Knack Blog

Dynamic PDFs and Documents with WebMerge

When it comes to using your Knack database to generate formatted PDF, Word, and other documents, WebMerge is a great tool that we often recommend.

Although Knack lets you print any page in your interface to a PDF, sometimes you need more custom formatting or other document types.

WebMerge makes it easy to set up your documents and then use Zapier or our API to populate those documents with records from your Knack database.

The following is a guest post by Webmerge’s very own Jeremy Clarke on how to to do some custom integration with Knack and Webmerge.

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New Example App: Custom CRM

We are excited to share our latest addition to the Knack example app library, a Custom CRM app:

https://www.knack.com/templates/custom-crm

Customer Relationship Management has become a staple in sales driven business environments, providing sales reps and managers an all-in-one tool to manage a sales pipeline.

This app provides several key utilities that CRM users have come to expect for tracking customers within the pipeline:

• Lead Management – Contact info, LinkedIn profiles and ratings
• Proposal/Bid Management – Budgets, deliverables and deadlines
• Won Customers – Book revenue, track success and archive for future contact
• Notes and Tasks – add relevant notes and meetings/tasks to each contact
• Calendar – share all follow-up meetings, presentations and conferences with the team

Managing the Sales Pipeline

The key to the CRM app is categorizing each customer by their stage in the sales pipeline:

This enables sales reps to easily track each customer as they go through the pipeline from lead to proposal to customer. Each stage of the pipeline has the information and actions tailored to that stage so reps know exactly what tasks and updates each customer needs.

Sales Managers gain additional management tools with a pipeline dashboard and the ability to assign tasks to Sales Reps.

Why Now?

We initially thought that the glut of existing CRM options meant we should focus on other apps. But we’ve consistently seen great CRM apps built with Knack and it’s obvious there’s still demand for a simple, focused, custom CRM solution.

The timing also works with many recent Knack features that are perfect for a CRM:

• Robust calendars for managing tasks and meetings
• Scheduled tasks for sending reminders
• Form rules for automatically updating customers

The recent integration with Zapier is also perfect. Not only will you be able to collect leads via a Knack form on your website, you can integrate your app with several services, like sending new leads to an email list in MailChimp or adding new customers to Freshbooks or Xero.

Want your own custom CRM app? Get in touch and we’ll help set one up tailored to your exact business needs!

Connect your Knack database to hundreds of other services with Zapier

We’re pleased to announce that Knack is now integrated with Zapier – a website that makes it easy to connect different internet apps and services together to share data from service to service!

Zapier opens up powerful possibilities to extend and enhance your Knack app with other services like Gmail, WebMerge, MailChimp, Twilio, and many more.

Here are a few examples of how you can integrate Knack with other services on Zapier:

• Send a text message with Twilio when a Knack record is created
• Create a PDF with Webmerge by submitting a Knack form
• Insert a new record into Knack when a new row is added to a Google spreadsheet
• Add a new mailing list subscriber to MailChimp when a new contact record is created
• Insert a new record when a charge is made in Stripe or Paypal.

The beauty of Zapier is that since Knack is now available in their app library, you can connect Knack to ANY other service they have available. The possibilities are truly endless!

The following is our page on Zapier that describes in more detail how it works:

https://zapier.com/help/knack/

We’ll be outlining a few of our favorite services and “Zaps” in future blog posts. Keep us posted on any you’ve created so we can share them here!

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New Feature: Single Sign Ons

A common method for logging in is to use another service like Facebook or Google where you already have an account.

This is called Single Sign On, or SSO, and you can now add these options to your Knack logins.

This will allow your users to use these services to register and log in to your apps:

You can add these SSO links by editing a Login View and clicking on the “Options” section:

There are two options you can add:

Google: no configuration needed, the user will simply use any Google account they have.

Facebook: you’ll need to create a Facebook App and configure this option with the credentials that Facebook provides:

You set this up directly in Facebook. You’ll also need to enter the app URL where the login requests are coming from. Add this by clicking on App, Settings, and then adding a Platform for “Web”. You can then enter the URL.

Here’s an example of getting the Facebook credentials:

Once added you’ll have login links show up to the right of the login form (see above).

Notes:

• If the user already has an account they should still be able to use the SSO options, but only if the emails are the same. If their Google or Facebook email is different then a new account will be added.
• If you require users to fill out multiple fields to register for access, new users will be directed to the registration form after logging in with an SSO option.

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Pricing Changes

We’ll soon be raising our prices. It’s served us well over our first year, but we want our pricing to better reflect Knack’s increased value and ensure that our support remains amazing.

Good news — all of our early customers will be locked-in to the current pricing. This means the pricing will only increase if a new plan is selected.

If you’ve been considering upgrading or signing up, make sure you select your new plan now to lock in the current pricing.

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Feature Upgrade: Date Equations

We’ve upgraded our Equation field type to include date calculations.

Date calculations will allow you to create dynamic equations combining date fields, the current time, and your own time values.

