Digital transformation is anything but easy. Yet, countless businesses are striving towards the advantages that ideology brings to bear, and are needlessly impeded in their efforts. Arguably, digital transformation starts with applications, and those applications must function across diverse platforms and clouds, whether they are private, public, or hybrid. TrackVia, a cloud-based platform that combines rapid application development with low-code requirements and intuitive application integration capabilities, aims to help companies overcome traditional technology barriers and thus accelerate their journey towards digital transformation.
Simply put, TrackVia’s low-code platform makes it easy to build cloud-based applications that will run on multiple platforms, while still accessing existing critical business data. TrackVia was born out of a necessity as businesses were seeking to move and extend critical applications, such as inventory control, processes, workflows, and field service related applications into the world of mobile devices. This narrative established TrackVia’s expertise in cloud connectivity, rapid application development, and mobile device application delivery.
That aforementioned necessity proved to be the ideal foundation for creating applications that could bridge device platforms, leverage cloud technology, and integrate existing services to power digital transformation. Furthermore, TrackVia not only streamlines the initial development and deployment of an application, but it is also extremely agile and adaptable. Unlike rigid or heavy legacy software, TrackVia’s web and mobile applications can easily be modified in real-time, with point-and-click ease. The flexibility embedded throughout the platform ultimately ensures that TrackVia can always precisely support a company’s operations, even as they evolve and change.
What’s more, TrackVia brings security and ease of use into the picture, creating a platform that is not only productive, but also protected from the ills of the cloud.
A Closer Look at TrackVia’s Low-code Platform:
TrackVia fits into the realm of a cloud service, which institutes all of the necessary elements for a rapid application development and application delivery platform. That said, TrackVia is not limited to a single cloud instance or even a single operational platform. TrackVia allows users to create cloud-based applications, which work akin to software as a service, yet can run across multiple operational platforms, such as iOS, Android, and so forth. What’s more, TrackVia integrates device intelligence, allowing a single application to run on both multiple mobile devices, as well as traditional desktop offerings.
From an integration standpoint, TrackVia offers the capabilities to integrate across cloud applications, as well as internal applications, thanks to the inclusion of a robust API and the Zapier marketplace. Zapier offers a collection of pre-built application integrations, such as Google Apps, Quickbooks, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and over 700 other applications. Integration with existing systems is only one part of the TrackVia equation. The real power of the product comes in the form of rapid application development that uses a low-code ideology and can deliver applications via the cloud across multiple devices.
In other words, TrackVia makes it easy to create, modify and deploy applications that run natively on mobile devices as well as via browsers on desktop PCs, without having to build interfaces for each device. What’s more, the platform’s unique drag-and-drop functionality, visual, intuitive toolsets, and user-friendly interface accomplish all of this with little or no manual coding. In fact, most applications can be created without having to do any hand coding whatsoever. Simply put, TrackVia does all of the heavy lifting when it comes to creating web and mobile applications, so much so that even a programming neophyte can quickly become an application development expert.
Hands-On with TrackVia:
Perhaps the simplest description of what the TrackVia platform is all about comes down to identifying it as a cloud-based, low-code solution that is designed to help organizations quickly and efficiently create, modify and deploy their own SaaS (Software as a Service) applications. That means all of the application elements, as well as the development tools, reside in TrackVia’s own data center.
Getting started takes little more than identifying what workflow a user wants to create and then logging into TrackVia’s browser-based interface and management console. The console offers three initial development paths, “Customize a Pre-Built App”, “Start using an Excel spreadsheet”, and “Start clean from scratch”. For many, one of the first applications created takes the form of converting an Excel spreadsheet into an integrated web and natively mobile application.
For example, numerous businesses are stuck using spreadsheets to record data, report on transactions, or even to manage operations, like tracking inventory, field services, projects or the like. Why? Either from the lack of enterprise software that meets a business’s specific needs or from the lack of developers to create an appropriate application.
That is exactly where TrackVia comes in; it provides the toolset to convert a spreadsheet into an application that can be used either in the field on a mobile device or in-house via a browser. What’s more, TrackVia transforms that spreadsheet into an enterprise-grade application that combines security with ease of use — while also incorporating reliability and data protection.
Spreadsheets prove to be one of the easiest starting points to create a workflow. Once logged in to TrackVia, all you need to do to get started is create a new project and then simply drag the excel spreadsheet into the platform. TrackVia identifies the fields, data, and other elements in the spreadsheet and automatically creates the basic framework for an application.
After the spreadsheet is imported, application designers can fine-tune what to include in the application as well as choose from various ways to configure the application to their needs. Most applications can be fully configured using just drag-and-drop functionality; however, the TrackVia platform also provides developer-centric features, such as in-app scripting, for highly sophisticated customizations.
Those choices drive the development of the application, which then appears on the TrackVia dashboard. From the dashboard, end-users can begin managing their projects and applications. Policy controls, user permissions, and intelligent automation allow project managers to execute a workflow, which can prioritize steps and even assign responsibilities to other users. That proves handy for companies looking to streamline their complex and critical workflows and operations, as well as adopting a low-code driven ideology for application development.
One of TrackVia’s biggest strengths comes from that fact that it takes just a few mouse clicks to create the necessary logic to process a data entry task that was once done manually in a spreadsheet. TrackVia can then transform that logic into a fully functioning application, which runs on multiple platforms, provides real-time, interactive reporting and analytics, and uses a workflow engine to streamline the tasks, steps, work, approvals and the like necessary to complete a process or procedure.
Of course, the TrackVia platform can do much more than transforming spreadsheets into applications, the platform also offers the capability to integrate with other applications and embeds enterprise-grade security, scalability, and reliability into its robust applications—so they can always keep pace with a company’s evolving operational needs. The TrackVia platform offers two ways to integrate with other web-based applications. The primary method consists of using TrackVia’s own API, or alternatively using a third-party service called Zapier. Zapier connects hundreds of Web-based applications to each other using a very simple “when this happens, do this” structure, which is referred to as “Zap”. A Zap is little more than the necessary code to create the connection and is self-contained, meaning that no programming is needed.
Zapier proves to be a very quick way to create simple integrations. For those looking to move beyond simple, TrackVia’s public API brings much more power to the table, yet still supports the concept of a low code environment. The company offers guided tutorials, as well as full SDK to make adopting APIs and creating custom integrations relatively straightforward.
Lastly and importantly, new TrackVia applications are not created in a vacuum and can incorporate any logic or code chosen by the user, while also being wrapped in the necessary security protocols to keep data safe from interception or capture.
Conclusion:
For businesses looking to adopt cloud delivered services, while supporting digital transformation, TrackVia brings a true low-code solution with an intuitive and versatile toolset to the table that allows users to streamline application development and create workflows that transition into “run anywhere” web and native mobile applications. Simply put, TrackVia makes it easy and fast to translate the businesses’ digital transformation needs into actual applications. The leading low-code platform brings the power of programming to non-programmers, and ultimately enables them to produce the custom, agile and modern technology they need to help drive the organization forward.
