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How can I copy a table?

  • 1.  How can I copy a table?

    Posted 01-30-2013 15:02
    I would like to duplicate the structure I already build for a table. Is this possible? I notice I can move a table from one application to another.

  • 2.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 01-30-2013 15:07
    Is the only way is to copy the entire application then, move the table I want duplicated, then delete the copied application? This seems like to much.

  • 3.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 01-30-2013 15:39
    Erica: You are correct assuming it is a multiple table application. You copy the application, expel the table then delete the remains of the copied application.

  • 4.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 01-30-2013 15:56
    Thanks for your amswer. however I do not like the process to simply copy a table. I think Intuit should change this.

  • 5.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 02-15-2013 16:20
    I agree ... it seems like a lot of work to just copy a table within the same application. Also, after I "copied" over my table, I lose all the email notificiations that I have set up and now have to manually go in and re-create. I also have to change some of the field types as they all default back to text boxes.  Any suggestions to make this process less time consuming?

  • 6.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 02-15-2013 19:44
    Hi Erica... I'm on the QuickBase Design team.  Can you say a little more about why you want to copy a table within the same app...what are you trying to accomplish?  Also what you would expect to be carried forward when it's copied:  table structure, data, forms, reports, emails?  This will help us in understanding the need and the usage for something like this.  Thanks in advance.

  • 7.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 02-15-2013 22:15
    Hi Gideon,

    So the database that I created is a monthly tracker for the Journal Entries that are created by my team. The quickbase notifies our manager whenever a JE has been prepared, so that she can go in and approve them.  Once it's approved, a notification is sent out to each of the individual team members so that they can go and upload their JE into Oracle.  If our manager has a comment or wants us to change something, a separate notification is sent to the team member, who then goes and makes the appropriate changes.

    I created the database for FY13 and a separate table is set up for each month. Currently, I've been copying one table and changing it so that it's update for the next month end.  What I want to do is find a faster and more convenient way to copy this table (eg. Jan FY13) and rename it to Feb FY13.  i want the new table to have everything in the Jan FY13 table (without any of the file attachements are the check marks in the checkboxes).

  • 8.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 02-16-2013 01:32
    Erica... Is there a reason you don't just use a single table and add a date field ( or a FY field and a Month multi-choice text field).  You could then create reports based on FY and month to get just the records for that month and fiscal year without having to copy the table each month.


  • 9.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 07-11-2013 09:37
    Hello, we have different branches that need to fill in the same table with different information and access levels. It is pretty important to be able to copy tables within same applications.

  • 10.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 07-30-2013 22:04
    I need another table with the same fields and then i will add one or two changes.  Would be nice not to have to create all the fields over again.

  • 11.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 09-13-2013 19:47
    I have a generic table for all users. I need a specific table which has limited access, but the structure is the same - the data is different. Like Chrystal, it would be nice to copy the structure (even if I keep the data - I can delete that) and use in the same application.

  • 12.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 03-24-2014 16:10
    This is very important for our company as well.  We have branches in several countries and often need to copy a table and rename by region.

  • 13.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 04-22-2014 22:22
    We need the same thing as we have multiple projects with some variations. We are only just beginning to set up Quickbase and this is a do or die for our company. As Quickbase is not heavy on project management this is a feature that would really turn us off Quickbase altogether. Has this issue been resolved yet?

  • 14.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 10-29-2015 14:32
    Wow, 2 years old and 3 years since a QuickBase reply; perhaps there are other threads but this one still comes up quick in searches and remains an issue.  The QB reply seems to indicate a "why don't you just do it our way" response yet there would appear to be many different reasons to want this functionality.

    I also need different tables for different years.  Yes we could load this all into one table and differentiate with reports but when you have multiple reports, executive summaries and so forth the need to switch between them causes added complexity versus clicking on a table and seeing what you expect to find.  Simply needing to dictate the additional differentiation by stipulating the year when adding entries while dealing with multiple teams and participants invite far too much potential for error; inexcusable when dealing with millions of dollars in capital.  As simple as it may sound, in a turnover period between years this could easily cause trouble.  This is not to mention staffing changes or adding new or evolving metrics that were not tracked in previous iterations.

    As for the reports themselves; while again being able to switch them to a different calendar year that is not ideal for all the above reasons so wanting them truly separate with the one table solution would require rebuilding all these reports.  Do yourselves a favor and do your own quick google search and count how many articles advise to copy the entire app then move the table, then rebuild a bunch of things that do not go with it.  Why is this still an issue?


