JOANNA SMITH: AppSheet
empowers your company to build apps that are
flexible and scalable without engineering resources. It's clever, no code platform
is easy for any employee to use while providing
visibility and security to your IT department. Consider an example where
a team in your organization needs a new tool. Your IT department
likely doesn't have the time or resources
to evaluate new solutions for a single team. Fortunately, AppSheet
combines administrative tools, such as setting
controls on data access, with day-to-day products
like Google Sheets. This means your
IT department can set organization
wide limits which employees can work
within while customizing their own solutions. Let's take a look at how
a facility management team was able to build
their own inventory system. Here, the team
uses pen and paper to inventory equipment
throughout multiple buildings, later adding their
updates to a Google Sheet. The process is slow
and often inaccurate. Some buildings need new or
additional pieces of equipment while others may have extra
items unaccounted for. IT has received
requests to improve the way these items are
tracked by developing a custom application. But that effort is sitting in
a backlog behind other projects with higher priority. The team most familiar
with the inventory process is the facility management team. And they've decided to take
on this project themselves by using AppSheet, a no
code development platform. The current process requires
many users contributing to a single Google Sheet. This sheet contains
all of the assets and their locations
across multiple buildings. To upgrade the sheet
into an application, the team lead starts by
connecting the shared Google Sheet to AppSheet. The spreadsheet will serve
as the source of data for the new application. Behind the scenes,
AppSheet is automatically detecting the types
of data connected, establishing relationships
between data sources, and building an app
interface that's easy to use. With a few clicks, the
tables of buildings and items have been connected. And AppSheet has generated
a functional prototype. This prototype already contains
a map of the buildings, methods for adding items and updating
the status of each one, as well as intuitive
ways to see lists of items organized by the
building in which they are located. At this point, the
app creator can easily install this application on
their mobile device, where any future updates
made to the app will be instantly reflected. And anytime the app is used,
updates are synced back to the database for
the application, in this case, the
connected Google Sheet. The team lead can
customize their new tool by adding additional
features to their app. For example, with a
few clicks, the team adds a dashboard displaying
the real time status of every piece of equipment. Now everyone who was carrying a
clipboard around the facilities can check the dashboard from the
mobile app or their computer. To create this dashboard,
the team lead adds a view, selects dashboard, and then
chooses what data to include. The team also adds
barcode scanning to help users quickly
and accurately identify different pieces of equipment. To enable barcode
and NFC tag scanning, the team lead simply flips
a toggle option on a field by field basis, depending on
the data that's been connected. Lastly, email workflows can be
created to automatically notify team members when
inventory gets low or if there are unused
items that could be moved to another building. This email workflow is enabled
by creating a new workflow, specifying the type
of notification, and customizing an
email template that will be filled out with the
appropriate information based on app content. This app is ready to
start using right away. And it can be shared
with individuals or teams similar to how
Google Doc is shared. And it can be updated as needed
based on future feedback. The team was able to build
their own solution, relieving IT of this backlogged
project while still maintaining control
of what's created and how data is accessed. For example, establishing a
policy so that app creators can share their apps only with
other employees in their group. Other policies
can control things like how data is
accessed or what features can be included in apps. AppSheet's no code
development environment is what enables
solutions like this. Other teams in this
organization can take advantage of the
platform in similar ways to help manage projects,
coordinate field staff, or automate internal operations. Empowering a single team
to improve their daily work while ensuring the
entire organization operates with clear
boundaries is exactly the sort of flexible and
collaborative solution that AppSheet was designed for. [MUSIC PLAYING]
