Ways that Knack’s User Login Features Keep Your App Secure

Data security is a priority at every stage of the business app development process. With Knack’s user login features, you can take your account protection strategies to even greater heights, thus providing a secure experience for admins and employees alike.

Understanding Usability with No Code

When it comes to User Experience (UX) design, it doesn’t matter how much experience you have, or what platform you’re using; it matters that you understand exactly what it is your users are looking for, what they need, and what appeals to them. You’re streamlining their experience through their design interaction.

Introducing Two-Factor Authentication for the Builder

We are excited to announce Two-Factor Authentication for the Builder!

Every day we are humbled that you choose Knack to manage your data and business processes. To honor that trust we are dedicated to security to ensure that your apps are protected and secure.

Knack + Zapier = A Match Made in Data Heaven

Better Together

Hunched over a laptop painstakingly entering records line by line into a database—we've all been there. When the data you need to run to your business is scattered across a number of different apps—email marketing platforms, CRMs, invoicing tools—getting that info into your database can feel like an uphill battle.

Zapier is an app automation tool that connects Knack to the other apps you use throughout your day. With Zapier, you build “Zaps”—simple automations that don't require any code—that move your data from one app to another automatically. Need to attach a paid invoice to an existing record? No sweat, there's a Zap for that. You can even move data out of your Knack database and share it elsewhere. For example, get a heads up via a Twilio SMS whenever a record is updated.

Need some inspiration to get started? Here's how three companies are automating their database workflows using Knack and Zapier.

Maintain accurate records

Rows and rows of detailed records are only helpful if they're easy to access. Business consulting company Intrabellus, Inc. deals with multiple Knack databases across many different clients. Their clients need to be able to dive into the details without disrupting the layout of the data.

Their simple solution? An automation between Knack and Google Drive.

“I use Zapier to create an extra copy of all Knack records,” says CEO Nichole Carpenter. “This gives my clients reassurance about accessing or moving their files with no extra work needed on my part.”

Grow client relationships

You can have the most powerful tools at your disposal, but they’re useless if your team isn't using them. The data in your CRM is only as helpful as it is current. And without up-to-date information on your prospects and customers, clients can fall through the cracks and relationships suffer.

Startup fundraising advisory Capital Pilot knows this frustration all too well and started looking for new ways to ease this pain.

“I’ve never worked in a place where people actually used the CRM properly,” explains co-founder and COO Matt Johnson. “Automating certain tasks through Zapier and adding reminders and triggers make it so people actually use the CRM.”

Before setting up this automation, Capital Pilot wasn't confident in the funding status of companies logged in their CRM. Was the data current or wildly out of date? A few missing zeros here and there could negatively impact a budding relationship.

Matt fixed this issue by setting up a Zap that updates their CRM of choice, Pipedrive, every time a new form is submitted in Knack. Updating a startup's information in the CRM automatically, rather than relying on the team to remember to log in themselves, improves efficiency and allows them to grow relationships effectively.

“I spend way less time doing data entry, or copying something from one app into another,” adds Matt. “Plus, with simple automations, we avoided spending time and money on software development at a time when we couldn't afford it.”

Make customers happier

It's easy to get tunnel vision on your most important tasks of the day. But letting little things slide can disappoint customers and impact repeat business. Before setting up a few handy automations, repair company PhoneAxiom Express Device Repair found it difficult to keep up with customer notifications.

“In the rush of business, you sometimes forget the basics,” says owner Mark Pauley. “We haven't always been so great at calling customers to notify them that their device is ready for pickup.”

Now, Mark relies on Knack and Zapier to automatically send alerts to customers and has since seen a boost in the quality of his company's customer service. He uses a Knack database to track service requests, including details like the type of phone needing repair, the cost of repair, and payment info. Whenever a device's status changes to “ready for pick up” in Knack, a Zap automatically texts the customer via the messaging app, DialMyCalls. The result? Happier customers and no more forgotten messages.

Setting up your Zapier integration

To use Knack with Zapier, you’ll first need to connect your Knack account. You’ll get a pop-up prompting you to sign in to your Knack account. This lets Zapier link your Knack account to the other apps you choose.

Now you'll see your Knack account connected to Zapier.

That’s it! You’re connected and ready to create some Zaps! Get started with one of the pre-built Zap templates for our most popular automations, or build your own workflow from scratch using the “Make a Zap” button.

Your Turn

Want to try out a few automations for yourself? Here are a few ideas to get started, or let us know your own favorite Zaps!

