What are internal tools?
The definitive guide to internal tools in 2024

2020 was a disastrous year for people around the world, and for many businesses too. The events in 2020 and 2021 will inevitably lead to organizations looking inwards to find answers. Building internal tools with internal tool builders can play a huge role in helping an organization cut costs whilst improving output.

Increased Productivity

Internal tools have increased productivity across the board for the majority of industries, but the scale in which they're rolled out can make a huge difference. A study from 2003 showed that while Wal-Mart and Kmart both invested in IT, Wal-Mart did a better job of changing the rest of their business to work with the technology, and consequently saw “higher levels of productivity and market value”.

Cost effective

Of-the-shelf software, especially enterprise software, costs a crippling amount. When building internal tools with an internal tool builder, you can save 10x the cost of off-the-shelf software - sometimes a lot more! You can save even more if you self-host your tools on your own infrastructure.

Improved Security

If you are self-hosting on your own infrastructure, and implementing your own Auth system, in a lot of cases the security will be better.

More control

When building your own tools, you have the power to build them exactly how you want them. As previously mentioned, you are building a solution around your specific problem. One of the common reasons users come to Budibase to build custom software is because a part of their business is so unique that no off-the-shelf software can solve their problem how they'd like them to.

Happier employees (advocates)

Providing your employees with the right tools to do their jobs is incredible fulfilling for employees. As I am sure you are aware, a common scenario in organizations is a disgruntled employee battling with an unfit tool, or using a particular tool to solve a problem the tool was not designed for. (We'll chat about Microsoft Office soon).

The technology is here

Previously it would take an internal software developer/development team, on average, 4 weeks to 6 months to build an internal tool. With modern internal tool builders, such as Budibase, internal software developers can build and ship these same tools in days.

Common alternatives to building Internal Tools

Sure, I've got Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is the workplace swiss army knife. We're grew up using it, loving it, and inevitably hating it. But, please don't see this as slander. It's an incredible platform, with incredible tools which solve common problems. In fact, a highly product Excel user is basically an engineer with a different title; building internal software (albeit in a highly restrictive environment). The problem is how we overuse these tools to solve problems which they are not suitable for. Here's an example of how nearly 16,000 people who tested positive for the coronavirus disappeared from records due to an Excel error.

I prefer to code my internal tools

Code is awesome. Boilerplate code and repetition not so much. We created Budibase to augment the development experience not replace it. You can still write code, query data, self-host; but you can also develop faster, design better, and output a real single page application.

The emergence of internal tool builders has reduced the barriers and resolved many of the concerns around building internal tools. If organizations were more willing to build their own internal tools, specific to their needs, they would experience huge productivity gains, an increase in employee satisfaction, and potential market growth. With digital transformation now a priority for most businesses, there has never been a better time to build internal tools and accelerate your organization forward. I hope you enjoyed this post, and thank you for reading.

Building internal tools with Budibase in 6 steps

As we said earlier, most of our users are professional developers. That is, they know how to code, but they choose our platform because it makes their lives easier, faster, and more cost-effective.

In fact, we make the development process so smooth and intuitive, that Budibase is loved by developers and non-technical professionals alike.

Let’s take a real-world example to show off just how simple internal development can be.

1. Scope out your internal tool

As with any project, the first thing we need to do is define our requirements. As we’ve seen already, internal-facing apps can vary quite a lot in terms of complexity. So, sometimes these might be aimed at a single, discrete task.

Other times, they might be used to manage a whole raft of tasks within a wider department or team.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s focus on the former. You can then scale up the same approach for more complex tools.

Obviously, our first task is deciding what we want our tool to do. The best jumping-off point here is figuring out which processes, tasks, and user actions we want to replace or manage. In other words, how our users will interact with the tool and what will happen in response.

Let’s say we’re building an internal vacation approval platform. We’d probably come up with a list of requirements along the lines of:

1. Employees can request paid leave, depending on their remaining allowance.
2. Relevant line managers are notified when a new request is submitted.
3. Line managers can approve or deny requests, based on staffing levels and the information provided.
4. The original employee is notified when the line manager makes a decision.
5. Approved requests are added automatically to the team calendar.

