Tips from the Iceberg

I haven’t actually used Iceberg yet but have been keeping an eye on it and staying apprised via their email list since ReadWriteWeb first published an overview last year. This week I noticed they announced a major launch and are now officially supporting all manner of free and paid user accounts.

So since my interest in Iceberg feeds into a more general interest in getting the various web platforms out there talking to one another, I asked Wayne Byrne over email for some details regarding interoperability and here are the points he shared:

1. You can export any view to excel
2. You can get any web app to send data into iceberg using web services
3. Iceberg can make calls out to any app that has an api (like google, amazon, basecamp etc)
4. Oh and since iceberg makes a regular sql server database people can integrate right into the database itself

Note that Iceberg has two “versions”, hosted and local, and I think point 4 above relates to the local Windows-only desktop version while the hosted version implements a flash-based interface for users.

With Icerberg’s ability to issue outbound requests to the web I can see some interesting possibilities for integration via the Zoho Creator API and perhaps even a possibility to use an off-line desktop application developed with Iceberg that could periodically synch with an online Zoho Creator application.

Once I get familiar with the flash interface and can actually develop something that works I’ll try to post a simple demo illustrating integration with ZC.

More Zoho Apps. Where’s the integration with Zoho Creator?

Today I saw the annoucement of Zoho Invoice , which prompted me to write this post.  As an owner of a small business, I am seriously considering Zoho as the productivity platform for my team. In my opinion, all of the Zoho apps are well designed, but before I start spending the time required to migrate my invoicing from Quickbooks Online, my contacts from Outlook, my Online Meetings from Gotomeeting, my conversations from Skype etc., I want to make sure I gain something from this effort.

Here’s what it would take for me to take the plunge.

1. Integrated data management. I need to be able to add  information once and use it in different contexts. Let’s take Contacts. Ideally, I would create a form in Zoho Creator (or copy an existing template) and that form would then be my template for adding Contacts for Customer Management (Zoho CRM), Invoicing (Zoho Invoice), Human Resources (Zoho People), etc.  In other words, I know what contact data is relevant to me and my team and I don’t have time to customize Contact forms in four different applications.
2. Document automation capabilities. I need a good way of packaging the data I have to share those with whom I interact.  Let’s take Service Agreements. Again, I would like to manage my data with Zoho Creator and have the ability to generate renewals as .pdf documents. Ideally, I would use Zoho Writer to create the document template, and assuming it had a (Mail) Merge feature, I could  generate these agreements automatically .
3. Data visualization tools.  I need an easy way to view my information as a calendar, a map, a timeline or a list, regardless, of its nature (sales, human resources, time management, etc.). Currently, I see that the Zoho apps mentioned above all have their own calendars, reports and graphs. Again, by having the data stored in Zoho Creator and tools for displaying the data, this too could be achieved.

I’m not talking about  Grand Unification Theory here. I am stressing the importance of having a unified repository of information that can be reused in different contexts and for multiple purposes and leveraging Zoho Creator as this repository seems to make sense.

Better Customer Retention with Zoho Creator and LetterMeLater

Jon Udell recently  wrote an interesting blog “Where can I subscribe to a running-shoe-replacement service ? “ which as I see it amounts to a simple way of fostering Customer Retention.

This is a business opportunity. If you’re a runner, spending $100 every six (or even three) months is infinitely preferable to injury. You’d think that shoe sellers would make it easy to do that, but they don’t. I’d happily authorize regular replacements, but nobody’s ever offered me that option.

His idea is applicable not only to athletic shoes, but to many other products and/or services that you just don’t keep track of and would gladly address when your provider sent you a friendly reminder. I can think of most of the house work I don’t do myself like termite treatment, gutter cleaning or air conditioning maintenance.

Jon writes again in Missing the cluetrain emphasizing the technology shortcomings of small businesses, so we decided to develop a solution to his problem (which I’ve captured with the cool online comic Pixton tool here) with Zoho Creator and LetterMeLater. 

