Think fast
Thoughts and ideas on how to build tools, automate workflows and speed-up the workplace.
How to Build a Dashboard in 5 Steps
Knowing how to build a dashboard is one of the core competencies for most knowledge-based jobs. Dashboards are the difference between raw data and clear, actionable insights. Most of us can pull up a couple of pie charts based on a spreadsheet - or even use a visualization platform like Looker to create basic reports. But what happens when your business data doesn’t fit neatly into one of these tools?
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 28, 2023
On-Prem vs Cloud Hosting in 2024
On-prem vs cloud hosting is one of the most fundamental decisions for any IT team - both at the level of individual development projects and your wider IT ops. Getting this right will have an outsize impact on your profitability, performance, security, compliance, and much more. The trouble is - this is a widely misunderstood issue. At least, there are a lot of outdated or just downright wrong assumptions that pervade the conversation here.
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 28, 2023
Building a Business Rules Engine with Budibase
Business rules engines (BREs) do a huge amount of heavy lifting within the field of process automation. But, despite their outsized importance, they’re something you might not have paid much attention to before. Basically, any internal process can be expressed as a set of business rules. These make up the logic that decides what actions are taken by employees or automated systems at each point in a process or workflow.
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 21, 2023
Relational vs Non-Relational Databases | What's the Difference?
Getting your data model right is the first step in any successful development or transformation project. Today, we’re exploring everything you need to know about relational vs non-relational databases. This has become a tougher decision in the past decade or so. Until relatively recently, the relational model was pretty much the dominant way of storing data. Today, it’s still by far the most ubiquitous option - but other approaches have also entered the mainstream.
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 21, 2023
What is Finance Process Transformation?
Finance transformation is one of the most common classes of digital transformation. The reason for this is pretty straightforward. Your finance team is made up of skilled professionals. However, arguably more than any other department, they’re also massively overburdened with repetitive, menial, and largely avoidable administrative tasks. This - plus the need for a high degree of speed and accuracy - makes financial processes the ideal candidate for digital transformation.
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 17, 2023
What is Process Innovation?
Process innovation is all about coming up with new, better ways to carry out everyday internal tasks. Nowadays, this primarily means innovating with new technologies - although this is by no means the only option. Indeed, we’ll see today that we have levers to pull across our wider operations, company culture, governance, training, HR, finance, and more. But of course, technology will still almost inevitably play a role within each of these verticals.
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 17, 2023
Creating an Employee Management App | 6-Step Guide
Today, we’re going to run through how to build a relatively simple but no less powerful tool - an employee management app using Budibase. Your employees - along with their skills, knowledge, and expertise - are some of your most valuable assets. Therefore, making better use of their time is one of the easiest ways to create huge efficiency savings. And for that, we need proper oversight. Who is doing what - and when?
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 6, 2023
Webhook vs API | In-Depth Guide
APIs and webhooks are both central to the way modern web apps, automation solutions, and integrated software stacks are built. However, there are several important distinctions in their use cases, configuration, architecture, target personas, and limitations. Today, we’re diving deep into webhooks vs APIs. We’re going to cover everything you need to know about how each one work, what kinds of projects they’re suitable for, technical barriers, practical considerations, costs/benefits, and more.
Ronan McQuillan
Apr 6, 2023