excel as the front end as before. Maybe this is a fit, maybe it isn't but any insight/feedback would be welcome. Thanks.
- jasoncrawford 11y ago
  Thanks! At some point I think we'll have an integration that allows data syncing to and/or from a spreadsheet like this. The spreadsheet isn't ideal as the primary UI for a number of reasons. That's why we built our own UI, inspired by spreadsheets but fundamentally breaking from the model to be more like a relational database. But a spreadsheet connection could be great for reporting, modeling scenarios, etc. – basically, all the things that spreadsheets are actually good for.
  - benmarks 11y ago
    I've been shocked at the number of enterprises with workflows involving shared Excel docs (particularly in the eCommerce space). One of my (Magento) community members has a business which seems to tackle some of the issues around this: https://www.cobby.io/ https://www.cobby.io/ Might be worth having a chat with him.
- iheartmemcache 11y ago
  Excel-as-a-front-end hooks in so nicely and easily to SQL Server Standard via standard ODBC/ConnectionStrings. You get audit tables, integration with Active Directory, SSRS, concurrent modifications, the ability to dynamically perform queries (i.e. [1], if you enable a filter clause on your projection from one of those DropDownLists, it will send it out to SQL Server and then return the resultset), audit trails, permissions, and most importantly you can set all of those NON NULL, FK, restraints at the database level, and use SQL Server Reporting Studio (comes with Standard) to perform your reporting. Priced out per CPU you can get it for under 10k. I've done it legally for free too[3] in my early years, but if your client won't pay 10k for a RDBMS, you've got a tire-kicker who won't respect net/90 much less net/30. I've done literally dozens of times for every type of industry you can imagine and I can count on my left hand the number of times those clients needed to later supplement their infrastructure with an actual data-warehouse. (Also the newer Excel versions allow data constraints to a certain degree, so you can avoid that unnecessary transaction/lock acquisition in an anticipatory fashion.) Combine SSAS/SSRS, and the free downloads of PowerPivot and PowerBI and you have a _very_ robust, flexible system that can handle millions of rows easily. [1]https://www.ablebits.com/_img-blog/find-duplicates-excel/selected-data.png https://www.ablebits.com/_img-blog/find-duplicates-excel/sel... [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-server-editions/sql-server-standard.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-se... [3] SQL Server Express + the Express version of the Business Intelligence Suite was free for production use up to 4 GB and 2(?) processors [things might have changed since then, SQL Server 2008]. A few hundred lines of SP's to dump stale data out and the client was golden.
medell 11y ago
Any plans to support triggers & email notifications? I consult for several small businesses and this could be a quick & low budget alternative to the bigger SAAS' out there for HR, CRM & Asset Tracking.
- jasoncrawford 11y ago
  Yes, all in the master plan!
osxrand 11y ago
Just a FYI, with uBlock on (mostly default settings except for a few specific sites of which yours isn't one) I couldn't sign up at all, the field for entering the email address just wasn't showing at all. As most others have said, it looks great! Looking forward to playing more with it
ryan-allen 11y ago
Love the product!
chrsstrm 11y ago
What about offering a whitelabel product where I am the account owner and can spin up an independent database for each of my clients with their own login credentials while I still have master access to each? I would literally sign up tonight and deploy this next week to my restaurant clients who want the ability to update their food menus at will and in complicated ways. Static site front end with a live menu API and Excel-style interface for them to edit in? That's the perfect solution for what these kinds of clients want/need.
- jasoncrawford 11y ago
  Here's how you could do this in Fieldbook now: * Create a template book for yourself * For each client, make a copy for them and share it with them so they can edit it in Fieldbook * Read from each book via the API for the live app It's not whitelabel, but it would give you an independent database (book) for each client, they would each have their own login credentials (to Fieldbook), and you would have access to each (in the UI and in the API).
tommorris 11y ago
Here's one simple thing: really good SQL export. I can imagine using this as a way to get users to build simple prototypes. They can chuck data at it for a few weeks, then hand the data off to developers to build a first cut of a web app. If said developers could easily click a button and get a gzipped SQL file compatible with, say, Postgres, that'd be a really useful feature.

codezero 11y ago

What does the premium plan offer that the free one doesn't?

tmikaeld 11y ago
And what are the usage limits?
- benbernard 11y ago
  We want you to use Fieldbook as your database, so we don't limit the number of api calls or books you can have in Fieldbook! (we hate when you run up against an artificial limit and have to scramble to get your product back online). :) We don't scale as far as we want to right now. For a good experience, we're limited to about 10k rows in a book. Definitely something we want to improve a LOT in the future. More info here: http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/data-size-limits http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/data-size-limits
  - kevinr 11y ago
    Glad to hear you folks are looking at scaling. I love the idea, and for small stuff the app so far is great. My book with around 2500 rows and 20 columns I find to be significantly slower than I prefer, though. Unclear how much of that is backend versus frontend, but definitely a limiting factor for my use right now. In an ideal world it would feel as snappy as Google Sheets.
    - benbernard 11y ago
      Definitely hear you! We are working on some performance improvements right now, if you contact us in app, we might be able to figure out what is happening with your data. 2500 rows and 20 columns should still be snappy!
    - jasoncrawford 11y ago
      This is front-end and should be fixed soon, literally working on it now. Thanks!
benbernard 11y ago
The paid tier right now offers a couple of things, mainly focused on business administration. In particular, the ability to manage accounts in your organization (remove access once someone has left the company for instance) and priority support. More here: http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/plans-and-pricing http://docs.fieldbook.com/docs/plans-and-pricing

mcrider 11y ago

This looks great! I've been on the hunt for a good CMS-as-a-service and have been a bit disappointed by the current options. Does fieldbook handle image uploads? Any other caveats for using this as a full-blown CMS?

