Enterprise Apps

  • Part 2 in the Series - How Three Businesses Benefited from ViziApps Mobile Apps

    Now, let’s walk thru some use cases showing how three companies have solved key issues with mobile apps.

    Construction – Home Maintenance Services

    The home maintenance industry has been comprised of individual and small business contractors and handymen, interacting with each homeowner by phone. HomeSquare is disrupting this traditional model, increasing engagement with homeowners and lowering home maintenance costs, by giving each homeowner a private mobile app connection wherever they are. This makes it quick and easy to request new services, and keep apprised of all their projects’ progress and status, making it easy to consume more home maintenance services by breaking down the barriers of finding the right people for a project and negotiating the terms and pricing.

    The solution was to put a mobile app in the hands of every customer, making it easy to request services, provide details and explanations, and even take photos to clarify needed work orders. With this successful customer-facing app, HomeSquare is looking to increase their productivity with mobile business process apps.

    Retail Channel Engagement

    One of the world’s largest fast-moving consumer goods companies based in Asia, which we’ll refer to here as FMCG, saw the need for a mobile app to carry their business forward with their network of thousands of retailing partners in Asia. Mobile apps presented a new opportunity to significantly increase engagement with them. It opened a new direct marketing vehicle with the partners, increasing the productivity of these relationships and encouraging increased loyalty and teamwork. In addition to reinforcing FMCG’s brand, benefits also included increased sales and reduced call center volume.

    FMCG’s marketing and sales team was very keen to make sure that the mobile app’s user experience was optimized. A critical technology requirement for this project was a secure real-time connection to the FMCG’s corporate SQL partner database. Now released for iOS and Android devices in the three languages needed across the region, and the mobile app is achieving high adoption and increasing FMCG’s engagement and business results with their retail partners.

    Farm Operations

    Spiech Farms has over 600 employees processing fruit and vegetables. They had built out desktop applications for use at the corporate office, but out in the field, they needed something mobile.

    Using bar-code scanning functionality from their smartphones, their field workers could take inventory of all the produce and report updates directly back to the corporate office. Additional mobile apps were built in a matter of days, enabling the company to adapt quickly, based on their stakeholder’s needs. Instead of training their filed employees for hours on desktop applications, they chose the route of mobile apps for easy and fast task workflow for their young and mobile workforce.

    No longer are they chasing their field workers to update systems when they return to the office. Instead, real-time updates from the field provide fast visibility and significant increases in productivity for the whole organization.

    Next up: How they accomplished these benefits!

  • Part 4 in a Series: Mobilizing your business with ViziApps Visual Rapid Mobile App Development

    Now, you might be wondering how ViziApps can mobilize your business. Let’s go back to the criteria listed in Part 3 of this Series, and look at how ViziApps addresses those needs for Rapid Mobile Application Development:

    • Security – ViziApps is built on a highly reliable Amazon AWS network with an eye on “protecting your app” with utmost priority. ViziApps leverages the latest security AWS tools to build a secure network that does not slow down performance of your app.
    • Part 5 in a Series: Make it happen with ViziApps

      We’ve discussed how Viziapps is disrupting mobile app development with the power of visual rapid mobile app design, data connectivity, and publishing. Let’s recap the key factors ViziApps provides.

      Visually Design your Mobile App User Experience. Viziapps is a Visual platform for IT Professionals and Citizen Developers to easily design, test, and publish mobile apps for iOS or Android OS devices. All this through the Visual Design studio that supports all of the cool features that you want in your mobile app’s User Experience.

    • Publish Your Mobile Apps In An Instant

      ViziApps has pioneered fast creation of custom mobile apps without the need for coding. However, you may need a faster more controlled way to distribute your apps than available through the public app stores.

      Now you can also publish your custom mobile apps directly into the hands of your iPhone, iPad, and Android users, literally in minutes, with ViziApps Instant Publisher.

