How to Build an App for a Small Business without Coding

There are many No-Code platforms that you can use to build an app without knowing how to code. One that I find very easy to work with is Google’s AppSheet.

AppSheet allows you to build mobile, desktop, and web apps without writing any code. You can capture rich data using forms, barcodes, locations, signatures, and photos.

You can also create bots to automate manual tasks. AppSheet allows you to Send and automate email, SMS, and Push notifications.

You can build workflow logic with triggers, conditions, and branches. You can also incorporate machine learning models like intelligent document processing and optical character recognition.

Another great advantage of AppSheet is that you can use Google Sheets, Office 365, Dropbox, Salesforce.com, SQL databases, and more as your source of data.

BUILDING A BUSINESS APPLICATION WITH APPSHEET

I was able to build a mobile application for my sister’s cake business in just a few minutes.

This work would normally take a lot of time using platforms like Android Studio, React Native, Flutter, Xcode, and other native or cross-platform frameworks.

But with AppSheet, I was able to make the application without writing any line of code in just a few minutes. All I needed was to make a spreadsheet with 3 sheet tabs and connect it to AppSheet as my data source.

The app keeps track of the cake orders, customers, delivery status, flavors, and other relevant details.

It also has a page for expenses and it automatically calculates the monthly profit based on the orders and expenses. It is a very simple and basic app but it saves her a lot of time.

Here is the process,

I made a spreadsheet in Google Sheets. The spreadsheet has 3 sheet tabs namely Orders, Expenses, and Profits.

The Orders sheet has a table with columns such as DELIVERY DATE, CUSTOMER, CONTACT, CAKE SIZE, PRICE, STATUS, FLAVOURS, and DETAILS.

Here is the full table.

Once that is done and the data is ready, you can go to Appsheet.com and create a new app. Choose App from the pop-up and then choose Start with Existing Data from the dropdown. Choose your Google Sheet project from above and you are good to go.

A full Video tutorial will be uploaded soon.

AppSheet has many view types that you can you to display your data in your app. Some of these views include Calendar, Deck, Table, Gallery, Detail, Map, Chart, Dashboard, From, Onboarding, Card, etc.

You can use any of these view types to structure your application.