Baserow 1.25: AI formulas, application templates, improved onboarding, email verification, and more

In the 1.24 release, we introduced the first version of Baserow AI — a new AI field type that allows you to add AI models to your Baserow Database tables. Today, we’re expanding the AI functionality by introducing a feature that enables you to generate formulas using AI directly in Baserow. Plus, we’re improving Baserow’s core features by adding an onboarding process and email verification.

And last, but certainly not least, we’re introducing new features to both the Database Builder and Application Builder. These include templates that include applications, field descriptions, multistep date filters, duration field type updates, support for public aggregations on Grid View, and much more.

Let’s take a closer look:

Generate formulas using AI

You can now use AI capabilities to automate formula creation directly in Baserow. The AI-powered formula generator quickly creates formulas based on a prompt that describes what you want the formula to do. It can be used for managing project progress and deadlines, calculating costs and budgets, or creating complex formulas based on date and time values. Needless to say, this saves you lots of time.

To use this feature, start by creating a new Formula field. Then, select ‘Generate using AI’. A new modal window opens where you need to choose the AI type and model. We recommend using a high-parameter model like gpt-4 or llama3-70b as those perform best.

Next, start writing a prompt that details the action you want to perform. Once the prompt is ready, click the ‘Generate’ button and wait a few seconds. A formula will then appear in the field modal. To execute it, click the ‘Create’ button.

Baserow Cloud supports the GPT-3.5 model, which is freely available without usage restrictions. For Baserow Self-Hosted or those wishing to use a different model, use this guide on configuring the OpenAI API key.

Baserow AI features are available to those on the Premium plan or higher.

Application Builder templates

Alongside the Database Builder templates, we’re launching our first set of Application Builder templates. These pre-made applications are designed to help you hit the ground running with our new Application Builder, without the need to start entirely from scratch. Simply select a template and customize it according to your needs.

Application Builder templates are paired with Database templates:

• The Employee Dashboard Application is paired with the Business Goal Tracker template.
• The Service Requests Manager Application is paired with the Commercial Property Management template.
• The CRM Application is paired with the Lightweight CRM template.
• The Task Management Application is paired with the Task Management template.

You can add a template in Baserow in two ways: from the template page or from your dashboard. Pick the template you want to use and click the ‘Use the template’ button. After that, the template will be installed and ready to use.

Improved onboarding

Our new Database Onboarding is designed to walk new users through the steps of creating their first database, setting up tables, and inviting collaborators. The goal is to help new users get acquainted with the basic features and layout of the Baserow Database.

If you’re already a Baserow/database pro, you can skip this entirely.

Email verification

We’ve implemented an email verification process to enhance the security of your Baserow account. This gives you the option to decide whether to require verification of your collaborators’ email addresses. We provide three choices: no verification, recommended, or enforced.

• Choosing no verification allows users to start using Baserow immediately after registration, without the need for email verification.
• The recommended verification option provides an opportunity to verify an email, but it isn’t mandatory for starting to use Baserow.
• With enforced verification, a verification link is sent to the user’s email upon registration. To start using Baserow, this email address must be verified.

The email verification setting can only be changed by instance admins. To enable this feature, go to the ‘Admin’ section and select ‘Settings’. Scroll down the page until you see the ‘User’ section, where you can configure Email Verification.

Multistep date filters

The date filters received an update, allowing you to combine the filter types, which greatly improves the combinations you can make with them. It’s now possible to combine is before or is after with for example tomorrow, yesterday, one week ago, etc. Because it’s multistep, it now allows you to make 150 filter combinations, compared to only 20 before.

Field descriptions

Field descriptions is a new feature in Baserow that allows you to add a description to any field. This helps clarify what sort of data should be entered in each field, making it easier for teams to collaborate.

To add a description to a field, click on the field and select ‘Edit Field’. In the modal that opens, click on ‘+Add Description’ button and input your text.

