GCP – Help boost productivity with G Suite and AppSheet app templates

G Suite users already have a rich suite of tools at their fingertips that allow them to collaborate and solve complex challenges. AppSheet’s new templates extend these capabilities further into no-code development of line-of-business apps, helping more people use G Suite in more ways to get work done. 

For example, suppose a team using G Suite was tasked with performing regular inspections of several facilities to ensure safety standards were being followed. Leveraging AppSheet and one of our new templates, this team could build an inspection app in a matter of days and customize it to their specific needs, without writing a line of code. From this one app, they’d be able to submit inspection forms that save to a Google Sheet, track and resolve issues, view and schedule Calendar events, and join a daily standup with their team on Meet.

The ability to create a line-of-business app without eating aggressively into IT resources is especially useful for mobile workers. With custom apps built in AppSheet and connected via user-friendly templates to G Suite, these workers can have reliable access to the information and actions they need, whether that means updating records, scheduling appointments, collaborating, or emailing reports.

G Suite and AppSheet in Action: Inside BHI’s Digital Transformation 

A turnkey construction company general contractor that serves the civil, pipeline, communications, electrical, and renewable energy industries, BHI is an excellent example of what G Suite together with AppSheet can help businesses achieve. 

In the last two decades, BHI grew from a small business based in Utah to one that includes hundreds of employees and operations in over 25 states. Its technology infrastructure didn’t keep up with the rapid growth, however, and the company found itself wasting time and resources on manual processes. 

File sharing and email relied on a single server, for example, so to update a shared file, employees had to use a VPN to log in, download the file, edit it, then upload it again. BHI was attracted to G Suite in part because this kind of version control nightmare doesn’t exist; the most-up-to-date document is available in the cloud to all collaborators on any device. The company needed under a week to migrate 90% of its 500 employees, and since then, productivity has since soared. 

Meanwhile, by letting employees write line-of-business apps without coding, AppSheet both helped BHI’s IT team to more quickly complete many backlogged projects, and empowered non-technical BHI employees to create solutions themselves. 

According to Johnny Hacking, BHI’s Director of IT, when someone outside IT has a great idea, “we say, log into AppSheet, build it out, and then we’ll help out with some final touches on it.” 

While not all AppSheet and G Suite use cases overlap, BHI has found that projects that combine the two platforms can be particularly powerful. For example, one solution allowed BHI to shorten a two hour inspection process down to six minutes, saving over $50,000 per month in labor. Originally, this process required the inspector to manually record information in the field, upload it to a computer, then format and send a report to the customer. The combination of G Suite’s file management and collaboration tools and AppSheet’s no-code interface led to an app that lets the inspector simply input results on their mobile device. Then as soon as the device connects to the internet, it automatically uploads the data to a Google Sheet and emails the report to the client, based on a preformatted template in Docs.

“With G Suite and AppSheet, BHI has turned into a digital company with real-time data allowing for real-time decisions, collaboration, and transparency in a decentralized environment,” said Hacking. 

With our new templates, use cases such as BHI’s become easier to execute by making it even simpler to combine the power of G Suite and AppSheet. We see the rise of citizen developers and no-code applications as a significant force in digital transformation, and we can’t wait to see what our customers use these templates to create. You can access our templates here.

To learn more about BHI and how they’ve leveraged these platforms to empower their mobile workforce, watch our NEXT OnAir session, Digitize your Deskless Workforce Without Coding, Using AppSheet.