  • 15.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 08-05-2016 14:29
    I agree with Scott and the rest of the comments above. I have had many instances where being able to copy the structure of a table within the same application would save me hours of work! It seems like such an easy feature to add (like copying a report or a field). I find myself finding "work arounds" in order to not have to copy an entire application. Usually these work arounds are not as efficient as just copying the table, however managing QB is not my full time job and I don't have the time/resources to play on it all day. I think there might be a disconnect with the QB design team and their users where they may assume we are all IT people. In most cases I have seen, the ones running their company's QB applications are like me (Engineers, General Managers, Executive Assistants, etc) and do not have a lot of extra time to modify their QB apps. Changes such as copying a table should be quick and painless in my opinion. The best part about QB for our company has been how much time it has saved us! It's all about efficiency here and this is just one spot where QB is falling short in my opinion.

  • 16.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 08-05-2016 20:27
    Thanks for everyone's continued input on this.  as many of you may know we are in the process of designing the new QuickBase (code named Mercury) and these sorts of suggestions are vitally important to us.  Quick question... has everyone who has weighed in on this thread also added their votes in User Voice?  The suggestion is here: https://quickbase.uservoice.com/forums/111823-quickbase-product-feedback/suggestions/4008181-copy-tables-without-moving-to-another-app

  • 17.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 01-04-2017 05:31
    I had an employee create a table in the wrong spot. I have numerous forms for one table and the form for that table needs to be with the rest. It was a tedious form to build thus I was looking for a way to move or copy the fields to a different table --- Sad Face :-(

  • 18.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 08-02-2017 18:03
    I currently have an app with 73 tables that uses 1.4 GB of storage (and about 10 to 15 minutes of complete down time as the app is copied and nobody - all 74 users - can do anything while it copies). All I want to do is copy the table within the app so that I have a backup of everything in there before I have to delete all the records to test an identified bug (by support) that is in the connected table refresh mechanism and is preventing me from using the table at all. I don't want to export the table to Excel because that always loses information (I have a very large multi-line text field in there that can't be clipped to 256 characters).

    So, you can see my dilemma. It is not good enough to tell us to clone the whole app, do a table rename in the cloned app, and then reimport the table. That will kill your server resources just as surely as our time. And, yes, I have voted on that suggestion. But it's a year later and still sitting there with 94 votes. While I greatly appreciate the User Voice mechanism for incorporating our feedback into your product development decisions, I get very frustrated with things like this. It's the biggest reason I left Salesforce after being on that platform for 7 years, as their continued platform development pales in comparison to yours.

  • 19.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 08-02-2017 18:22
    What is you create a temporary app and absorb that table into that temp app.
    Then make your copy of the temp app, and then absorb the table back into the main app.

    But you also mentioned that it was a connected Sync table, so I'm not sure that will work.

  • 20.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 08-02-2017 18:30
    Yeah, I wondered about that with it being a connected table. Support is working on my issue I think because I finally got the sync to work without having to deal with this Copy Table thing. Good for now, but they really need to address this and make it easier.

  • 21.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 09-15-2017 16:08
    Hi Michael,

    Was support able to help you make the absorbed/copied table - work as a sync table?  I just did the same thing and don't see a way to do that.  Thanks!

  • 22.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 09-18-2017 13:18
    I'm happy to announce that we released a new feature yesterday which lets an app admin copy a table directly, without the need to duplicate the entire app! For details, please see our release notes:


  • 23.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 09-18-2017 13:30
    Thx Brian,

    Next we are hoping to see the ability to copy several tables which are in a relationship.  e.g. One Customer has Many Contacts.

    We'd love the ability to copy both tables as a mini module to insert into a new app and have them maintain their relationship and lookup fields.  

    That would also make the Exchange more useful as we could then grab a "module" (not sure what a set of tables in a relationship would be called) from one app and add that set of tables to an app that we are building.  Huge leverage opportunity there for that existing Exchange Library of 902 apps which have useful components which we'd love to carve out for our apps.

    Keep those enhancements coming .....

  • 24.  RE: How can I copy a table?

    Posted 10-16-2018 00:48
    i am blown away, thread is 6 years old and yet these basic crud actions haven't been nativity developed for multi table with relationship. I wrote a grouped table template function on my api server to do this, took a couple of days to write the module...