Taking Squirrel to Big Data LDN
Earlier this year Squirrel365 exhibited at Big Data LDN (London) It’s the UK’s leading free-to-attend data & analytics conference and exhibition. We were there to show off Squirrel and InfoBurst and how, together, they make a great addition to your BI stack.
Along with the usual demos, it presented the perfect opportunity to show off an app created with Squirrel — a free lead capture app. The app allowed us to gather basic contact information from interested attendees quickly. Which led to some great discussions about the creation process.
The motives behind building this lead capture app were partly to save money but, more importantly, to show attendees what Squirrel is capable of.
Planning the lead capture app
We decided only first name, last name, and email address was essential. Once submitted this would be written to an external Google Sheet. Attendees should enter their information but must not see anyone else’s. Only those with the password should be able to access the list of leads. And clicking on the name should allow you to update information and add any notes if needed.
Finally, an analytics page would keep track of how many leads had been captured. Detailing what they were interested in (Squirrel, InfoBurst, or both) and their level of interest. This would help us identify “Hot Leads”.
Designing the App
Our UX/UI team designed the user flow and visuals for the lead capture app. Ensuring a consistent look and feel to the app and making sure it was easy to use. This involved considering the right components to display and capture information, navigation, themes and colours. With the UX and visual design done, all that remained was to build it.
Building the app
Using Squirrel’s intuitive interface, I was able to bring the application together quickly – matching the design specifications closely. The build itself took a couple of days to complete. When it came to wiring up the components to the spreadsheet there was a lot more that needed doing. The components had to insert the data into the correct place. I also had to check that the spreadsheet formulas were calculating correctly and that any functions I had in place – like the Data Mover – triggered correctly.
“It all came down to my knowledge of Excel formulas and the functionality of Squirrel’s components, and it just goes to show that anything is possible… when you know how!”
Challenges!
The biggest challenge, personally, was the creation of the “Password Protect” screen, which would secure two pages. This should appear when either the list or analytics sections are accessed. The difficult bit was getting it to stay hidden after the password was successfully entered. I wanted to prevent someone from having to enter the passcode again when switching between those two pages. After a bit of trial and error, I had it cracked! It all came down to my knowledge of Excel formulas and the functionality of Squirrel’s components, and it just goes to show that anything is possible… when you know how!
Subsequently, we created a demo version of the ‘secure’ area. Enabling us to show interested attendees how it would function without exposing real data.
Try it out
I am continually amazed at what you can create with Squirrel365.
Try out the free lead capture app below. Or sign up and have a go at building an app of your own.
