5 Tips for Making Custom Apps in Intelex
October 1, 2018
4 minute read
You don’t need coding experience to design a custom application in Intelex. The Application Builder lets you use zero-code tools to create EHSQ apps that fit your business needs. Whether you want to make data collection easier or improve reporting, the drag-and-drop interface makes it simple for anyone to get started.
In this post, we’ll give you five tips that cover the main planning steps: gathering requirements, thinking about data outputs, considering your users, and mapping out the workflow.
See how you can speed up EHSQ app development with Intelex App Builder. Watch now.
Requirements gathering
Requirements gathering is likely the most important part of the process. It’s essential to bring stakeholders together and ask key questions.
For example, you might ask: “How (if at all) are you currently capturing this data? Are you writing everything down, using spreadsheets or using another application?”
This gives stakeholders a chance to share the pros and cons of their current system. Understanding how things work now helps you spot pain points and find ways to improve your custom application.
Data/reporting outputs
Data and reporting outputs are vital to gaining stakeholder buy-in. At the end of the day, that’s what people want to see.
Application Builder leverages the enterprise-grade Intelex platform, which includes business intelligence capabilities, integrated reporting with dashboards and scorecards, AI capabilities, and prescriptive analytics.
Even at this early planning stage with no data in the system, you can design applications knowing they’ll integrate seamlessly with these powerful visualization and analysis tools.
Consider how each data point will look when it comes out the other side – the platform offers many options for outputting data in graphically compelling formats that drive decision-making.
Intended user group
Many different employees may enter data into your system, from the CEO to a machine operator on the plant floor. Application designers should keep this in mind during the design phase.
For example, a machine operator might not have time to enter all the details of a near-miss, while a supervisor or line manager might. In these cases, it helps to create a simple starting view for the application.
All the data will be needed eventually, but some fields can stay hidden until the record reaches the “Investigative” stage and is assigned to a supervisor or manager.
Interactive form designer
Application Builder provides a drag-and-drop interactive form designer that simplifies application development.
You can easily visualize your application layout as you build, dragging and dropping fields to quickly architect new applications. This visual approach makes it simple to see what fields you’re creating and how response data will appear, particularly for dropdown lists, radio button groups, and other input types.
The user-friendly interface means you don’t need development skills to create sophisticated, professional applications that meet your exact requirements.
Automated workflows and business rules
Workflow is obviously an important piece of the puzzle. While it’s good to have a general idea of how the workflow “might” look in the final version of the application, it’s a good practice to not be too attached to that initial plan. It has been my experience that the workflow creation process can be very fluid and may take on many different forms before final release.
Application Builder provides powerful capabilities to streamline this process. You can create automated workflows for enterprise use cases and trigger custom business rules and notifications.
The platform supports templates that can accelerate your workflow development while maintaining the flexibility to adapt as requirements evolve. This combination of structure and flexibility ensures your application can handle complex processes while remaining adaptable to changing business needs.
Conclusion
Creating a custom application in Intelex is a dynamic process that requires thoughtful planning, stakeholder engagement and flexibility. From gathering requirements to designing automated workflows, the drag-and-drop interface ensures anyone can build sophisticated EHSQ applications without coding expertise.
By leveraging platform features such as mobile-first deployment, API integration, and automated workflows, you can develop applications that deliver powerful functionality while maintaining robust platform security, privacy, and access controls.
Want to see how Intelex’s app builder works? Watch this product demo to see how you can accelerate EHSQ app development.