-Kim at Zapier

Click here for a full list of what's possible when you combine Knack and Zapier!

Feature Highlight: Dependent Dropdowns on Forms

When capturing data using forms, it’s frustrating when users input incorrect information. In Knack, there are features available in forms to help prevent erroneous data from being captured. One of these is the Show option for fields on a form.

Let’s say you have a form for adding new Projects. On that form, you have two connection fields: Department and Employee.

You want the list of employees shown on the Employee connection field to be limited to only the employees that are a part of the selected Department.

The Show option will prevent the Employee field from showing employees in the Sales or Operations departments when the Marketing department is selected.

How to Create Dependent Dropdowns on a Form

Here’s how you can set this up in your own forms using connections and the Show option.

1. In the Data section of the builder, you’ll need three objects setup:

• Departments
• Employees
• Projects

2. Next, you’ll need to have the following connections setup between the objects:

• Many Employees connect to one Department.
• Each Project connects to one Department.
• Each Project connects to one Employee.

Note: The Show filter only works with “one-to-many” or “one-to-one” connections.

In this case, Department and Employee will be the connection fields on the form, and they have a one-to-many relationship with the Project object.

3. In the Pages section of the builder, select a page with the Add Project form or create a new Add Project form.

4. Click on the Add Project form on its page to open the editor.

5. Add inputs for both the Department and Employee connection fields:

6. Hover over the Employee input field and click the edit “pencil” icon:

7. On the edit input window, you’ll see the Show option and can select to show only Employees connected to this form’s Department:

You’re done!

Feature Highlight: Inline Editing

Inline editing allows users to edit fields directly from a table, without using a form. So instead of jumping between edit forms to update different records, all changes can be made from the same page.

For example, admins of this business directory app can quickly make updates to businesses by clicking on any field on the table they want to edit:

You’ll see that fields that are editable with inline editing will be highlighted. When clicked, a small pop-up window will show up so an update can be made.

Note: Changes made through inline editing won’t trigger record rules or emails. Those are only triggered by updates submitted through a form.

How to Add Inline Editing to a Table

Now that you’ve seen how inline editing works, here are the steps for adding it to your tables.

1. In the Pages section of the builder, select the page that holds the table you want to add inline editing to.

2. Click on the table on that page to open the editor.

3. Go to the Options section and select the box next to “Inline Editing”:

Note: When inline editing is enabled, it will affect any editable fields. However, if there are fields where you don’t want to allow inline editing, you can specify that.

For example, in the table below, all fields have inline editing enabled. But we don’t want the Business ID field to have inline editing enabled.

To remove inline editing from that field, we’ll go to the Columns section of the editor. We’ll hover over the Business ID column and click the edit “pencil” icon:

Then we’ll set the “Allow Inline Editing” property to No:

That process can be repeated for any fields that shouldn’t have inline editing enabled.

All the Math Functions!

When we first launched our equation editor we were pretty excited: the ability to use field values in mathematical (and date-driven) equations opened up exciting functionality.

We considered adding more advanced equations like rounding or exponents, but decided to keep it easy with basic arithmetic. We figured our users would appreciate the simplicity and how well it worked.

Boy were we wrong.

We immediately started seeing demands for all sorts of functions (is a hyperbolic tangent function really needed? yes, yes it is).

Many of these opened up major features like mortgage amortization and equipment depreciation. It quickly became a no-brainer decision: we had to completely redesign our equation editor.

We recently released this upgraded equation editor, complete with a whole new library of functions:

A major change is simply how it works. Instead of a largely point and click approach we’ve opted for a typing-based approach:

• As you type a dropdown menu of fields and functions becomes available to autocomplete.
• Each field or function in the menu provides some additional contextual info about how to use it.
• As you construct your equation you’ll get instant feedback on how it works and whether it’s valid above the editor.

New functions

We included a whole slew of mathematical functions that are now available to integrate with your equations.

Some highlights include:

• ceil – Round a value up to the nearest integer. Example: ceil(4.2) = 5
• factorial – Compute the factorial of a number. Example: factorial(5) = 120
• max – Get the maximum of a list of values. Example: max(1,6,9) = 9
• mean – Compute the mean of a list of values. Example: mean(1,6,8) = 5
• median – Compute the median of a list of values. Example: median(8,9,1) = 8
• min – Get the minimum of a list of values. Example: min(42, 100, 3) = 3
• pow – Calculate the base to the exponent power. Example: pow(7,2) = 49
• randomInt – Get a random integer between two values. Example: random(1,42) = 36
• std – Compute the standard deviation of a list of values. Example: std(1,5,42,78) = 36.07861785970558
• sqrt – Calculate the square root of a number. Example: sqrt(81) = 9

Conditional Equations

You could always use conditional rules to include logic with field values an equation uses, or to choose from multiple equations.

