This is the end. The end of Coghead.

The time has come. Today Coghead closed its doors for everybody who worked within the platform. Must say this case has taught us some lessons. In different ways.

It was definitely not that easy for users to get through all this mess while migrating their applications and choosing among various offers of different vendors.

It really makes me wonder which of all services out there were the most effective helping former Coghead users, what were the difficulties of migration process and how all things got actually solved. I think shared experience will show a bit what really systems are capable of. The time is right to find out who really helped Coghead users to go through all this with sufficient care and attention.

What is your system key feature?

To the outward eye it seems that all web-based systems out there are the same with just a couple of differences. But I’d say the situation is quite the opposite. Each product has its peculiar key benefit that makes the service a stand-alone solution in this exact area.

The thing is its really difficult for the potential user to define this core feature at once.

And, unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases business users try out the system at random, hoping to finally get needed functionality.

I think "guessing" is definitely not the way here in all respects. This is exactly why I came up with an idea to ask vendors to name the key feature of the product that differentiates the system from the rest of competitors. There are many good things any service can do, but I really wanted them to name the ONE.

So, check out what each of them is especially proud of:

Vendor	Key Feature
Caspio Bridge	"Embedded deployment – Caspio-powered apps are all meant for deployment on customers’ websites, both internal and external facing sites." Frank Zamani
Zoho Creator	"Data Manipulation - Ability to create custom workflows using Deluge Script." Raffic Aslam
QuickBase	"One of the five core functions of QuickBase is its Role functionality. You can create as many roles as you like and make them as unique and customizable as you like." Kirk Trachy
LongJump	"The most unique aspect of LongJump is the ability to build applications in one platform instance and package them to another instance. This gives businesses the flexibility to run on our PaaS or internally on theirs." Janhavi Wagle
TeamDesk	"Advanced calculations with no need to use programming. While formula language handles most of the cases, you can also perform calculations over the set of related records and use it in further computations." Kirill Bondar
DabbleDB	"If I had to give one distinguishing *quality* of dabbledb over other systems I would say it's our attention to details." Andrew Catton

As long as vendors have named these features themselves, I think that could be a crucial factor while choosing the service to stick with.

WorkXpress twists and turns of editing one record simultaneously

I really like to test the capability (or incapability) of the system to edit records simultaneously.

It’s always fascinating to find the developers took a good care of users in this respect. Just picture the situation when from time to time your data get into a mess the moment somebody decides to edit it right away it occurs to you.

How is this issue handled in WorkXpress? Let’s check it through a standard test when one and the same record is opened in 2 browsers.

So, let’s open the record in IE and change Last and Hiredate Columns:

And open the record in Firefrox and change Last and First Columns:


And save the record in IE first:


Do the same in Firefox:


What we’ve got here? First thing: the system doesn’t really care about simultaneous editing. It means there is no warning you corrupt somebody’s data.

But the good news is the system tracks only fields the user modifies and doesn't overwrite them.. One can see on the screenshots hire date is not overwritten.

And one more thing: you can add audit for field modification.


It’s time to edit Last field in 2 different browsers and check out how the system acts.


This is the report about modifications in the Last column:



Conclusion:

WorkXpress doesn’t support simultaneous record editing so the user could know he overwrites somebody’s data. But field track history really helps here. At least you can always find the person who corrupted yours. Better than nothing.

What if use Zoho Creator globally?

If you have no experience with Zoho Creator yet, but you’re thinking about it and plan to check the system, make sure there is no problem using it in your locale. The most powerful services are used globally and can satisfy local requirements with no problem as well. So, let’s try out Zoho Creator now.

Zoho Creator time/data format and time zone settings are valid for the whole app:


It means all app users will see all time/date data in one format, transferred into the time zone you’ve set.

One can see Zoho Creator has no problem with data input in different languages:


For Currency the system allows to select Currency Type:


It was a bit of a puzzle for me how it‘s used within the system, for it is displayed only while editing the record.


At least I didn’t manage to find where esle this feature is used.

Conclusions:

Zoho Creator application can be used worldwide with no problem. But you should take into account it’s necessary to administratively select one common data format and time zone for all app users.

TeamDesk is going worldwide

It goes without saying how important it is to quickly share the data all over the world as globalization requires. Tools that can be applied where you need it are invaluable for the business.

Only really versatile systems are capable of serving globally. I am really wondering how many vendors out there can satisfy this need. Blist didn’t manage to handle this, let’s see what TeamDesk can do.

So, TeamDesk formats date, time and numbers depending on "Language and Locale" property of the user working with the system:

All timestamps are also converted to each user Time Zone and displayed corresponding to your local time.

This is the example of the record for English (US) locale and Central Time:


As you can see the system has no problem with data input in different languages.

