Build a Custom Inventory Management App in Knack

Hey there, my name is Dimitri from Knack and in today’s video we’re gonna dive into our comprehensive guide on using Knack for inventory management. Whether you’re a small business owner, an operations manager, or just someone looking to streamline your inventory processes, this tutorial is crafted with you in mind. We’ll be diving into how Knack’s user-friendly, no-code platform can revolutionize the way you handle inventory, making it more efficient, scalable, and adaptable to your unique business needs. Imagine a world where managing your inventory is not just easy, but also intuitive and tailored toward your specific requirements.

Exploring the Knack Interface

That’s what Knack offers, and we’re here to show you how to make the most of it. So let’s get started and dive into the world of efficient and streamlined inventory management with Knack. Before diving into the details, let’s get a feel for the Knack interface. It’s designed to be intuitive even for those who haven’t used similar software before.

So it’s really important to choose a tool that has strong portal capabilities when you require collaboration with external stakeholders such as vendors, suppliers, and customers. Knack really does provide scalability, allowing the application to grow alongside the business. And this comes to fruition whether it’s managing and expanding a product catalog or increasing user accounts to support the long-term growth of the inventory management system. This is better than a lot of our competitors because when it comes to Knack, we don’t charge per user—but our competitors usually do.

Real-Time Visibility for External Stakeholders

And that can be an effective model for internal-focused inventory management applications. But if your use case is focused on offering real-time visibility to external stakeholders, Knack is the solution for you because the pricing model is based on records and data. So you can extend your inventory management solutions to as many stakeholders as needed. Regardless of how often they need to log in, they will get access as you grow your business.

An inventory portal can also improve customer satisfaction and reduce inquiries by providing more self-service options. Knack provides the same robust internal capabilities, allowing internal users a unified view of inventory across the organization, plus the ability to update and iterate the workflows without coding. Perfect for operations managers in construction, field services, healthcare, retail, food and beverage, manufacturing, and more.

User Roles and Permissions Overview

This is a great representation of how to utilize Knack as an inventory manager. As you can see right here in this User Roles section, if I click on Enable Users, I can add different user roles like Managers, Admins, and Employees. So say, for example, I wanted to share this with someone—then go to Vendor, Supplier, and Customer for a few different roles that could exist. And from there, I’m gonna add and enable users, and you’ll see they’ll be reflected on the left side over here, and their settings can be adjusted by clicking on settings right there.

Adding User Roles and Customer Management

You can actually add as many user roles as you’d like without having to upgrade to more expensive plans that have higher user thresholds. If we go to records and go to the records here, and then if you see inside of one of these, I could actually add a customer, for example, as a user role. So I’m just gonna use my own information and pretend I was a customer.

You can put their password and confirm it. And then this is the user status—so you can set it to Active, Inactive, or Pending Approval. And you’ll see right here that the roles are essentially multi-selectable, and it’s set to the one that I was inside of. Obviously, I was that customer.

If I wanted to, I could send an email intro as well. But I’m gonna press Submit here. And you’ll see that I’m within this template now as a customer. So this is something that you could send out to a myriad of different people—just continuously add the records of customers, and then if you allow them to see it in the live app, this is exactly how you can see how this ends up being pretty effective for people trying to showcase the inventory to customers and individual stakeholders at scale without needing to add them to your plan.

Custom Data Models for Inventory Management

Knack really is a powerful database and front end all-in-one system needed for more inventory management use cases at every level of complexity. Knack has the ability to easily create custom data models to represent various aspects of inventory such as products, suppliers, and stock levels. You can even see this on the left in this template. So we have Products, and then Purchases, and then Orders.

So this essentially allows us to see what products we have, what purchases have been made regarding those products. As you can see right here, this field is connected to the product. And then on the order side, this also is connected to the product.

Understanding Inventory Tracking and Reporting

So we can essentially, on the product side, then have fields that really give you a great view of everything going on. You’ll see that there is a formula right here—if I go down to the dropdown. This is a field that sums up the purchase product number received, and that essentially means that we’re getting all of the different inventory received. And then there’s another one that essentially grabs the orders and the amount shipped.

If you see how this works, the first part of the name is the name of the field, and then the product is what it’s referencing. So basically what this field is doing is it’s summing up the purchase number received. So if we go here, you’ll see that this number received field is essentially going along with the product it’s relating to and then summing it up in this field—as well as here, with the order and the number of shipped products.