      The Need for Instant Publishing

      There are a number of situations where you may not want your custom mobile app to be distributed through a public app store:

      • Your app is only to be used by company insiders and channel/supply partners
      • Your app contains ideas, concepts, or intellectual property you don’t want competitors to see
      • You want to avoid the complexity, delays, and cost of publishing through public app markets
      • You need fast distribution to a limited set of users
      • Your user population is small
      • You are conducting a Beta or Pilot test

      How It Works

      ViziApps Instant Publisher™ creates a special App Installation Web Page, unique for your app, that guides your users through a simple and fast installation process.

      ViziApps also creates a unique App Invitation Card which contains a bit.ly short URL and QR code that will bring your users directly to the App Installation Web Page.

      State Capitols Invitation Card

      App Invitation Card

      Your users open your installed app directly from your custom branded App Icon on their device home screen, and the same published app can run on both Apple and Android devices. ViziApps Instant Publisher is available to use with the latest version of ViziApps from the Apple App Store and Google Play.

      Try installing the demo app shown in the Invitation Card above to see how Instant Publisher works.

    • Rapid Dev Tools Put Mobile Apps in the Fast Lane

      Check out Gartner’s Jason Wong’s comments in Ramin Edmond’s article in the June issue of Tech Target’s Modern Mobility: Many organizations haven’t yet built their own apps because of the scarcity of developer talent and the extra expense it requires. Rapid mobile app development (RMAD) platforms low- and even no-code tools can help lighten that burden to build mobile applications. RMAD adoption is growing in the enterprise, because it has the potential to unleash app dev in a big way, says Jason Wong, principal research analyst at Gartner.

    • Speed Your Mobile Apps to Market in a Major App Store

      New, disruptive technologies are enabling business and IT people to create robust, visually appealing, data-centric mobile business apps quickly and cost effectively. Using a tool like ViziApps Studio provide step-by-step directions on how to get a ViziApps-built app published in the Apple App Store or in Google Play.

      To publish an app in the Apple App Store using ViziApps, for example, you just need to complete three steps:

      • Prepare the data, icons, images and other items that will be used to promote your app in the App Store with iTunes Connect
      • Brand and build the code for your app using ViziApps
      • Deploy your app to iTunes Connect with the Application Loader.

      Deploying An App to iTunes Connect

      The process for deploying an app to iTunes Connect has changed over time, so be sure to download and refer to the current iTunes Connect Developer Guide for the latest information.

      Knowing what you will need to take your completed mobile business apps through the build and app publishing process will help you plan your time at the onset of your mobile app development project to make your apps available to your users on schedule. By clearly understanding the steps you will need to complete to meet the unique requirements of the Apple App Store and Google Play, you will avoid unnecessary delays and ensure that your mobile apps will be ready when your users expect to start using it.

    • The New Must-Haves for Mobile Apps Today

      SC Moatti has built mobile products for many of the greats — including running cross-platform notifications for Facebook. In her experience, whether an app succeeds depends on the culture of the company that makes it. “Mobile has an entirely different resonance and cadence for users, which makes the development of mobile apps fundamentally different too," she says.

    • ViziApps Adds Indoor Maps and Navigation with Micello Partnership and Integration

      Micello, Inc., the leading global provider of indoor maps and navigation data, announced its partnership with ViziApps. The new partnership will empower venue owners and ViziApps customers to quickly include and interact with Micello indoor maps in their mobile apps. In the last few years, Micello has generated indoor maps for over 25,000 venues around the world.

    • ViziApps Eases Building Data-rich Mobile Apps with Online Guide and Graphical Query Tester

      ViziApps provides app creators with a major advantage – the ability to quickly produce data-rich mobile business apps without coding.

      And now, with a new online reference guide available in the ViziApps Studio, app makers have a handy reference to help them build apps using Google Docs spreadsheets for access to a wide range of data, including text, images, and maps. The searchable documentation speeds development of robust data-rich apps for the iPhone and iPad and Android smartphones and tablets.

