KnackCon 2019

[amenity]

Yay! @dianamartin and @amenity are attending KnackCon 2019. 🤓🤓✈️

[amenity]

@johnclary - when you get a chance will you add/amend issues you know off the top of your head and move to backlog? Size, assign, and pull on deck any that need to happen next week please. 🙏

[johnclary]

@amenity @dianamartin if you haven't already, would you close the loop with Knack folks and let them know what you're thinking for presentation? Happy to provide feedback on an outline.

[amenity]

New builder

Major areas of improvement

• Live preview
• Improved coding architecture — separate business logic from infrastructure etc.
• Testing and stability — automated, maybe??
• Huge effort into usability — product team will be v focused here, not just for basic users but also super users
• Iterative approach — "We will never do this again" :) (going heads down for years of radio silence and then producing dramatic changes
• Separation of concerns — something about servers?

Demo

• Layouts: multiple columns in a row, side by side fields

• Live preview in the app

• More icons

• Design settings: fonts, colors - will be able to bulk edit initially, later on will be able to be view-specific; eventually will also have "themes", e.g. Bootstrap look, Material look, etc. if it turns out to be important

• Settings on how to embed, e.g. include menu or not...

• Drag and drop file and image uploader

• Imports: Robust configurations in importing interface

• Change field type - will give you warnings when it won't work well, will show previews of what change would look like

• Equation editor - functions and fields are split up, so you can filter more easily when selecting - type w autocomplete/tab/arrow to select functions

• Quick add users -

• Rule numbering - will update when drag and drop

Release date TBD 🤸‍♂️

Questions

• Can use new builder to test while using old builder for production apps; when Knack is confident they're ready you'll be able to actually deploy apps with it
• Live preview that you see in new builder is the same Vue.js code/component library as future live app, will have to do a lot of work on it
• Currently in sandbox mode, but plan to have transition period where you can access both
• Will not need schema migration; a toggle between the two
• API stays the same
• Scema #s, i.e. URLs, stay the same
• Few breaking changes
  • Reports - once you go to new more flexible dashboard you can't go back
• Supporting offline apps not on near-term priority list
• Near term control to set universal units/time zones/etc. like time
• Backups will be a big LOE

[dianamartin]

Day 1 Conference Notes

Video Testimonial How you used Knack?

Brandon - CEO of Knack The Knack Story

Who is the Knack company? What are they values?

Started in 2012 5k customers 30,000 apps 200 million records 29 Knack folks, 100 remote

Struggling with data, data management Unique to your users

THE WHY? Find your north star - it's you.

Software is providing so much value to customers

THE HOW? Act on principles Control growth without compromise

CULTURE COMES FIRST supportive of working anywhere bring your life to work if you're comfortable humility and humor

CORE SYSTEMS - Graham Pelletieri **Ask about labor & materials reporting widgets

Getting More From Less - Knack panel

KNACK BEST PRACTICES - Danielle Kellog App copies Test data - mockaroo.com Spliting data into multiple apps Apps can't share data Number of connections (need only one connections between objects) Extra connections can lead to confusion when building the rest of your app Connection placement 1:M, always want to put it in the child object 1:1/M:M, where you're going to be editing the most (look up field) Special Objects Category object - categories of products Attachment object Add as many files to your objects "Middle Man" objects Orders, Products Split up pages by user role one page for each role Employees and Admin have their own set of pages with different read/write functionality

Single Login Pages Page Rule When User Roles is "Admin" Redirect to page "___"

App Maintenance "Major App Changes" Editing and removing connections Batch updating, deleting records Changing field types Rebuilding views Deleting anything (objects, views, pages, connections)

Rules, Tasks, Logic Record rules: simultaneous Update this record rule

Order of Execution Equations shoud be in order or operation

Display Rules - top to bottom but the bottom rule will override the other rules

Conditional Rules - top to bottom first one that matches it will stop

Tasks Criteria is important for running tasks

Version History object use a separated version history object to capture field changes knowledge base article per object basis

Inactivity - automatically log out after inactivity

Reset password button this is a thing? Securely reset user passwords

2FA: (two factor authentication) - for builder only might be available for users later?