Calculating Inventory on Hand

So we’re getting a look at that rolled-up information here as well. So it’s all coinciding together, making it a very well-connected data structure. From here, I’m able to take a look at the Cisco routers and see—okay, we’ve received 40 of them, we’ve shipped out 30 of them, and we have 55 of inventory on hand. Now this stands for equation.

As I mentioned previously, this stands for sum, and this equation essentially is taking the starting inventory plus the inventory received minus the inventory shipped. So it’s grabbing the summed-up data, referencing the starting inventory, and giving us a very good overview look as to what our inventory on hand is. Now the minimum required ends up being that reference point regarding what we really need to have on hand in order for us to be at the right amount where we’re in a good position.

So you’ll notice right here that when we take a look at the needs reorder field here, this has some really cool conditional rules—where if the inventory on hand is lower than that minimum requirement, we set it to Yes.

Conditional Logic for Inventory Reordering

And then if that’s not the case, set it to No. So you’ll notice that we need to reorder because the inventory on hand right here is at 7. Once again, it’s a formula based off of the different data that we have from all the purchases and orders. And since the minimum required is 10 and we only have 7 on hand, it ends up telling us that we need to reorder.

This is very, very useful for giving us an overview of how products are keeping up as this is all about managing your inventory. Now this ends up becoming really effective because this kind of need reorder conditional logic can be useful when connecting to other products.

Integration Capabilities with Third-Party Tools

If the application needs seamless integration with other APIs or third-party services, imagine how “Needs Reordering” could be useful to inform people using those tools or APIs. Knack really does provide integration capabilities to tools like barcode scanners through the API and services like Zapier and Make.com. There are also built-in automated email or SMS notifications that can help stakeholders get real-time updates on order status or changes in inventory levels. You could easily see an opportunity where, if it says “Yes,” we need to restock.

User Permissions and Security Features

We also have to acknowledge the fact that there are very robust user permissions and access control features. This really ensures that only authorized personnel can make changes to critical inventory data, enhancing the security and compliance.

Inside of user roles, you’re able to change access overall from the account side. When it comes to all of these different user roles, you’ll see that they have a couple of sections at the top. And you’ll notice if I press the three dots here, we can go into validation rules or conditional rules. This can be set at any of the different user levels.

As you’ll notice, if I make any change here and were to just add an example—user role contains “Supplier”—you can see that I can put “Cannot Save” and press Update Field. And then notice how it only affects this specific user role. Getting deep into that would take a lot more time, so we’d have to do that in another video. But it’s very important to let you know that this is a product that has field-level user permissions, which is very important.

Knack’s Competitive Advantage

Now you may be asking, how is this an improvement from competitors? Knack really is an easy-to-use tool but has much more powerful online database capabilities. As your use case becomes more complex and requires more business logic, automation, or integration capabilities over time, it’s gonna have the backbone you need to make that an effective system.

In the settings, if you go to the API and Code section, you’ll notice that this is where we house our API keys. And if you want to learn more about the Knack API, we have an entire documentation and help docs section with guides right there.

Customization and Flexibility of Knack

Knack really is renowned for its high degree of customization. Users can tailor the inventory management application to fit their unique workflows, data structures, and business processes. This flexibility ensures that the tool aligns precisely with the specific needs of the business, accommodating diverse inventory management requirements.

User-Friendly Interface and Live App Features

You can see while this set of tables is a nice base, the ability to reference all of the different fields across these tables—and then even when going into the live app having such a user-friendly interface on both the back end and front end—you can see where this gets pretty cool. Just taking a look at this live app, I have the ability to filter and see the entries that need to be reordered.

Editing and Managing Inventory Data

So overall, I know that this needs to get reordered. If I press View Product, it gives me more of a breakdown as to the incoming purchases and outgoing orders. It allows me to edit the product if I have access and interact with all that back-end data in a very easy format. Like if I press Add Purchase here, I can put the number received, and then the date will accommodate there. So if I got 5 received, the form is successfully submitted, and I can always reload the form to adjust that.

Creating and Customizing Forms

So you can see right here, now it pops up inside of this and adjusts the data in the back end. Obviously, we can go through and take a look at the incoming purchases and outgoing orders, and you’ll notice that all of these essentially have a form that we could submit.

While this system also does have a really nice reports page, I just want to call out the fact that you can really build out some great forms here. So I’m on the Pages section, and if I go to Current Inventory, you’ll notice there’s this little Add Product section right here.

Security Features in Form Management

And as you can see, when we talked about the high level of security, if I wanted to I could put Require Login and that would prevent this from being seen. However, for all intents and purposes, what I have here is a view of a form. Right? So this is something that you can very much build out.