      ViziApps users tell us that delivering their business data into the hands of mobile users is driving new revenue and attracting new customers for their business. Providing mobile access to business data is what sets their apps apart from their competitors. So, make the most of your business data in your next mobile app. Check out the new data management documentation in ViziApps Studio to learn how to present and manage data in a way that gives your app users the information they need – wherever they are.

      Simply click the “Spreadsheet User Guide” button in the Manage Data section for info and tips.

      • Introduction to database commands
      • Updating and deleting data
      • Incorporating images and maps
      • Using Google Docs spreadsheets
      • Data Management best practices

      This is just a sampling of the topics provided to help app creators select, create, and efficiently manage data for use in their mobile business apps. Check it out by clicking the “Spreadsheet User Guide” on the Manage Data page in your free ViziApps Studio account.

      Easier Testing of Data Management Designs

      Recent enhancements to the ViziApps mobile app creation platform allow testing of any spreadsheet query directly from the ViziApps Studio. In other words, it is no longer necessary to go out of ViziApps to your mobile device to test individual spreadsheet queries

      Now mobile app creators can use this new graphical query tester early in the app design process to verify which queries are working and to identify issues that require attention. Every spreadsheet query in the ViziApps graphical query tree now has a green icon that represents this new testing tool for that particular query.

      When a user clicks on it, a pop-up appears with that query for testing.

      This new ViziApps capability speeds app development and eliminates the need for app creators to move in and out of the ViziApps Studio to test every query made to a database.

      The tester works for all query types. For update, insert and where condition tests, the app creator enters test values in the empty device fields and clicks the “Test” button. That simple action submits the query and then displays the results in a second graphical response tree. Both single values and array values are displayed, as well as any query errors that may occur.

    • ViziApps Expands Intuit QuickBase Support – Now includes Sub-Account Authentication and Query Response Limits

      Companies worldwide use QuickBase to create cloud-based business process applications, without doing any coding.

      Those businesses often require access privileges to company data at different levels of authorization.These QuickBase apps can run on iPhones, iPads, and Android smartphones and tablets.

      For example, a Sales VP may have a higher level of authorization than regional sales people have. While the Sales VP may access sales results in all regions, an individual sales person might have access to sales results only in his/her region. When an end user logs into their QuickBase ViziApps app, their login credentials will automatically determine which data to select depending on their level of authorization.

      Here's how it works. When you register QuickBase as a data source for your ViziApps app, you will see a dialog box like the figure below. Add the field names in your app that will be used for end users to login and access your QuickBase data. Then, when the app runs, your users just login and the data query you designed in ViziApps uses the authorization from their login.

      Now includes Sub-Account Authentication and Query Response Limits

      Also, the ViziApps Studio now enables you to specifiy a limit to the number of responses for any data query, since large data sets may have much more data than is needed by a mobile user.

    • ViziApps Expands Quickbase Support to include Sub-Account Authentication and Query Response Limits

      Companies worldwide use Quickbase to create cloud-based business process applications, without doing any coding.

      Those businesses often require access privileges to company data at different levels of authorization. Using ViziApps Studio, enterprises and small businesses can design Quickbase apps that enable end users to access data at the appropriate level of authorization. These Quickbase apps can run on iPad, iPhone, and Android tablets and smartphones.

      For example, a Sales VP may have a higher level of authorization than regional sales people have. While the Sales VP may access sales results in all regions, an individual sales person might have access to sales results only in his/her region. When an end user logs into their Quickbase ViziApps app, their login credentials will automatically determine which data to select depending on their level of authorization.

    • ViziApps named one of Massachusetts Largest Mobile Startups

      The Boston Business Journal named ViziApps as one of the Top 20 Largest Mobile Startups in Massachusetts. ViziApps joined the ranks of Mobiquity, uTest, Fiksu, Apperian, and Kinvey in this recognition of our growth by New England’s premier business journal.

