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Concepts

Introduction

As an app developer, you work in the app developer's UI, defining your app's domain model (data) and application logic (behavior), and customizing it with various configuration options. You can preview your app at any time to see how it looks, and publish it when it's ready for testing or release.

As an app user, you use the app user's UI to add, edit, or delete records in modules, and view records in different ways. If you're an app administrator, you can manage app users and email templates.

A comparison of the app developer's and app user's UI:

The Overview page in the app developer's UI An example app, showing the app user's UI
Overview page Example app

Domain Model

An app's domain model is its modules, relations, dropdowns, and dependencies:

  • Modules are patterns or templates for data records, defined by a set of fields of different types.

  • Relations let users see records from another module related to the currently viewed record.

  • Dropdowns are lists of fixed values, typically used in a menu.

  • Dependencies show, hide, change, or freeze data based on the values in a module record.

Application Logic

Your app's application logic is a set of small programs (called flows) that you create in a visual programming environment by connecting functional blocks (called steps).

The app developer's UI, showing the two types of flow:

An example microflow An example UI flow
Example microflow Example UI flow

Configuration

Configuring an app involves customizing the app's branding, defining globalization and localizations for users of other languages, creating user guides and custom menus, and setting other configuration options related to email, identity, and app parameters.

Publish

An app preview is a temporary instance of the app that only the app developer can see. To release an app and make it available to anyone, you publish it.