Record History Source: Renderer (made in live app), Builder, Job

Record ID - pull it out in API Get that field, it's in the community

Google Translate - multi-language in Knack application (from Knack attendee)

Automatically create back ups in Knack, custom code

EXPAND YOUR APPS WITH INTEGRATIONS Jeff Christie

Anything can be integrated Integration Platforms (13) Strengths and Weakness

5 platforms have integrations with Knack

• Integromat
• Zapier

Front end .csv upload into Knack Create records, putting them into the correct object creates QR code in SFTP server Updates Knack of location of QR file

Unconventional Integrations Integrating with Alexa Integrating with smart lights (light changes color based on Knack status)

ELEDO.online - need to have Zapier html to pdf example of template pdf he shown in this presentation

Barcode scanners (keyboard based barcode) bluetooth based scanners is hard to work with, not recommended

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** NEW BUILDER **

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Why are they doing this? More responsive To have resources and processes To rapidly respond to our customers

Modern frameworks Improved coding architecture Testing and stability Usability Iterative approach Separation of concerns

They did this to address technical debt they had before

NEW CHANGES Can see which objects have tasks

Flexible Page Layouts Drag and drop, 3 views side by side No more columns, just fields side by side Previews are better!

new icons, bigger icon menus colors change in real time

NEW- Design Settings Different fonts, different colors- see in real time Can see buttons in preview

Can see notifications in the color templates you choose

Image/File Uploader Drag and drop functionality

Imports drag and drop table into import page enter a new row, update what new row should do

Address to field map has changed

New fields, columns (same interface)

Change Field Type will warn you about the conversion Short text, can easily change it out

Equation Editor Functions and fields equation on the same page Can type in the fields, prompt by writing in field name

Quick Add Users Enable users from the object Can build the user roles right there and then

Rule Numbering!! YESS!! This is amazing, can move the position of the rule

Beta test - send us a note "support@knack.com"

Features included in launch?? Training for new builder? Yes, will be resources for these new changes

Release date? Not set-up yet.

[dianamartin]

Day 2 Conference Notes

Plan More Build Less - Gui Marshal (Fine Mountain Consulting)

1. Assessment
2. ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram)
3. Workflows
4. Build
5. Test
6. Deploy
7. Test again..

Evaluate

• Data
  • Data Migration
  • Volume of Data? 1 mil +?
  • Existing format
  • Data transformation
• Environment
  • intranet? web? mobile? all?
• Internal v. External Users

ERDs

Why is this a good ERD? (Lucid Charts) Rectangle Crows feet

From a bad ERD Roles not being used Table not being used

Valuable documentation

Workflows

• Make user stories
  • Gets stakeholders excited about the app
• Backlog

Swim lanes

Swim lanes are different user roles (similar to the Finance and Purchasing workflow)

Build

• Stakeholder Engagement (Intake Meeting)
• Open communication (Dev Huddle/Sprint Review Demos)
• Stay in scope (MVPs)
• Stakeholder testing (Usability Testing)
• Sign Offs (User Acceptance Testing)

Test>Deploy>Test

Don't find yourself "Building a bridge over an ocean"

Test against user stories

Showing functionality of his app

• Upload files (drag and drop multiple files)
• Can zip multiple files and download

Change Log

• Script that does this
• Timestamps (pretty useful, need to fork!)
• By object, the tool can connect it to an object or call pull stuff out if only tracking 3 fields

Custom Scheduler (if public wants to schedule time slots)

• querying members to find it and then schedule them for a specific time/date on the calendar
• Checking the member in
• Saying member was a "no show"
• Drag to specific "lane" (firing range)
• interacting with database on the back end (driven by Knack)
• different UI
• prevents double booking

