If I may throw another tool into the mix, you could try to build this with Five (https://five.co), which is a rapid app development tool that comes with a MySQL DB, an auto-generated UI, and rapid deployment. Five lets you write queries, set up authentication, or add business logic through JS and TS.
Great and very valid question. I think you'd be better off learning a general-purpose language, such as Python, Ruby, or (my favorite) SQL first. JavaScript is always a great option too of course.
Here's my perspective on starting with a low-code tool (I'm co-founder of a low-code company called Five):
Starting with a low-code tool such as Budibase can be helpful if you want to find out if programming is for you, or if you quickly want to get a sense of what it takes to build an entire application.
Five is a low-code tool that relies heavily on SQL and JavaScript (in fact, you can write SQL and JS right inside of Five). Five takes you through the entire application development process, from database modeling to deployment. So it gives you a quick introduction to all aspects of the software development lifecycle. But again, you'll only be comfortable in Five if you understand relational databases, SQL, or JS already.
Hi Sam, sounds like you've stitched together a couple of "best of breed" solutions to accomplish what you need: a data collection interface builder, a database, and a dashboard.
If you want a "whole in one" solution that gives you a flexible database, you could try Five (I'm one of the co-founders). Five builds data-driven web apps.
The advantages of using Five are: 1. You're only paying for one tool instead of three. 2. Five gives you a customizable MySQL database. You can create tables and relationships visually. 3. Five gives you an easy form builder to collect data. You can also create data grids to collect data. 4. You can also create different user roles with different permissions, or public forms for people without their own login. 5. Five lets you create charts and dashboards, but our dashboarding is not as sophisticated as PowerBI (that's the trade-off).
So in a nutshell, if you're looking to replace your current setup with one web application then Five could be a solution.
What are the challenges? The biggest challenge seems to be that you're collecting different data from different users. If you want this data to be collected in a proper database, you'll have to come up with some standardized way of doing this. Conditional ("show-ifs") can easily be created inside of Five and could be one way of setting this up.
If you would like to have a chat with us about how to do this, feel free to sign up on our website and I'll reach out to you separately to set up a Zoom call. Our URL is https://five.co
Hi there, thanks for responding. Five looks like an interesting solution, though currently our team doesn't have Javascript skills. Can you tell me more about data grids? We're looking for ways users can submit tabular data, such as the cost and consumption of electricity across 12 months. We're also looking for ways to create new instances of the same form, such as a new form for each vehicle in the client's fleet, when we don't know the exact number. More information would be helpful.
Hi Sam, thanks for the response!
To build the application that you have in mind, you don't need to know any JavaScript. Most of it appears to be form and calculation-based, so you could build this with a basic understanding of SQL and point-and-click. The most important part is getting your database model right. Building out the forms, grids or charts is pretty simple after that. In fact, I'd like to think that if you managed to connect Stacker, Airtable, and PowerBI, Five will be a breeze 馃榿
A data grid gives you an editable, Excel-like interface to insert, update or check data. To see a data grid in action, check out this blog post: https://five.co/blog/free-microsoft-access-alternative/
There's a video right at the top. Go to 08:42min to see the data grid. Inside the data grid, you can filter, hide columns, pin columns, edit data, etc.
Regarding instances, Five lets you create multiple instances of the same application by simply replicating them in point-and-click.