You can now include logic right in the equation to create conditional equations.

It’s called a ternary operator and works like this: (condition ? equation_1 : equation_2)

This means if your condition is true, Knack will use the equation followed by the ? symbol. If your condition is false, Knack will use the second equation followed by the : symbol.

Moving and Copying

One benefit of having a passionate user base is that they don’t hesitate to let you know how you can improve your product.

A major refrain over the years have been variations on the need to copy and move different things:

• “Can I copy this form I just built to another page? I don’t want to create it again.”
• “I created a calendar but put it on the wrong page, can I move it?”
• “How can I copy the fields from this object into another object”.

We listened! We’ve now incorporated move and copy functions for objects and fields in the database and pages and views in the interface.

Copy and Move Views

You can now drag any view in your interface to move and copy it to another page.

Simply drag it into the page from the left menu:

You can only copy a view to an eligible page: for child pages this means the page knows about the same object as the view you’re copying. For example, you can only copy an employee details view to another page that is displaying a specific employee record.

Once you drop it over a page you can confirm if you want to move or copy that view.

If you copy a view that links to child pages those pages will also be copied. For example, copying a menu linking to a new page or a table linking to a details page.

You can also copy views using the settings link in the top right when you are editing a specific view:

Copy Pages

You can copy top level pages from the right menu:

This will create a new copy of that entire section: the top level page and any child pages.

If you need to copy specific child pages then you can copy the view that links to those page (see above).

Copy Objects and Fields

You can copy objects and fields using the link in the right column:

You can choose to copy to an existing object or create a new object, and then choose which fields to copy:

Currently only fields will be copied. Future upgrades will include the ability to copy your records as well.

We’re constantly working on improving the builder experience and we hope these changes will make it easier and faster to work with your application. As always, let us know what else we should be working on!

New Feature: Advanced SSO

We’ve released new features for advanced Single Sign-Ons, or SSO.

Our basic SSO options have been a big success – these allow users to log into Knack apps using other common accounts they already have with Google, Twitter, and Facebook:

We’ve added additional advanced SSO options so you can create additional login options.

Here’s how it works: there are two common login technologies (oAuth and SAML) used for authenticating logins. You can add any custom login that uses one of these two.

For example, you could add logins using SalesForce or LinkedIn with oAuth. SAML enables more enterprise configurations like Shibboleth and Active Directory.

Adding a custom login

To add a custom login you can use the “add a custom SSO provider” link in the Login view’s “Options” tab:

You’ll be guided through configuring the login with the right options. There’s a lot of options to configure so you may need a developer to help get them all correct.

You can also customize the login button with a color and logo. Here’s a customized LinkedIn login button:

Domain Limiting

In addition to adding new login options, both the Google and OpenID SSO providers have an option to enforce domain restrictions. This means that you can provide a domain to restrict authorization to. Only accounts with emails from that domain will be authorized.

For example, by entering “knack.com” with a Google SSO, only Google accounts with an email address using knack.com will be authorized.

Learning more

You can find the full details in our support article on logins:

http://helpdesk.knackhq.com/support/solutions/articles/5000443954-logins-registrations#sso-advanced

We also added a recipe to our cookbook for adding a LinkedIn login:

http://helpdesk.knackhq.com/support/solutions/articles/5000637997-use-a-3rd-party-login-like-linkedin-or-salesforce

Pricing Note: these advanced features are available on Corporate plans and above, or with an add-on to the Pro plan.

Building online quizzes with Knack

With our recent form upgrades it’s now possible to create multi-step processes using forms and other views.

With each form you can redirect to a child page that works with the same record. You can continue to create a path to work with the same record using as many forms or other views as you need.

This is perfect for quiz apps where you can ask a single question on one form and then redirect to a child page to show whether the answer was correct or not.

A menu can then link to question 2. You can cycle like this through all of your questions until you eventually hit a “results” page to show a final score.

We built an example quiz to show you how it can work.

https://knackapps.knack.com/quiz

We also added a walk-through with some animated GIFs of how we built it:

http://helpdesk.knackhq.com/support/solutions/articles/5000567220-how-to-build-a-quiz-app

Knack now makes it easy to build simple quizzes like this. Throw in all the extra features Knack provides and you can start to build some very complex multi-step processes.