Some common examples of date equations are:

• Calculating age by subtracting birth date from the current time
• Calculating expiration dates by adding days to a start date
• Calculating time spent by subtracting a start date from an end date

How does it work? When you add or edit an Equation field you can determine if it’s a numerical or date type:

Selecting Date will display any eligible date fields you can add to your equation. There’s also a special Current Time field you can use to represent the current time when the calculation is run.

You can control the Date Type. This will convert any numbers used in the equation into the selected date type. In the example below the 30 will add 30 days to the start date since days is selected as the type.

Date Equations are in beta so please let us know if you run into any issues.

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Knack for Designers

When we first launched Knack we weren’t exactly sure who our target audience would be. Knack is a flexible product that can be used by anyone to manage all sorts of online databases.

We had some guesses, but we deliberately kept our marketing neutral. We wanted to throw Knack out there and see what happened!

One use case we’ve enjoyed seeing develop is web designers and front-end coders who use Knack to integrate online databases with client websites and their own applications.

In many cases it’s a perfect fit, as designers are able to take advantage of many core Knack functions:

• Knack apps can be embedded seamlessly right into a website, so designers can add online databases directly to their client websites.
• Knack apps can be customized with CSS, so designers can control the look and feel of the app. We hear designers love this.
• Knack apps can be customized with jQuery, so designers can add features and do even more customization of the UI if needed.
• Designers can set up a special client user roles, so clients can view and update database records without affecting the look and feel of the app.
• Designers can use the API if they ever need to add special functionality.

The bottom line is Knack enables designers to build online databases and web apps for their clients and still focus on what they do best: the look and the feel.

We’ve created a special page for designers at:

https://knack.com/designers

Know any web designers? Send them to the link above, we’d love to know what they think about Knack!

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What can you build with Knack?

Claiming that Knack enables anyone to build their own web application and online database is a bit like magic. After all, your definition of a web app could be incredibly creative, or just much different than ours.

So we want to start listing examples of different web apps built by Knack. This should help present an idea of the type of apps that work well with Knack and may even provide some use cases very similar to what you’re looking for.

We’ll be listing apps in two main areas: a Demo Library with plenty of working examples you can play with; and a Current Apps tag here on this blog where we’ll describe actual apps built by Knack users.

Here’s a list of some current apps being used by our beta users:

• Talent Database – A talent agency is using Knack to manage all of their models and actors in an online database. The models can update their own information leading to more accurate and timely info, and using filters makes searching through thousands of models a breeze.
• Class Management – A dance studio is using Knack to manage all of their classes and students in a single web application. Parents can register for classes directly online and reports on classes and contacts can easily be generated.
• Inventory Management – A cattle ranch is managing all of the animal inventory online. Weights are frequently imported a reports can be generated to track all inventory counts.
• Customer Database – An IT consultant tracks their customers so they can easily pull up any server and computer info on a job, make notes, and generate invoices.

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What is Knack?

Knack is a web application platform that makes it easy for anyone to build widely distributed, highly customized, data-driven web applications.

Ok, that was way too technical, so let’s break down exactly what we mean by that.

Making it easy

Web applications and online databases can be hugely complicated. There’s a reason that most web apps are built by computer geeks (wait, that’s us!) with computer science degrees. You need to design the database, code the interface, host the data, and make sure this all works together. It’s not simple.

Making this easy is our primary vision. We are distilling this process into digestible steps, wrapping it all in natural language and a simple interface that anyone can understand.

Along with simplifying this, we want you to enjoy using Knack. We will not require you to learn a programming language and we will not allow you to get frustrated with a 10 step process.

Widely distributed

Today’s web apps need to do a lot of heavy lifting, both in how they are delivered and who they are intended for:

• Delivery: Apps need to work on multiple devices and have the flexibility to adapt to the advantages of each.
• Users: different users can access applications in different ways. Apps need to be able to respond to different intentions of each user group.

Knack enables you to distribute your web application across multiple platforms and use cases:

• You can publish different versions of your app to different websites. One version can be designed for web, and another simplified version for mobile.
• You can design different versions for different users. For example, an admin version for managing data on your intranet, while a mobile version might be for employees to quickly update project data.
• You can even set up user roles so each user must login and only has permission to see their own data.

Highly Customized

Today’s internet is offering more and more solutions for virtually every niche possible. And yet you will still struggle to find that perfect match for your exact requirements.

When you can build your own app you can match it to your exact specifications rather than trying to fit into someone else’s solution.

Knack was designed from the beginning to be highly customized:

• Data Flexibility: You can define your data from scratch to perfectly match your exact needs.
• Design Flexibility: Your apps can be embedded directly on your websites and blogs and adapt perfectly to the surrounding design. Designers can easily update each app with custom themes and styles.
• Customization: Developers can completely customize the application using an open API and JavaScript events.

Data Driven

Today’s web apps are largely driven by data. You need to be able to easily add data, manipulate it, share it, and understand it. It needs to play well with social media and other apps and APIs.

Data is front and center when building Knack apps. We make it simple for anyone to create online databases and build web applications based on that data.

And that’s just the start. We have an amazing road map in place to capiltalize on the future web where data is all-pervasive. Sign up to get started building your own web apps today.

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