Think fast
Thoughts and ideas on how to build tools, automate workflows and speed-up the workplace.
Create a Form to Enter Google Sheets Data in 7 Steps
Obviously, Google Sheets is great for collaboratively managing all sorts of data. There are big downsides here too though, especially if you’re working at scale. One solution is using a form to enter data into Google Sheets. Today, we’re going to look at exactly how you can do this in Budibase. There are a bunch of other ways you could do this too, of course. We’re biased, but we think Budibase is the best option.
Ronan McQuillan
Jan 1, 2024
Top 5 Quickbase Alternatives & Competitors in 2024
Quickbase is one of many tools on the market today that seeks to give teams a single platform for unifying data, managing internal processes, and automating menial tasks. This reflects a huge problem that’s faced by almost every business today. Companies have never relied on data more. At the same time, data assets are dispersed, siloed, and uncoordinated. Therefore, centralization offers huge potential for efficiency savings, improving accuracy, facilitating collaboration, providing oversight, and more.
Ronan McQuillan
Dec 12, 2023
Top 5 Airtable Alternatives & Competitors in 2024
When Airtable launched in 2012, it was a real innovation. Spreadsheets hadn’t changed much in several decades. So, the power to add interfaces, automations, advanced in-line components, and external data syncing on top of this was huge. Today, Airtable has upwards of 300,000 users - including some of the world’s biggest companies. But, despite Airtable’s popularity, it’s not necessarily the ideal solution for every use case. Today, we’re exploring some of the other tools that teams can use to collaborate on data and manage internal processes, with our roundup of Airtable alternatives.
Ronan McQuillan
Dec 6, 2023
Top 6 PowerApps Alternatives & Competitors in 2024
Microsoft PowerApps was one of the first modern low-code platforms when it launched in 2015. The goal was to provide large businesses with a new, faster way to output custom applications. Today, it’s used by developers and other IT professionals alike to simplify the process of building custom software. Thousands of companies in all kinds of industries choose PowerApps for internal development projects. However, that doesn’t mean that PowerApps is the right fit for every organization.
Ronan McQuillan
Dec 5, 2023
Top 6 Retool Alternatives & Competitors in 2024
Retool is one of the biggest players in the low-code space. However, that doesn’t mean it’s viable for every business; it’s far from it. Today, we’re checking out some of the top Retool alternatives from across the market. And it’s a crowded market nowadays. However, there’s huge variation between different options - across their pricing, features, target personas, use cases, and more. Today, we’re covering the following: What is Retool? Why would you look for an alternative to Retool?
Ronan McQuillan
Nov 30, 2023
How to Build a Manufacturing Dashboard
Manufacturing dashboards offer a real-time snapshot of the state of your production processes. The goal is to provide decision-makers with a fast, easy way to access KPIs and other important insights. Crucially, this replaces the need to manually crunch numbers each time you need the figures in question. Any time we set out to build dashboards, the biggest challenge is getting all of the different data that we need into one location, formatted compatibly.
Ronan McQuillan
Nov 10, 2023
How to Build a Supply Chain Dashboard
Supply chain dashboards provide much-needed access to real-time insights about a whole range of interrelated inventory, cost management, and procurement processes. The challenge is getting all of the data we need in one place and compatible formats. Today, we’re exploring how Budibase empowers teams to build custom dashboards around all kinds of existing data sources. Along the way, we’ll see how we can create and save custom queries to transform data and present the results in professional UIs, with minimal design skills.
Ronan McQuillan
Nov 10, 2023
How to Build an Inventory Calculator
Managing inventories - especially the finances surrounding them - can pose serious challenges and create mountains of admin work. Custom inventory calculator apps are a powerful solution. We might need to regularly perform calculations around stock changes, valuations, efficiency, warehouse utilization, or other KPIs. The trouble is that these kinds of calculations are often deceptively complex - with many of the figures we need stored in different locations, in different formats.
Ronan McQuillan
Nov 10, 2023