If you want to try it, here’s the link:  Running Shoe Reminder . Be sure to sign up in LetterMeLater. This app will use the email you have associated with your Zoho Id to my gmail account to relay the message to LetterMeLater, which then forwards the message:

to the email you’ve specified in the form. It is currently set up to notify you 1 minute after you’ve entered the data, but surely you can envision this working at different intervals.

 This is the type of application we want to showcase in the Zoho Creator Depot.

Groundbreaking for the Zoho Creator Depot

With this, my first post,  I want to invite our readers to comment and vote on an idea we’ve been kicking around here - that of starting the  Zoho Creator Depot (ZCD).   As we currently envision it, ZCD would be a good destination if you’ve made up your mind about Zoho Creator as your platform of choice to deploy an application and you’re searching for tools, materials and advise or development help .

The ZCD would include:

• A gallery of production-quality ZC components and applications.

• Documented Case Studies and Success Stories.

• A list of ZC developers  and consultants, with their credentials and areas of expertise.

• A knowledge base of different topics that apply to ZC.

• Frameworks for developing or deploying mash-ups with Zoho Creator

• A simple way to purchase previously developed components, applications or development services.

As a client of ZCD services,  you could  resell the application or component and recover part of your original investment. If you sell it multiple times  you could conceivably make some money too. And if you’re a developer,  ZCD would be a way to connect with your potential clients.

I’m just borrowing ideas from brick-and-mortar places I find useful, like Home Depot, the Weaver Street Market and Play it Again Sports. If there is enough intest in this we’ll go ahead and build some ZC forms, get a Zoho Wiki started and see where this takes us.

Welcoming Gabriel

Those of you who visit this site directly might notice a new face in the sidebar. Although we have Lockworld to thank for some great posts about ZC and we were hoping to see more, Doug recently let it be known he was having difficulty finding time to post. Hence we invited a new face to LoZC and the face accepted — please welcome Gabriel Coch!

I’ll let Gabriel introduce himself through his own introductory post but I will point out that he’s one of those rare folk who combine technical acumen, business savvy, and a genuine desire to help people not only improve their daily lives through technology but also safeguard their communities.

In addition, Gabriel and I have been exploring over email and a couple phone conversations how we (we meaning us and YOU) can take ZC’s potential as a commercial business platform to “the next level”…though what that next level looks like is frankly unknown at this point. Part of Gabriel’s motivation for joining us, if I can presume to speak for him for just a moment, is to further this idea by harnessing a real ZC community.

I’m excited and hope you are too!

What’s Your Function?

I can’t say that this code actually returns an accurate value but I was impressed that I could just copy it out of an app I wrote back in July (an app that served as the subject of this blog’s first post, incidentally) and slam it into one of the new ZC function constructs to see it “just work” by returning the string value as one would expect.

The idea is to take whatever zoho.currenttime() is reporting and express it as UTC but I suspect the ZC team has since added features native to the platform that obviate the need for it:


