Think fast

How to Build a Contractor Portal

Managing projects with external stakeholders can create some unique challenges. This includes monitoring costs, tracking progress, handling approvals, and centralizing information from disparate sources and stakeholders. Today, we’re exploring one solution to this - by showing off the speed and ease with which we can create a custom contractor portal in Budibase. See, a huge part of the problem is how we communicate and collaborate with contractors. When we handle this manually using emails, spreadsheets, or even pen and paper - we inevitably create mountains of admin work, along with scope for error.

Ronan McQuillan

Mar 26, 2024

Wrapping up Q1

Busy quarter! In Q1, we set out to: Make it easier and faster to build advanced, secure forms. Spark more joy in the developer experience. Making it easier and faster to build secure forms Building forms is a critical and necessary flow within Budibase. Whether you’re building a simple app to collect data or a complex approval flow to manage overtime requests, there’s a critical form at the heart of the workflow.

Joe Johnston

Mar 25, 2024

How to Build a Fleet Management Portal

Keeping track of vehicles in the field is a huge challenge. In particular, gaining an accurate snapshot of our vehicle’s locations, statuses, conditions, and maintenance needs can create mountains of administrative work. Today, we’re looking at one solution - building a custom fleet management portal. See, the problem here ultimately comes down to a need to centralize fleet data and related workflows. Our goal today is to demonstrate how Budibase empowers teams to build secure, custom portals on top of just about any data.

Ronan McQuillan

Mar 22, 2024

Create a Free MySQL GUI in 5 Steps

MySQL is one of the most popular database systems out there. And that’s for a good reason. It is lightweight, fast, easy to learn, and widely available. Using a MySQL GUI to manage your databases will help you make the most out of this tool. A GUI (Graphical User Interface) allows you to interact with your database with a visual interface. This allows you to see your data and use visual elements as opposed to text-based terminals and command lines.

Ronan McQuillan

Mar 20, 2024

How to Build a Self-Service IT Portal

Delivering IT services is a costly, laborious process. In particular, huge swathes of technical colleagues’ time is used up on relatively menial admin tasks. Today, we’re looking at one solution to this problem - building a custom IT portal to help users self-serve for common support tasks. Specifically, we’re going to demonstrate how we can use Budibase to build bespoke self-service portals with minimal custom coding. By the end, we’ll have a fully functioning, highly extensible solution for supercharging efficiency around IT service delivery.

Ronan McQuillan

Mar 20, 2024

Throwaway Prototyping | In-Depth Guide

Throwaway prototyping is an alternative way of thinking about building applications. Prototypes play several vital roles in the development process. For instance, providing proof of concept, fleshing out NFRs, experimenting with ideas, or simply gathering feedback. There’s an innate tension here though. On the one hand, prototyping obviously drains resources. Namely, development hours and the labor costs that come along with them. On the flip side, this expenditure can be hugely beneficial, or even completely central to a project.

Ronan McQuillan

Mar 19, 2024

Boosting developer productivity with Live Evaluation & Reusable Code Snippets

With today’s release, we’re pushing out two major updates to improve the developer experience in Budibase: Live Evaluation & Reusable Code Snippets. Live Evaluation offers real-time insights into your code’s behavior, allowing for immediate feedback without the constant need to toggle between the app preview and code editor. Meanwhile, Reusable Code Snippets, allow you to write blocks of JavaScript, such as formulas, in a centralized location, which can then be reused across your whole application.

Jamie Birss

Mar 19, 2024

What are the Components of an API?

Knowing the components of an API is obviously important for setting them up to do what you want. Otherwise, how can you ever expect to use them correctly? Today, we’re covering everything you need to know. We’re going to take each of the constituent parts of an API in turn and explain exactly what they are, what they do, and how you can use them. Along the way, we’ll think about real-world examples of why each one is important, and the specific scenarios where they’re useful.

Ronan McQuillan

Mar 14, 2024