Duration field type updates

We’ve made numerous improvements to the duration field type. To increase its flexibility, we’ve introduced new formats:

• d h m for days, hours, and minutes
• d h m s for days, hours, minutes, and seconds

Additionally, we’ve added formula support for multiplication and division operations in the duration field type. We’ve also enabled tonumber support for conversion to seconds.

Finally, the duration field type now supports negative values.

To add a duration field type, click the plus sign ’+ Add a field’ to the right of your existing fields and select ’Duration’ field from the list. New formats can be selected in the field configuration.

Support for footer aggregations in public grid views

We’ve added support for footer aggregations in public shared Grid Views. Now, when a Grid View with set footer aggregations is publicly shared, these will be visible to your viewers. This update makes your public data displays more informative.

In any Grid View, click on the footer bar located beneath a field at the bottom of the table to choose an aggregation function.

Repeat element for the Application Builder

The new Repeat element allows you to show a list of things by repeating the elements for each result in your data source. It allows you to repeat a set layout for each item in a container, making it easier to manage large amounts of similar data.

To add a Repeat element, first click on Elements in the top bar. Then, select Element + in the lower left corner of the popup. Alternatively, you can add an element by clicking on the plus icon + on the page. From the menu of available options, choose the Repeat element.

Data source refresh action for the Application Builder

We’ve added a new Refresh Data Source action. This feature triggers an update of the data for the selected element by verifying any changes in the data source. You can trigger this action after creating or updating a row.

You can find the refresh action in the ‘General’ panel on the right side.

New collection field types for the Application Builder

We’ve added support for the Boolean and Tags field types to the Table element.

Now, when adding a new column to a Table element, you have the option to select the Boolean field type or Tags field type, along with other types such as Text and Link.

Other new features and updates

• Footer aggregations support for “Last Modified By” and “Created By” fields
• Support for pre-filling both “Field Name” and “Displayed Name” in forms
• Automatic population of fields for the Form element in the Application Builder
• Ability to set the favicon for applications in the Application Builder

Company news

Baserow 101

Starting in June, we’ll offer separate 101 webinars for both the Database Builder and Application Builder!

Database Builder 101: How to create databases with Baserow on the 4th of June, 2024.

Application Builder 101: How to create applications with Baserow on the 11th of June, 2024.

Register now!

Can’t make it on those days? Register anyways to receive a recording of the sessions.

Application Builder video guides

If you don’t know where to start with Baserow’s new Application Builder, we’ve created videos that cover the basics. Take a look:

→ Introduction to Baserow Application Builder

→ Create and use a data source in Baserow Application Builder

→ Set up a master and detail pages in Baserow Application Builder

→ How to manipulate data in Baserow Application Builder

Now, all video tutorials are also available on the Baserow website.

Baserow in Lisbon

As a remote-only company without offices, it’s always a treat to link up in person and spend some time together. In May of this year, our team gathered in Lisbon. It was a few days filled with fun activities and business sessions.

Baserow is hiring! Check our openings.

Community tutorials and events

→ Check out a comprehensive Baserow course on Udemy. This complete course covers basics, an overview of the main features, advanced concepts, and includes quizzes for each section. Kudos to Farès MOKHTARI.

→ Check out how to self-host Baserow on your own server (docker-compose) from SelfHostCreators | 360Creators.

→ Learn how you can secure Baserow with Access Tokens from our Ambassador, Raphael Scotto DI perta.

→ Check out how to do an easy Baserow setup on CasaOS. By BigBearTechWorld.

→ [Spanish] Learn how to schedule messages for WhatsApp Groups with n8n + Evolution API + Baserow from Rubén Salazar.

→ [Portuguese] See how to integrate Typebot with Baserow and perform first customer control. By Astra Online.

→ Discover how to install Baserow with just 1 click. From Vamos Automatizar.

→ Check out how to create multiple companies on Typebot with the Power of Baserow. By Astra Online.

What’s next

The next big features on the roadmap include a timeline view, file support for the AI field, additional styling options for the Application Builder, and other features suggested by the community.

If you have any questions about the new updates, please leave them in our official community forum. We’re happy to answer them!