To make sure it’s really so I've changed my locale to Japanese locale and time zone to Tokyo:


You also have an opportunity to set units for currency and their position:


Decimal separator and digit grouping characters are defined by user locale. Data and time format are set by user locale so you can only control general options:

But not everything is that perfect. For example, the use of "Text – Multiline" column with "Data Entry" option set in "Append Only" or "Prepend Only" mode can mislead you regarding comments sequence in case your users are in different time zones:


You can also have some questions while converting date, time or numeric into text using formula expressions:


As you see the system uses neutral language format for such convertions.

Conclusions:

Well done. I’d say TeamDesk is ready for global use. Your global team will appreciate the possibility to look at app common data from their specific time zone and locale. But I think you’ve noticed everything is not that prefect here as well, at least you are aware of possible problems you may come across.

Get ready to import large volumes into WorkXpress

As I promised we get down to WorkXpress testing in order to figure out how it handles large data volume.

Usually this is my first test of any new system and it doesn’t take much time and energy. Everything I do is just file import of 20 000 records to check out what happens. It used to be so till now. And you’d better get ready to take a look at the longest post on this.

I create a new app to kick off:


An unpleasant surprise expected me at the very beginning of testing, despite the fact WorkXpress Project Management Portal was working pretty well over secure connection, my specific app showed Certificate Error:


This is how my just created app looks:


As WorkXpress can’t create tables or columns during import, you have to create everything by yourself first, and after this import the data. So, let’s create a new table for data importing, in WorkXpress it’s called Item:


WorkXpress peculiarity lies in its "contextuality" regarding everything. It means in order to create or change something you navigate to it as if you were the user of the application. So the easiest way to add a field in the table is through adding records screen and then drag & drop necessary field:


Get ready to drag & drop pretty often, and I can promise you that moving "Create Blocks" toolbar elsewhere will be your favorite thing to do.

This is the look of the form for adding as all fields are created:


Now we are ready to import data using "Import Items" link form Tools section of "Create Blocks" toolbar.

The first step to import data is to select and download CSV file. As we can see WorkXpress correctly recognized all data:


Unfortunately, that’s it. After this I couldn’t do a thing through Internet Explorer. As I’ve selected the table the system didn’t allow me to map the fields:


So, I’ve switched to Firefox and tried to import the data. By the way, Firefox had no problem with the certificate as well.


As I’ve created new records for each row I could proceed to field mapping:


Each field should be mapped separately. This is how the mapping interface looks:


I also had problems while mapping Address field, in my file Street, City, Zip, House there were separate fields and I didn’t manage to find a simple way to import it in one field Address. Probably before importing one should prepare data in advance.

At any rate after Field Map we are ready for importing data so let’s begin.
In WorkXpress import of 20 000 records lasted for 30 minutes:


While importing the system keeps on showing the progress, so the user is always aware of the stage of this process.

We are ready to check out results, but slow down. At first one should drag & drop List Layout from "Create Blocks" toolbar.


Let’s select necessary table:


So, we get an empty List. We almost reached the goal now, using "Reuse" tab from "Create Blocks" toolbar we can drag & drop needed fields in it:


This is how it looks now:


And the look of the specific record:


In general WorkXpress handles such data volume pretty well and personally I didn’t see any pitfalls. Navigation by page in List grid makes you feel it works a bit slower than expected, but to my opinion it’s ok.

Conclusions:

I can’t stand drag & drop. Yes, it was fun to create first field by drag it and drop into form the first time, but as I did it I can’t say exactly how many times, I had such a feeling the systems made me do something really stupid and not right.

Even though WorkXpress proved its capability to handle 20 000 records and apparently the user won’t have any problems while importing, the system didn’t facilitate my work. I’d even say quite the contrary. It made me do one-type drag & drop actions, couldn’t automatically suggest columns for data import and to review results I had to take some pains as well.

The system doesn’t look that smart as you start working with it, it can do anything you want, but it takes a lot to explain the system what exactly. Maybe I just used a sledge-hammer to crack nuts. Well, we’ll check this out in other tests.

Global use of blist. If only ...

If you are looking for the service that can function worldwide web-based systems are really powerful tools for this and their value can’t be underestimated.

The system that delivers data at once anywhere you need it to makes you realize what can be done in the digital era in times of global economy.

All boundaries are being extended and the whole world is connected through the Internet, it still amazes me some products out there are designed to be used just by particular culture group/in one country/in one language/etc. But apparently there are some and Blist is one of them.

First of all it’s about data input. For some reason the system doesn't support typing in any other language but English, even though I managed to copy/paste some text in other language without any problem:


And it’s not just me who wants to input the info in other languages, you can check it out here and here.

You have not so many options to choose from to display data and time:


It seems developers don’t suspect there are other currencies in the world apart from USD, I think this is why blist uses only $ symbol for all of them and there is no way to change it.


Conclusions:

On this stage blist is not ready for worldwide use. If you don’t live in the US or just want to use it to organize the list of non-English text data you’d better take a look at other product.