journal - A blog by Stevan Freeborn

Onspring's RefToArray Formula Function Explained: The What, Why, and How

November 11, 2024

Learn how to use the RefToArray function in the Onspring formula engine to transform and aggregate data from related records. This guide breaks down how RefToArray works, offers practical use cases, and explains when to leverage it for custom data evaluation. Whether you're handling risk scores, survey responses, or task deadlines, get tips on harnessing RefToArray for data insight and control without giving yourself a headache

Leveraging Onspring's Flexibility and Extensibility: Automating Sanctions Checks

September 6, 2024

Onspring is a flexible and extensible platform that can be used to automate a variety of business processes. In this post I'll show you how I used Onspring to build a solution that automates sanctions checks against the SDN list.

Work Is Not The Thing

August 9, 2024

Work is important. It occupies a lot of our time and consumes a lot of our energy. It is easy for it to crowd out everything else. Last year, a coworker of mine passed away and it has continued to be a reminder of how important it is to keep things in perspective.

Programming and Browser Automation: A Productivity Superpower

August 7, 2024

Ever wish you could handle routine tasks without all the hassle? Using programming and browser automation, you can do just that. In this post, I'll share with you how I used these skills to automate renewing a daily subscription to the New York Times through my local library.

Providing Real-Time Feedback About Long-Running Task with SignalR

June 12, 2024

I've been developing OnxGraph to help Onspring admins visualize content relationships. To handle varying data loads without timeouts, I used SignalR for real-time updates. This post details setting up a task queue with Vue.js and ASP.NET Core to provide user feedback on long running background work.

I Am Glad I Failed That Test

May 16, 2024

It may sound crazy, but failing a test in college was one of the best things that happened to me during that time. It gave me a strategy for learning that has been invaluable to me ever since.

It Doesn't Work All the Time, But When It Does, It's Magic

May 4, 2024

I've been playing with generative AI lately, looking at how you might build features with it. But I'm kind of struggling with seeing a roadmap to getting consistent quality out of this stuff for specific use cases. At times it feels like trying to herd cats. Granted I'm a relative noob, but here are some of my initial thoughts and questions

Building a Markdown Blog with Blazor and Docker

April 18, 2024

Learn how I built a Markdown blog with Blazor and Docker. I'll cover the architecture, implementation, and deployment along with some of the interesting features and challenges I encountered.

CountIfs and SumIfs in Onspring

October 21, 2023

How to use multiple criteria to count and sum records in Onspring

Posts