Another Scheduler

• Create a review for specific time/date
• Data driven from Knack
• Filter individuals that have certifications and locations performing their reviews
• They can set their personal schedule to say they're available/unavailable.
• Filter, see their availability and schedule them
• Looking at unassigned reviewers in form field

Use some open source software, started just doing custom bc it was taking them same time to build it

• Build your app in Knack first
• Must maintain code base

Use wire frames. Live Frame mock-ups? Yes

[dianamartin]

Tips from the Trenches - panel

• Gui Marshall (Fine Mountain Consulting)
• John Bratincevic (Calabash)
• Graham Pellettieri (Pellettieri Associates, Inc)
• Ivan Jovanovic (Averra Technologies)

Discussion Points

• Having a trouble pinning down a: Single Contact, Ambassador, Project Champion
• An app is never finished
• ERD is helpful

Changes being requested mid-stream, how do you manage that?

• Like to sit with employee and get real feedback with user
• Make changes on the fly

Jing Project (not supported anymore...)

Patterns

• Dashboards
• Transparency
• Consistent use of icons
• Learn how tech savvy users are
• Writing things out
• Make everything as explicit as possible

Future Proof

user roles think down the road Sort Order (newest - oldest) Break down report pages into multiple tables

• improves performance Firefox is faster
• is snappier

Formula text fields can drag down performance - be mindful of this

[dianamartin]

Knack Roadmap - Brandon Griggs

What drives the road map?

Knack super power

• Usability
• Functionality
• Venn diagram (sweet spot - Knack)

Tools over outcomes

• narrow their focus of user market

Broad user base

• Can't just think of it for a specific group
• Must consider all users

Customer Research

• Who are all these people?
• What patterns exist in Knack?
• What words to be describe Knack?

Jobs to be done

• Problem, want this solution "When I've outgrown inefficient processes, I want to find a flexible, easy to use, and cost effective.

Customer Research

Customer Survey (Knack sends to new customer after 3 months they've become a paid customer)

• Provides interesting information
• How much value are you getting from Knack
• If you're getting value, they are the best customers
• What type of people would value Knack?
• What main benefits from Knack?
• How can we improve Knack for you?

Feature Requests

Roadmap Inputs

• Feature requests (1025!)

What makes a good request?

• Bad feature requests - providing solutions, they want to know the problem
• Unique, general, concise
• Problem focused
• Include use case/example

Data

Let the data inform

Dogfooding

What would happen if you used your own software?

• Use Knack in their internal apps

Feature Management app (internal app)

• Analyzing this data
• Feature popularity (how often is this mentioned, up voted, internally)
• Level of effort
• Prioritization
• Impact
• Confidence
• Effort (Level of effort to implement)
• Source

How do we evaluate these?

• No such thing as a simple feature

How they're prioritizing?

• Back to the basics
  1. Usability and bugs (address the bugs, refactoring it)
  2. Workflow (They use Jirra - PM)
     • Rules and criteria, moving data around and triggering things
• Use this information to derive a long term goal/road map
  3. Connections
• What is the dream version of that?
• Visual all connections
• Alias
  4. Process Automation
• PDFs want to tackle
• New architecture: PDFs have more complex layout requirements
• New builder: allows drag and drop

Prioritizing - Expanding Impact

• Shared Objects
  • complexity, a lot of ramifications
  • security
• Sandboxing
  • staging env, dev environment
• Integrations
  • Extension of current workflows
  • Connect Knack with services you use
  • Not trying to replace IntegroMat, Zapier
  • 2 way connection (connecting to a service and go back to Knack)!
  • Business automation workflows increase
  • In Slack, have buttons "Approve", "Reject"
  • Triggers and goes back to Knack

Timeline

• When will it happen? Not sure. (being honest)
• New phase they're going, building a team to do this work
• The team has never done the work before
• They're committing resources to it!
• Sorry..no timeline

[dianamartin]