These different views are exactly what allow you to have cool things like reports here. This is essentially a report page, and we can get into that in more detail in other videos. But right here, I just want to talk to you about how this Add Product form was created. So I’m gonna make this from scratch.

Form Configuration and Data Submission

I’m gonna press Add View and press Form again. So you can use the left menu to configure the new form. I’m gonna make the exact same one right here. So what record will this submit? When we’re talking about adding a product, it’d be Product.

From here, you can see that it essentially allows you to create a form that coincides with the input-able data that exists in your database. So obviously this is using the live data and pulling in those fields. That’s why it matches up. If I grab something like Purchases, for example, you’ll see it asks what you want to do.

Do you want to grab the Supplier? The Product? Once again, Product is referencing another table, so that’s why it has a select option. And it has the Number Received and the Date. These are all essentially forms that allow you to create new entities in that data. Same thing goes for Orders.

User Role Management and Data Alignment

This works the exact same way for the Accounts as well, as in the accounts to the system and the different user roles—like this is the Vendor—and then you can go through all of these. It requires you to fill out all the information, which is important because it ensures all the data ends up aligning with what fields need to be filled out. Once I press Add Form, it adds this to the page.

Editing Forms and User Experience

This is editable from here. If I don’t want any of it filled out, I can remove it. I can even grab this and adjust it—delete the Vendor one—and then just, for example, make this Product form again with fewer fields.

I like the fact that it by default has one. I’ve never been a fan of products that don’t initially show it to you, so I think that’s really cool. Let’s do Product. Then from here, by pressing Add Form, I could then adjust it.

Obviously, I can change the name—like Add a Product here. Something else that’s really cool is that this template has the ability to integrate with different e-commerce platforms. So I can grab a Product field that, maybe if it had the price, would work with it. At the moment, I don’t have a field that would make sense, but you can add a processor like Stripe or PayPal to make this work.

Form Customization and User Instructions

You’d essentially put in your secret key, add that payment processor, and it would work from there. But upon editing this, you can see that I can add a description to this form.

“This is where you can input a new product entry’s data.”

The other options for form edits are that you can—besides just changing the text—you also can add inputs. You’ll see here we have Fields and Static. So if I wanted to, I can put little dividers between these to make it a little easier.

And any of these fields can be changed from an aesthetic standpoint too. So let’s put Product Name. If I don’t want it to just say “Name,” I can change that. Part Number is one that’s right there. That is obviously required for Product Name; the rest aren’t as much.

Inventory on Hand—that’s an equation. If you don’t want that to be there, you absolutely don’t need it. So I can press Delete. If I want to add more title or copy, I can put that in there with Title, and then a little subcopy.

If I have no copy there, it adds a little space, which is nice. I’m gonna delete that, but that’s an option. You can also add instructions.

“This is where you input the starting inventory of this product.”

And then here: “This is the minimum required prior to needing to reorder.” From there, I can save the changes. I don’t want both of these forms, so I’ll remove one.

And now that that’s deleted, I’ve essentially gone through the process of updating and making a form. If we go to our live app by clicking on this, I can view the page destination. You’ll see I have the couple updates made—like this divider, the instruction text—and I can go back to my Current Inventory and we’re good to go.

Case Study: CureTech’s Success with Knack

CureTech is a startup in the healthcare industry that successfully addressed its inventory management challenges with Knack’s no-code platform. Facing obstacles due to COVID-19, CureTech chose Knack over industry standard platforms for its flexibility and because it offers HIPAA compliance.

JD Worley, CureTech’s CEO, emphasized Knack’s instrumental role in running every aspect of the company. The platform enabled the creation of a customized app despite limited programming experience. This no-code platform that we just walked through really allowed them to make great adjustments, improve their workflows, and leverage Knack’s automation capabilities within one large instance with interconnected modules. CureTech streamlined many processes, reduced the risk of error, and minimized the need for administrative resources.

Automation and Efficiency Gains

Automation tasks included email communication, PDF generation, and data delivery based on predefined roles. If you want to learn more about CureTech’s experience, we definitely recommend checking out the case study on our website.

Overall, this resulted in substantial savings and required minimal administrative staff. Real-time insights and just-in-time inventory management supported CureTech in efficiently monitoring inventory needs, fulfilling orders promptly, and optimizing cash flow. Like I said, check out the full article on our website for the entire case study.

Conclusion and Call to Action

After going through all of this, I’m curious: what are the different ways you’re going to utilize the Inventory Management Template? I recommend checking it out via the link below so you can start managing your inventory with ease using Knack.

Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.