Building Tadabase apps with your own custom ChatGPT AI Chatbot (part 2)
Today, we're excited to guide you through building a Tadabase app with AI assistance, focusing on a lawn care service company. The goal is to create an intuitive and functional application using Tadabase's powerful features, enhanced by the insights of our AI assistant.
Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your Tadabase App
1. Setting Up Data Tables
Firstly, we've established various data tables as recommended by our AI assistant. These include:
- Employees Table: For managing employee details.
- Clients Table: To track client information.
- Client Properties Table: Detailing properties associated with clients.
- Jobs Table: For managing various jobs.
- Services Table: Listing the services offered.
These tables form the backbone of your lawn care service app, ensuring organized data management.
2. Designing the Main Dashboard
The next step is to construct the main dashboard using the Page Builder. We recommend using:
- Summary Cards or Card Components: Display key metrics like total clients, ongoing jobs, completed jobs, and total employees.
- Calendar Component: To track job schedules.
- Recent Activity Feed: For a dynamic view of recent operations (this can be creatively implemented using table components).
3. Creating Page Layouts
Page layouts are crucial for a consistent user experience. They act as containers sharing common elements like menus, breadcrumbs, and user options. When setting up layouts, consider:
- Consistency Across Pages: Incorporate similar design elements for uniformity.
- Security Settings: Apply necessary security settings to all pages within the layout.
4. Building Individual Pages for Data Sets
Develop specific pages for each data set, focusing on clients, employees, properties, jobs, and services. Each page should allow for detailed viewing and management of the respective data set. Include:
- Detail Components: For in-depth information on individual records.
- List or Table Components: To display records in an organized manner.
- Connected Data: Ensure related data from different tables is accessible and interconnected.
5. Linking and Editing Capabilities
Enhance the functionality of your app by:
- Adding Connected Page Links: To navigate between related details seamlessly.
- Incorporating Edit Links: Facilitate easy updates to records directly from the detail or table views.
6. Fine-Tuning the Job Details Page
Given the importance of the Jobs table, pay special attention to its details page by adding:
- Map Components: Show locations of client properties.
- Edit Forms: Enable quick modifications to job details.
- Notes and Comments Sections: For additional job-specific information.
7. Final Touches and Data Population
After setting up your pages, it's essential to populate your app with actual data to see it in full action. This step brings your dashboard to life, showcasing real-time metrics and schedules.
Conclusion and Next Steps
Our AI assistant has provided a robust framework for your lawn care service app. This setup not only covers all necessary operational aspects but also offers flexibility for future expansions like payroll, HR services, or a client portal. Remember, the power of Tadabase lies in its adaptability to your business needs, and our AI-assisted guidance makes this process more intuitive and efficient.
Features Discussed:
-
Main Dashboard (Time: 2:21)
Learn how to create a dashboard with card components to display metrics (e.g., total clients, ongoing jobs). -
Page Layout (Time: 10:21)
Learn how to add components to manage clients with details like job history and properties. -
Connected to Page (Time: 14:48)
Learn how to add links between pages to allow navigation (e.g., from clients to job details). -
Map Component (Time: 18:49)
This page shows job information, a map of the property, assigned employees, and services. Includes forms to edit job details and add notes.
Transcript Summary
Introduction
Hey everybody, this is Build It with Tadabase. On today's episode, we're jumping back into our AI-assisted app build.
Recap of Previous Episode
In last week's episode, we started by using our custom-built GPT inside of ChatGPT, where we created a Tadabase helper with access to the full Tadabase help center. This assistant helped us build an application for a lawn care service company. We created our data tables based on the suggestions from our AI assistant, including tables for employees, clients, client properties, jobs, and services.
Building the Pages
This week, we're going to start working on the pages of the application. We previously fed another prompt into our Tadabase helper, asking for guidance on the page builder, specifically the layouts, pages, and components to use. The first suggested page from our AI assistant is the main dashboard. The components we're going to use include summary cards, a calendar component, and a recent activity feed.
Main Dashboard
- Setting Up the Dashboard:
- We start by building the main dashboard in the Tadabase page builder. The AI assistant suggested using summary cards to display key metrics like the number of total clients, ongoing jobs, completed jobs, and total employees.
- We add four card components to display these metrics, setting up each card to count relevant data from the corresponding data tables.
- Adding a Calendar Component:
- Next, we add a calendar component to display job schedules. We link it to the jobs data table and configure it to show client names on the calendar. We enable the detail view for this component but leave other options like drag-and-drop disabled for now.
- Setting Up an Upcoming Jobs Table:
- We create a list of upcoming jobs by adding a table component next to the calendar. This table displays jobs scheduled for the current week and beyond, providing a quick overview of upcoming work.
Additional Pages
After completing the dashboard, we move on to building individual pages for clients, employees, properties, jobs, and services. These pages will manage and display data specific to each category.
- Clients Page:
- We create a clients page with a table component to display all clients. We include a form to add new clients and a link to view more details about each client.
- On the client details page, we add components to display client properties and job history, giving a comprehensive view of each client's information.
- Employees Page:
- We create an employees page similar to the clients page, allowing us to view, add, and manage employees. We also add a component on the employee details page to display jobs assigned to each employee.
- Properties, Jobs, and Services Pages:
- We repeat the process for properties, jobs, and services, creating dedicated pages for each with relevant components for viewing, adding, and managing data.
Linking Pages and Adding Edit Options
We also add edit links and forms to the pages, enabling users to modify records directly within the application. For example, on the job details page, we include an edit form to update job information without leaving the page.
Job Details Page
The job details page is a central component of the application, given the importance of jobs in a lawn care service company. We add various components to this page, including:
- A map component displaying the client property location.
- An edit form to modify job details.
- A notes and comments section for additional job information.
Preview and Final Adjustments
After setting up all the pages, we preview the application to see how it looks and functions with live data. The dashboard shows key metrics, the calendar and upcoming jobs table provide a clear schedule overview, and detail pages link together smoothly, offering comprehensive data management.
Conclusion
Overall, our AI assistant did a great job guiding us through the page-building process. We've created a solid foundation for an application that can manage a lawn care service company, with potential for further enhancements like payroll, HR services, or a client portal.
We'd love to hear your feedback.