All changes, including bug fixes

New features

• Add support for table field name and table field Id for form prefills #1576
• Add support for aggregations on public grid views #1929
• Support for rich text field description #2090
• Add aggregations support for last modified by and created by fields #2114
• Add a new Application Builder action to refresh a Data Source in a page. #2192
• Improved onboarding for new users. #2212
• Add email verification options to user accounts #2264
• Add support for d h m and d h m s duration formats. #2284
• Add support in Application Builder to add a custom favicon. #2301
• Links in table columns, and the “Open Page” action, will now support the same form configurations as the link element. #2304
• Add a new Collection Field Type of Boolean in Application Builder. #2359
• Templates are now compatible with application builder #2387
• Send information to baserow.io if user agrees during onboarding. #2412
• Add support for divisions,multiplications, and rollup formulas with the duration field. #2416
• Add support for multi tag collection fields in Application Builder table element #2480
• Introduced a new element type called ‘Repeat’. Given a list datasource, will repeat its child elements n number of times for each result in the datasource. #2485
• automatically populate fields in a table when selecting the data source #2497
• Add a new “button” field to table element that can trigger actions based on current rows. #2522
• Improve date filters by allowing multi step combinations. #2537
• Prevent sending too many email verification emails #2552
• Automatically login users upon email verification #2557
• Allow instance admin to sign in even if email verification is set to enforced #2558
• Add email verified confirmation page #2559
• Support for negative duration field values. #2567
  • duration field->text conversion values will match selected format
  • text->duration field conversion values should match selected format (otherwise the resulting value will be empty)
• The API now accepts a single integer or a CSV string or an array of strings as value for link row field type and an array of string or a CSV string for file field type. #2570
• Automatically select the first element when the application builder page loads. #2597
• Add warning about security in the visibility side panel. #2627
• Allow generating a Baserow formula using AI
• Optionally limit the number of pending invites using the BASEROW_MAX_PENDING_WORKSPACE_INVITES environment variable.
• Show enterprise modal when clicking on disabled feature.
• Update Node.js version to 21.7.3

Bug fixes

• Fix for duplicated select fields import from airtable #1235
• Allow importing into a URL field. #1437
• Fix formula recursion error in create/update row action when using multiple formule with the same data source #2506
• Resolved an issue where the application builder sample pages getting created would result in an error. #2512
• Fix broken filter when filtering a data source using the Or operation in the published version of a builder application #2525
• Fix random loss of authentication in application builder #2526
• fix sorts management in data source #2527
• Table not visible in preview wasn’t updated after login #2534
• Resolved an edge-case where it’d be possible to publish an application to a deleted domain. #2548
• Fixed a bug that prevented the possibility to add a link element to a column #2565
• Show only visible roles in the team member creation/edit modal. #2574
• Improved collection element (e.g. table, repeat) load more behaviour so that they are more resilient to slow/offline connections. #2580
• Fix a bug when a user was trying to log in and their password was empty #2596
• Resolved an issue where some application builder table element link-type fields were missing some data. #2616
• Resolved an issue in the form container where resetting to initial values after submission wasn’t working properly. #2621
• Fix a bug causing the view to crash when grouping by a multiple select and a single select field. #2624
• Update /api/user-files/upload-via-url/ endpoint to support urls ending with / #2644
• Element visibility is now set to ‘all’ by default
• Fix form print capabilities.

Refactors

• Automatically hide newly created fields on views that are shared publicly #1585
• refactor buttons #1918
• Python packaging updated, consistent python versions, makefile for automation #2494
  • each backend tree is installable python package
  • makefile targets available for better automation
• notify about staff users being created with dev sh script #2590
• Refactor the sync_templates command to use individual transactions for each template. #2591
• Activate AWS storage if AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME instead of AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID.
• Improved discoverability of paid features
• Update debian version in docker images to bookworm
• Update the list of unsupported field types for formula in our docs.

Breaking API changes

• When sending a PATCH request to the api:applications:item endpoint, invalid payload keys will be ignored and will no longer cause an HTTP 400 error. #2301