This might seem simple enough, but don’t be afraid to read over it a couple of times so you’re fully familiar with it. We’ll be using the same example for the rest of this article, to see how much time and effort you’ll save using Budibase vs hard coding a similar tool.

2. Build a data model

Once we understand our requirements, we need to think about the data we’ll leverage to put them into practice. Basically, what kinds of objects our tool will deal with and what we need to know about each one.

This is what’s known as a data model.

To hard code this, we’d need to create a database from scratch, or at least connect to an existing one if we’re lucky enough to have something like this available.

With Budibase we have a couple of different options. We could still connect to existing data. Alternatively, we have the option of using BudibaseDB, to quickly create an effective data model, on the fly.

Let’s think about what data we’ll need, and then you can make your own decision. Essentially, our tool will store information on three separate but related entities:

• Employees
• Line-managers
• Requests

Each employee is related to one line manager, but each line manager is related to many employees. Each request is related to one employee and one line manager, but both can be related to many requests.

The specific attributes you need to store on each will depend on your existing processes, the size of your organization, and the complexity of its structure.

For employees and line managers, we’ll definitely need to know their personal information, holiday allowance, job role, and any other relevant details for vacation decisions. For requests, we might only need to know the relevant dates and maybe optional comments.

We can achieve this in just a few seconds with Budibase DB, and then edit it on the fly afterward. Or, we could even import a CSV to get started even faster. Alternatively, we still have the option of connecting to an external database, if we prefer.

3. Create stunning interfaces

With our data model in place, we can think about the interfaces we’ll need to let users interact with stored information. Since we’re dealing with a relatively tight set of requirements, we won’t need many screens to make our app a reality.

Essentially, we’ll need:

• One form for employees to make requests.
• A second form for line managers to respond and add comments.
• A home screen for employees and line managers to view and search existing requests.

If we were feeling fancy, we could also add a third form for employees to edit or delete their previous requests, but that goes a little bit beyond the requirements we set out earlier, so we won’t worry about it today.

You might not believe how easy Budibase makes this step.

You literally don’t have to design a single thing, if you don’t want to. We offer auto-generated CRUD screens, so you can achieve functional interfaces to manage connected data sources at the press of a button.

Of course, you’ll probably still want to tinker around the edges and perfect your internal tool UIs.

Even then, we offer an incredible degree of customization and flexibility, while still keeping custom code optional. Use our intuitive builder to add, move, delete, and configure any of our library of built-in app components.

4. Build business processes

Next, we can think about the processes that will link our interfaces to our data. Again, Budibase makes this a breeze. For simple business processes, you don’t need to do much at all.

For example, our autogenerate forms are already fully functional, so there’s no need to write out queries manually.

For more specific tasks, you have a couple of options for creating custom business processes in Budibase.

If you opt to connect to external data, you have full control to build your own queries, transformation rules, bindable values, and more.

We also offer a dedicated automation builder, drawing on a full library of built-in functions and rules, or third-party integrations. Use user actions, system events, data conditions, external signals, and more to trigger your custom automations.

5. Assign access roles

We also need to think about how different users will interact with our internal tools. In fact, it’s very rare to find internal software where all users perform the exact same actions. Rather, it’s normal for there to be a hierarchy of roles and responsibilities.

Our vacation request example makes this incredibly plain.

Remember, we have three entities, two of which are employees and line managers.

Each of these corresponds to a different type of user, who needs a different level of access.

In Budibase, we can grant or limit access to different resources for each defined role in a couple of different ways. First, we can configure a minimum access level required for each individual screen.

Alternatively, we can use conditionality rules to define access rules for individual components within a screen.

Finally, we can limit read and write access to individual tables within BudibaseDB, to control permissions across the board.

6. Deploy your internal software

Finally, we can deploy our internal tool for managing vacation requests. As ever, Budibase offers a couple of different options here:

• Deploying with Budibase Cloud.
• Self-hosting internal tools on your own infrastructure.

We don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to internal development.

Instead, we offer our developers and users the flexibility they need to create the perfect solutions for their specific needs. So, if you need the convenience of one-click cloud deployment, we’ve got you covered.

Or, if you need extra customization, security, configuration, and control, self-hosted Budibase tools are the perfect solution. Deploy to your own infrastructure with Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Compose, Digital Ocean, and more.