Knack and Security - Eric Katherman

• Knack
• AWS
• Customers

Areas of Responsibility

AWS

• Software
• Hardware

Knack

• Customer Data (Security in the could)
  • encrypt data, in rest and in flight
  • salting passwords
  • file uploads
  • redundancy
• Infrastructure
• Applications and Software
  • keeping software updated
  • hardening configurations
• Compliance & Auditing
  • HIPPA
  • GDPR
    • SCA - strong customer authentication
  • SOC2
• Customer
  • Page Security
    • consider the content
    • Shared builders
    • Training
    • Record history
  • Passwords
    • Do not share
    • LastPass (Knack uses it)
    • Single sign ons
    • Always use 2FA (they encourage it for GitHub, Slack, everywhere, Knack team does this)
    • Password policy for apps (requirements for passwords)
  • Security Options
    • Inactivity logout
    • User lockout
    • default setting
    • App wide IP blocking
      • VPN, blacklist others not on the list

Best Practices

API Credentials

• Do not put private keys in your public js
• Knack requests
  • consider using view-based API calls
• Other solutions
  • writing "middle man" services
  • Heroku
  • Lambda

Sensitive data and schemas

• Rich text views
  • subsequent passwords
  • private info
  • alternatives
  • use records and views

Workforce Security and Training

• leaving computer and phone unlocked
• Phishing & malware
  • emails and phone calls
• MDM Solutions
  • Auto screen locking
  • Antivirus
  • Disk encryption
  • Firewalls
  • Visibility into installed applications
  • VLC vulnerability
  • Remote wipe

2020 and Beyond

On the Horizon

• SOC2
  • Type 2
• More pen testing
• Additional compliance
  • FedRAMP
• Security Team Growth
• Features and Improvements
  • 2FA has been silently released (for builders)
  • SCA
  • Tighter session control
  • Security Advisor type tools

[dianamartin]

Understanding Performance Trade offs - Nic Galluzzo

What you can do to improve your knack performance

• Uses sums & counts Formulas can come with great complexity

Example Order App Have quantity

• made an equation, referencing from product
• take quantity and product price

In orders table

• add orders total

In order items

• add order total

Cascading updates, creating dependencies Can get pretty hairy when more fields are added

Complexity scoring

• Knack runs scoring on
• connections
• text formula
• equation

Cascading updates - how many cascading fields Get rid of equations

• see the results
• scoring of 25 still

Complexity example went from a 25 to a 7. can ask Knack to see why a form is running slow

• Segment your reports/data

  • navigate to a menu, pages will load faster
  • reports typically take longer bc it's loading all the data in the objects
  • report filters will help bc it will run faster

• 1600 fields in one object

• highest complexity score he's seen 600

• 210 fields in object

• score is 254 mostly from connections equations

Shifting load from knack server instead of putting in report page and making it have all averages

• Were able to get score 254 to score 48

Check can we make: Conditional rule, make it a record rule instead?

• To off load the server.

Differences if you're filtering your formula

Any other factors submitting a form?

Ex. If form is editing my order, update child record

[dianamartin]

AMA

Knack is moving to SQL, from mongoDB

Will imports, batch updates, or batch deletes ever be available for the live app?

• risky for the user to mess up their apps

someone said, what about: Two stage - batch update and batch update, approval process?

• seems more complicated

road map: asking about video?

• that's not a thing

apps for phone or tablets?

• new code base will give more feasible functionality
• invest in web based responsiveness

new builder responsive?

• must less responsive
• complicated for tablet/phone

builder to have a view to separate pages, illusions of separate apps? Folder Structure

• have played with that
• new builder, things are collapsed and can expand

• folders for dashboards, will see enough benefits from that (power feature)

  any plans to extend file formats for import/export (hdr format?)**

text files, plans to expanding word and other formats

• document files, excel sheets

attachments on tablet issue

modal pop-up, lose the form when accidentally move off

• will use change detection to ask if you want to save the form, rather than it closing the form

new builder has details page

• things you can add
• edit, add anything

Multi-task capability

• Page rules, do multiple actions (they want to be able to do that)

And/Or filters

• would like to do that
• filter links, would like to combine them
• plans to do that