string calculations.CalculateUTCTime()
{
// see http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=560486
grab_time=zoho.currenttime;
epoch_seconds=((grab_time.toLong() / 1000)).toLong();
days=(epoch_seconds / 86400);
days_int=(days.toString().getPrefix(".")).toLong();
day_fraction=(days - days_int);
secs_left_over=(day_fraction * 86400);
hrs=(secs_left_over / 3600);
hrs_int=(hrs.toString().getPrefix(".")).toLong();
hrs_fraction=(hrs - hrs_int);
hours=hrs_int;
secs_left_over=((hrs_fraction * 3600)).toLong();
mins=(secs_left_over / 60);
mins_int=(((mins)).toString().getPrefix(".")).toLong();
mins_fraction=(mins - mins_int);
minutes="";
if((((mins_int).toString()).length() < 2))
{
minutes="0" + (mins_int);
}
else
{
minutes=(mins_int).toString();
}
secs_left_over=((mins_fraction * 60)).toLong();
secs_int=secs_left_over.toLong();
seconds="";
if(((secs_int.toString()).length() < 2))
{
seconds="0" + secs_int;
}
else
{
seconds=secs_int.toString();
}
// see: http://www.jsifaq.com/SF/Tips/Tip.aspx?id=7323
a=(days_int + 2472632);
b=(4 * a + 3);
b=((b / 146097)).toLong();
c=(((0 - b) * 146097)).toLong();
c=((c / 4)).toLong();
c=(c + a);
d=(4 * c + 3);
d=((d / 1461)).toLong();
e=((0 - 1461) * d);
e=((e / 4)).toLong();
e=(e + c);
m=(5 * e + 2);
m=((m / 153)).toLong();
dd=(153 * m + 2);
dd=((dd / 5)).toLong();
day=(0 - dd + e + 1);
mm=(((0 - m) / 10)).toLong();
mm=(mm * 12);
month=(mm + m + 3);
year=((b * 100 + d - 4800 + m / 10)).toLong();
month_str="";
if((month == 1))
{
month_str="Jan";
}
else if((month == 2))
{
month_str="Feb";
}
else if((month == 3))
{
month_str="Mar";
}
else if((month == 4))
{
month_str="Apr";
}
else if((month == 5))
{
month_str="May";
}
else if((month == 6))
{
month_str="Jun";
}
else if((month == 7))
{
month_str="Jul";
}
else if((month == 8))
{
month_str="Aug";
}
else if((month == 9))
{
month_str="Sep";
}
else if((month == 10))
{
month_str="Oct";
}
else if((month == 11))
{
month_str="Nov";
}
else if((month == 12))
{
month_str="Dec";
}
ts=((day + "-" + month_str + "-" + year + " " + hours + ":" + minutes) + ":") + seconds;
return ts;
}


Fast Food, Rapid Prototyping

A recent post from Gabriel Coch at the InfoPatterns blog steps through the use of Zoho Creator in conjunction with Toucan Navigate to show “the concentration of Fast Food Places along the I-95 corridor“:

My main objective was to accomplish this without a single line of code (no html, no javascript, no nothing) and yet provide enough functionality to answer some basic questions, hence making this potentially useful in the business world.

Paid Zoho Creator Gigs?

We’re starting up a list of folks who want to advertise their Zoho Creator skills to potential clients. Just contact me and I’ll add your info to the the page.

Online Forms: Everybody’s Doing It

A post over at the Google Docs blog describes a new form creation feature, Stop sharing spreadsheets, start collecting information:

…in some cases, you want to collect just a tiny bit of information from dozens, scores, or even hundreds of users or more. Some of them are Google Docs users. Some of them are not. Either way, you don’t always want them all mucking around with the whole spreadsheet and you’re tired of telling those new to Google Docs that they don’t need to switch to Gmail just to use Docs (huh? you didn’t know that either?).

We’re really excited to bring you forms! Create a form in a Google Docs spreadsheet and send it out to anyone with an email address. They won’t need to sign in, and they can respond directly from the email message or from an automatically generated web page. Creating the form is easy: start with a spreadsheet to get the form, or start by creating the form and you’ll get the spreadsheet automatically.

Reading the entire post left me thinking of blist, DabbleDB, EditGrid, Smartsheet, Wufoo, and Zoho Creator. It must be at least a little disappointing for the smaller outfits in that list to see Google Docs generating similar technology in-house. Then again maybe this fact is just “validation of the model” as some like to say. Since Zoho Creator is really a project inside the much larger AdventNet I’m not sure its team would care much and in any case the unique thing that Zoho Creator brings to the table is that it has a GUI form builder but also an accompanying scripting language. Sites like EditGrid and Wufoo have great user interfaces, AppJet is doing great things with scripting on the web, but the hybrid approach might be entirely unique to Zoho Creator.

SSLick Feature Addition, Much Anticipated

After many desperate, impassioned complaints, I see on the ZC blog that there is now SSL Support in Zoho Creator.

Yep, more proof of Zoho’s remarkable commitment to and support of the customers.