Be an Citizen Developer in Digital Transformation
Millennial generations are entering the workforces with high skills of digital technology, and they mainly work through web and mobile apps. On the other hand, older generations are also coming around to this line of transiting as well. It’s a phenomenon that the tech world is calling the rise of the “citizen developer.” The citizen developer is “the end user who creates new applications or programs from a corporate or collective code base, system or structure.” Such citizen developers cannot work in a vacuum, of course. They rely upon a new type of application platform that supports the ability for users to create, modify, and configure apps by themselves. There are numerous such platforms on the market today, for example OutSystems, Dropsource or Sheetsu, etc. Each of these platforms empowers citizen developers, as business needs evolve, citizen developers are now able to make continuous improvements to the applications themselves.
Bon Crowder — Professional Math Teacher Shifted to Full-stack Software Developer
No matter who you are or what you do, with low code supporting platforms, everything will be on your hand. Among many of our clients, there is a former Math teacher — Bon Crowder, she is also the creator of MathFour.com, a free website for teaching Math. She is now working in a software company as Chief of Staff & Developer at PoeticSystems. Crowder is the one who really enjoyed the challenges of electronic games, board games and logic games. All her experiences are provided to build strong base on knowledge of programming languages and structures. Math teacher and Software Developer seem to be not relevant somehow, but the new tools like cloud services and code abstraction platforms allow Crowder to perform perfectly in the both positions. She was the participant of Code Bootcamp, when she started using Sheetsu. Crowder was excited when applying Sheetsu to govern her web app because it’s super easy and convenient. Crowder used Sheetsu to implement her calculation from Google Spreadsheet to her web app for activating Oilfield calculation.
Crowder also shared with us that before she used Excel for her calculation but it was difficult to get API from Excel. Hence, Crowder transferred her data to Google Sheets and chose Sheetsu as a smart-tool to deploy her web app.
Crowder tweeted: “Sheetsu let me do calculations for a web app so much easier by using the power of spreadsheets!”
Microsoft Excel vs Google Sheets — Which works better for business?
Taking Bon Crowder’s case in the transforming from Excel to Google Spreadsheet. Let’s make a brief comparison.
The function of spreadsheets is to make organizations’ processes run smoothly with little effort from the user. Many businesses and organizations have relied more on Microsoft Excel as their go-to application than Google Spreadsheets. Though it’s not intuitive, it was, for a time, the best that the market offered. However, Google’s innovative Spreadsheet software gives companies an option when it comes to figuring out budgets, client contacts, and more. Switching to Google Sheets offers users access to entirely innovative software and features that you can’t find anywhere else.
There are collaboration options for the online version of Excel, but they are standard in Google Sheets. With Google, you can add collaborators, track live changes, reply to or add comments, and chat within the spreadsheet in real-time, which is not an option in Excel.
Google Sheet APIs — Advantages of cloud-based solution
Google Sheets is an online spreadsheet app that allows users to create and format spreadsheets and simultaneously work with other people. Google Sheets is not only for consumers, but it’s also used every day by businesses and schools to manage spreadsheet data.
The features that make Google Sheets so successful are available through the Sheets API. With the API, your code can access and update spreadsheets just like any other user. The API allows your apps to:
- Import, export and format Sheets data
- Control conditional formatting
- Build and edit charts embedded in a spreadsheet
- Configure data validation
- Create and update named and protected ranges
- Add and adjust filtered views
- Create and manipulate pivot tables
Citizen Development Movement in Digital World
The rationale is that a traditional computer science degree may be less valuable today than in the past and that new tools like cloud services and code abstraction platforms have allowed citizen developers to easily do more programming stuff, where they create applications without the specific coding skills. It is important to note that while citizen developers are building applications for business users, they are business users themselves, as above. Not every user becomes a citizen developer as a rule, but there’s no reason why they couldn’t rise their ability if the obvious opportunity presented itself. The proficiency of business users who code can be well worth the effort of supporting them. Sheetsu is presenting to support business users to be independent on managing and updating app content without the need for IT developers. In addition, it’s not only about the API. With Sheetsu you don’t have to be a technical expert to create IT solutions. Sheetsu here is to create an environment where creativity and innovation in the web space become more accessible to non-IT people as well as much easier for IT people. It’s beautiful in simplicity and if you value your time, it is a perfect time saver.
Drop us an email at team@sheetsu.com. We are happy to talk with you.
Happy Hacking ^^!