benbernard 11y ago
We love using Fieldbook for CMS use cases. We think the public API coupled with public posts is a great fit for the API, too. We don't handle image uploads yet. Definitely something we want to support in the future. Of course, you can put urls in the cells and build things that way... Definitely something we want to improve in the future :)

scotty79 11y ago

Are you familiar with recent work of Chris Granger? Apparently so far he thinks that data structure you have in your app is most approachable for non-programmers: https://youtu.be/VZQoAKJPbh8 https://youtu.be/VZQoAKJPbh8

jasoncrawford 11y ago
Thanks, I agree with him on that point! We've developed the conceptual model and the UI for Fieldbook through hundreds of usability tests with users from a variety of roles and backgrounds. The model we have has been tuned to match how people naturally think of working with data and how they can best understand it.

newman314 11y ago

While it's nice that you have your own spreadsheet interface, how hard would it be to hook Excel in as a front end? I deal with large enterprises primarily and I've been looking for a nice relational backend for Excel for years. So breaking out the roles of a consumer vs. a creator, I would like end users to consume without knowing that there is a different backend to the Excel sheet they are using while still freeing up the creator to do what is needed on the backend. For example, we have extremely complex pricing spreadsheets that we use to estimate projects, it would be fantastic to be able to collate and manipulate data on the backend as well as data sources while being able to tell an end user to keep using Excel as the front end as before. Maybe this is a fit, maybe it isn't but any insight/feedback would be welcome. Thanks.

jasoncrawford 11y ago
Thanks! At some point I think we'll have an integration that allows data syncing to and/or from a spreadsheet like this. The spreadsheet isn't ideal as the primary UI for a number of reasons. That's why we built our own UI, inspired by spreadsheets but fundamentally breaking from the model to be more like a relational database. But a spreadsheet connection could be great for reporting, modeling scenarios, etc. – basically, all the things that spreadsheets are actually good for.
- benmarks 11y ago
  I've been shocked at the number of enterprises with workflows involving shared Excel docs (particularly in the eCommerce space). One of my (Magento) community members has a business which seems to tackle some of the issues around this: https://www.cobby.io/ https://www.cobby.io/ Might be worth having a chat with him.
iheartmemcache 11y ago
Excel-as-a-front-end hooks in so nicely and easily to SQL Server Standard via standard ODBC/ConnectionStrings. You get audit tables, integration with Active Directory, SSRS, concurrent modifications, the ability to dynamically perform queries (i.e. [1], if you enable a filter clause on your projection from one of those DropDownLists, it will send it out to SQL Server and then return the resultset), audit trails, permissions, and most importantly you can set all of those NON NULL, FK, restraints at the database level, and use SQL Server Reporting Studio (comes with Standard) to perform your reporting. Priced out per CPU you can get it for under 10k. I've done it legally for free too[3] in my early years, but if your client won't pay 10k for a RDBMS, you've got a tire-kicker who won't respect net/90 much less net/30. I've done literally dozens of times for every type of industry you can imagine and I can count on my left hand the number of times those clients needed to later supplement their infrastructure with an actual data-warehouse. (Also the newer Excel versions allow data constraints to a certain degree, so you can avoid that unnecessary transaction/lock acquisition in an anticipatory fashion.) Combine SSAS/SSRS, and the free downloads of PowerPivot and PowerBI and you have a _very_ robust, flexible system that can handle millions of rows easily. [1]https://www.ablebits.com/_img-blog/find-duplicates-excel/selected-data.png https://www.ablebits.com/_img-blog/find-duplicates-excel/sel... [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-server-editions/sql-server-standard.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-se... [3] SQL Server Express + the Express version of the Business Intelligence Suite was free for production use up to 4 GB and 2(?) processors [things might have changed since then, SQL Server 2008]. A few hundred lines of SP's to dump stale data out and the client was golden.

medell 11y ago

Any plans to support triggers & email notifications? I consult for several small businesses and this could be a quick & low budget alternative to the bigger SAAS' out there for HR, CRM & Asset Tracking.

jasoncrawford 11y ago
Yes, all in the master plan!

osxrand 11y ago

Just a FYI, with uBlock on (mostly default settings except for a few specific sites of which yours isn't one) I couldn't sign up at all, the field for entering the email address just wasn't showing at all. As most others have said, it looks great! Looking forward to playing more with it

ryan-allen 11y ago

Love the product!

chrsstrm 11y ago

What about offering a whitelabel product where I am the account owner and can spin up an independent database for each of my clients with their own login credentials while I still have master access to each? I would literally sign up tonight and deploy this next week to my restaurant clients who want the ability to update their food menus at will and in complicated ways. Static site front end with a live menu API and Excel-style interface for them to edit in? That's the perfect solution for what these kinds of clients want/need.

jasoncrawford 11y ago
Here's how you could do this in Fieldbook now: * Create a template book for yourself * For each client, make a copy for them and share it with them so they can edit it in Fieldbook * Read from each book via the API for the live app It's not whitelabel, but it would give you an independent database (book) for each client, they would each have their own login credentials (to Fieldbook), and you would have access to each (in the UI and in the API).

tommorris 11y ago

Here's one simple thing: really good SQL export. I can imagine using this as a way to get users to build simple prototypes. They can chuck data at it for a few weeks, then hand the data off to developers to build a first cut of a web app. If said developers could easily click a button and get a gzipped SQL file compatible with, say, Postgres, that'd be a really useful feature.