This month, we have 4 Bubble updates to share with you. Let's get into it!

Bubble (finally) releases real-time workload reporting

After a lot of requests for more transparency on the workload unit usage, Bubble has finally delivered! Bubble has updated the workload viewer to allow you to see a minute-by-minute view of the app’s usage.

There's a downside - this view only works for the last 24 hours and no time before that.  However, it does include the ability to drill down all the way to a specific action within a workflow and see how much is being used.

This will allow you to easily locate the culprits of high WU usage and potentially look at finding ways to simplify your system/lighten the load. The main display remains the same though: a bar chart with a pie chart breakdown underneath.

Microsoft Azure releases Bubble plugin for OpenAI service

Azure has recently released an official Bubble plugin - available in the Bubble store- for connection to its OpenAI Service. This plugin makes integrating this service significantly faster and easier than a direct API call.

Once you’ve installed the plugin, you’ll need to go to your Azure portal and acquire your OpenAI API key. Paste this into the plugin, alongside with your “deployment name” and you’re good to go!

This is yet another in a line of AI integrated plugins, but one of the big things about this one is that it lets you train a chatbot purely on your own business data thanks to it having Microsoft Azure as a backend. It’s always nice to have options for AI integrations, as competition always drives improvement!

See a step-by step guide for the setup of the plugin.

Bubble releases new table element

Bubble's table element is currently still in Beta, but it's worth noting now as it's a long-awaited feature. It functions very similarly to a repeating group with three major differences: Customisable row/column sizes, built-in headers and full control over the content in each section of the table.

You can fully customise the number of columns in the table while also having the option to fix the number of rows if desired. You can also “invert” the table, and make it horizontal rather than vertical.

It also allows you to have complete sizing control over every row and column, complete with min & max widths. Although, you can only customise the content with rows 0 (headings) and 1 (content). The further rows are auto-generated based on the data-set.

If you don’t set max widths on various columns, however, they will attempt to automatically size themselves to an equal width with all other columns, regardless of the content within. So be careful when using this with longer data-sets (and be ready for breakpoints!).

The feature is most definitely a brilliant addition to the default Bubble functions, but as it’s still in Beta there are probably plenty of changes on the horizon; we can only wait and see!

Bubble adds pre-set & customisable breakpoints

Bubble has confirmed that it's working on developing its pre-set & customisable breakpoints feature. The release date isn't known just yet but here's what's in store. 

The premise is to have pre-set breakpoints for mobile, tablet and desktop. You'll also be able to set your own custom breakpoints. This is a huge boon for responsive development. While the new engine really helps with responsive design, some items still don’t scale down quite so well, or certain layouts need changes specifically for smaller screens.

Bubble hopes that this will reduce the need to rely on conditionals, but without seeing this actual implementation in action, I can’t quite see how this would be implemented outside of being a condition you can call for a conditional, such as “Breakpoint: mobile”.

What I can see this doing, however, is making consistency with responsive conditionals significantly easier to manage. There will be no need to constantly check what exact pixel breakpoint you’re using and if you wish to change it, it will update everywhere at once.

Hopefully more information will be released on this nifty little feature soon!