What is...?
Companies in today's fast-paced corporate environment are always seeking for methods to simplify their procedures and enhance their operations. Building specialized internal tools to fulfill specific needs is one of the most effective methods to accomplish this. However, creating these tools from scratch may be a time-consuming and costly process, particularly for businesses without in-house developers. This is where Retool comes into play. Get to know this awesome tool in our blog post!
Retool is a low-code platform that allows businesses to quickly and easily build custom internal tools without needing to write any code. It's an all-in-one solution that provides a comprehensive set of tools for building and deploying custom applications, dashboards, and reports. With Retool, businesses can quickly build custom tools to automate workflows, consolidate data from multiple sources, and much more.
You can integrate Retool with several popular technologies, like Airtable and Slack, making it easy to link your bespoke tools to the rest of your workflow. You can save time and effort by utilizing it to create unique tools that match your individual needs…
Retool offers both a free and a paid plan, with the paid plan starting at $10 per month. The paid plan includes features such as custom domains, unlimited integrations, and more. The platform offers an affordable pricing option to help businesses build custom internal tools without breaking the bank.
To assist customers in utilizing the platform and creating their own unique tools, Retool provides a wide range of documentation. The manuals are continually updated to reflect the newest features and upgrades and cover anything from using this low-code software to more complex issues.
Users also connect to various data sources and services using this robust API. As a result, users can create custom tools that can access and modify data from a variety of sources, such as databases, online services, and others. Retool also has integrations with many other applications, such as Airtable, Google Sheets, and others.
Name a better way to quickly get started with building custom internal tools, because Retool is quite good in it. The templates are pre-built applications that serve as a starting point for your own custom tools. They provide a functional and tested foundation for you to build upon, so you can focus on customizing the solution to meet your specific needs.
Each template comes with detailed instructions and example data, so you can quickly understand how the template works and customize it for your specific needs.
There are several other options available, including Appsmith, Bubble, and Quickbase. Each of these platforms offers similar functionality to Retool, with a focus on helping businesses build custom internal tools without writing code.
Appsmith is a modern low-code platform that provides a flexible and intuitive drag-and-drop interface for building custom applications. Check out our blog where we compare Appsmith and Retool! Bubble is another popular low-code platform that enables users to build web and mobile applications with a visual interface. Quick Base is a low-code platform that specializes in building custom business applications, with a focus on enabling teams to collaborate and automate their workflows.
With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and a wide range of integrations, Retool makes it possible to shorten processes, improve operations, and automate workflows without any technical expertise. Whether you're looking to build a custom dashboard, reports, or any other internal tool, it has everything you need to get started.
Ready to take your business to the next level with Retool? Contact Makeitfuture today for a consultation and learn how our experts can help you harness the power of this low-code platform.
Cloud Integration, iPaaS, SaaS, BPA… Ough, hard to keep track of all these terms. They are currently used frequently (and increasingly) in the context of automation, and it is sometimes difficult to make a clear distinction and distinction. We have already written blog posts on the terms iPaaS, SaaS and BPA, but we’ll take them up again here to make the difference.
But let’s start with cloud integration, because that’s the central umbrella term in which we embed all the other technologies in this blog post.
Arrange a free cloud integration consultation now
Arrange a free cloud integration consultation now
To illustrate these advantages, an example is suitable that we know well from our everyday work as an automation agency:
The central data to be used here is the data of a major customer. This can be the simplest information, such as the address. This address is required in numerous but completely different processes in the company: on the one hand, for correct invoicing in accounting. On the other hand, in the CRM system, where all the data of the large customer is also stored. But the address is also important in sales, for example, when employees go to the sales meeting on site.
Now the customer announces that the address of the company has changed after a move. This information will reach you by e-mail. There are now two options:
01. The e-mail is forwarded to all affected departments, accounting, sales, customer service, marketing… All persons open their corresponding program, CRM, accounting software, marketing tools (such as newsletter marketing) and change the data already stored there of the customer. This means that in multiple applications, different people do exactly the same thing: change one address.
02. But there is also an alternative: By connecting your applications, thus by integrizing them, the customer’s e-mail, or rather the information it contains about the address change, is automatically passed on to all affected applications: CRM, accounting, marketing, ERP. This does not require any clicks, because the cloud integration detects a trigger, i.e. address change, and thus automatically starts the process.
What sounds unimpressive in a single process becomes more effective when such a process occurs several times a day or weekly. Because there is a lot of data that is available in different applications and should always be correct. If these applications are cloud applications they are suitable for cloud integration.
But cloud integration doesn’t just happen. There are now a variety of applications that enable and implement this. Such tools usually allow us to link the relevant cloud applications on a central platform and define clear rules on when, how, where, how much data should be passed on and what happens to them.
To realize cloud integration, there are various applications and technologies that are sometimes used interchangeably.
We have made a first distinction between iPaaS and BPA here.
We explain the term SaaS in more detail here.
Cloud integration is rather an umbrella term that includes numerous technologies, such as SaaS, iPaaS and BPA, and this is also absolutely necessary. Cloud integration is a concept that is made possible by appropriate technologies.
However, all terms share the commonality that they are cloud-based and thus offer enormous potential for growth and scaling. In addition, they are often cheaper to implement and maintain because changed requirements are easy to implement.
As an independent automation agency, we implement cloud integration according to your requirements. We use a variety of SaaS tools and iPaas (strictly speaking BPA) software. Together we find individual solutions that are flexible and scalable.