    • ViziApps Now Supports Quickbase for Integrating Data in Mobile Apps

      Companies worldwide use Quickbase to create cloud-based business process applications, without doing any coding.

      Now, using ViziApps Studio, enterprise and small business users can easily build mobile apps using Quickbase data to run on the iPad, iPhone, and Android tablets and smartphones, without coding. Taking advantage of the ViziApps drag and drop process for creating apps, Quickbase users can quickly and cost effectively build mobile apps that provide access to robust cloud-based data.

      ViziApps® provides the features described below for creating Quickbase mobile apps.

    • ViziApps Offline Sync – Use Your Mobile App Anywhere

      What does Offline Data Sync mean in a mobile app?

      Offline data allows a user of the mobile app to view, add, delete or modify data in the mobile app with no connection to the internet or network. All of the changes the user makes will be automatically synced with the main backend database, once the mobile app user comes back into online network connectivity.

      So, why this is important?

    • ViziApps Selected to show Rapid Mobile App Innovation at TechJam 2015!

      gtj logo

      The Mass Technology Leadership Council selected ViziApps to demo our Rapid Mobile App Platform at TechJam 2015. See us there Thursday May 11th in Boston: https://masstlc.proximate.com/btj2015#?p=np

    • ViziApps Smart Pages™ Provide Predesigned Data-Ready Mobile App Pages

      If you’re not the most artistic designer or you’re trying to meet a tight deadline, or you want to share your mobile page design with your team or our community – you will love ViziApps new Smart PagesTM. As with any design activity, starting with a blank page can be intimidating and there are often aspects of building apps for Apple and Android devices that need to be repeated or reused in a new context. Why reinvent the wheel when you can leverage existing best practices for mobile app design?

      Solving these issues is exactly what ViziApps is delivering with our new Smart Pages catalog of professionally designed Smart Pages. Use them for the fastest way yet to build full-featured mobile apps. Or create your own Smart Pages so that you can organize your designs and share components for team development or share with the ViziApps community.

      A Catalog of Smart Pages

      The ViziApps catalog offers a range of Smart Pages to perform functions like displaying data to a scrolling table or showing a place on a map. And the catalog will grow with more Smart Pages over time. Just find a Smart Page that meets your specific need, plug it into your app design, connect it to a live data source, when needed, and that page is done!

      ViziApps offers a range of data connections so you can get business data into your users’ hands in real time, without coding. Our data sources include Intuit QuickBase, Salesforce.com, Google Spreadsheets, SQL databases and REST interfaces. As with the rest of ViziApps, hooking up your data to a Smart Page is a simple drag-and-drop process.

      The process of building mobile apps with ViziApps is an easy visual experience without coding, and allows you to build complex apps from individual pages. Smart Pages makes this experience even faster because you can organize your app by selecting a series of Smart Pages, connect to live data sources, and put in the finishing touches.

      Of course the best-designed components can’t anticipate all individual needs, so ViziApps lets you add our standard fields to the Smart Pages in your app, so you can customize them to achieve the perfect user experience. You can even mix Smart Pages with your own fully custom pages in the same app in any way you want.

    • ViziApps to Demo Rapid Mobile Apps at Intuit EMPOWER 2015

      Join ViziApps at Intuit EMPOWER 2015, to be held at the Hyatt Regency Chicago from May 26-28, 2015.

      For several years ViziApps has been enabling customers and partners of Intuit QuickBase to create custom mobile apps, with all of the non-coding ease-of-use that Quickbase users have come to expect. Yet ViziApps is powerful enough to incorporate native mobile device features and simultaneously connect with other data sources such as Google Sheets and SQL databases.

      The EMPOWER conference will be a great opportunity to learn more about using QuickBase to create business apps that meet your exact needs without coding. And while you’re at it, stop by and visit with ViziApps to learn more about building custom mobile apps that use QuickBase.

      Find out more about Intuit EMPOWER 2015 and save $100 on conference registration:

      ViziApps at EMPOWER 2015.