Land of Zoho Creator

I have resurrected my first Zoho Creator prototype (Fast Food Tracker) in order to begin reviewing the new features available in ZC 3.0 and test the integration with Zoho DB and Reports, as described on the Zoho Blog. When I first looked at ZC a while ago, all I wanted to know was how long it would take me to build a few forms, import a file of sufficient size to test performance and determine if it made any sense to spend more  time with it. I’ve since realized how powerful and viable it is as a platform for small businesses (even though there’s still plenty of room for improvement).

Here’s what I’ve found in five minutes of tweaking the app:

• Many application layout options improve usability. The ability to select themes, distribution of panes and menus goes a long way toward making applications easier to use and end users benefit from this. I used the Menu layout and was happy with the results (i.e. how easy it is to change from the Entry form to the different views).
• HTML View will be pivotal in expanding Zoho Creator. I spent two minutes creating the graph view by following the steps in the Zoho Blog. This was enough to envision that it will be my preferred way to expand Zoho Creator to include other functionality I’m interested in, such as maps and graphs. I’ve created a long list of things to review further all related to this new view type.

All this is good, however (imo) the folks at Zoho should’ve spent the time and effort required to integrate their lastest graph and reporting engine with this version, because ZC’s current graph view leaves much to be desired and the integration with DB and Reports isn’t really a good workaround.

Here’s what I found from following the steps to integrate Creator with DB and Reports:

• I had to create a smaller view in order to make it work, hence the view on the Southeastern US. The main view has 20,000+ records (within the limits of what is feasible) but the file from which I imported the data is greater than 3 mb (the upper limit), so I couldn’t come up with a graph of the entire US.
• I was unable to change the colors of the bars in DB and Reports, even though there is an option to do so. The result is  a graph with the default colors instead of the ones I wanted.
• The integration between Creator and DB and Reports is painless, but the fact that I can integrate a graph into my app that shows different data (due to the refresh frequency) than what is recorded in the spreadsheet view of the same app is disturbing and surely wouldn’t pass the test of a good manager.

It does seem that they’re keen on addressing this issue as the quote suggests,

A much closer GUI level integration of making report creation features of Zoho DB & Reports available within Zoho Creator is in development.

We’ll keep looking into 3.0 and let you know what we find.