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If, on the other hand, the application is already in the catalogue but the user’s ministry has not gone through procurement, then by applying through the catalogue their subscription will be added to the existing application listing.
Ultimately, however, users would like to have an app store experience, such that they can acquire actual software from the catalogue, similar to that of the Software Center. While meeting that exact experience may be challenging given the complexity of the procurement process, app store approach should serve as a model to be followed to the highest extent possible.
Software licenses come in 3 varieties - enterprise (government wide), corporate (ministry-wide) and personal. Enterprise agreements don’t require SaaS procurement process, corporate agreements make software available for the whole ministry and need to be done only once, while personal agreements are done on the one-off basis. Note that there are instances where even though PIA/STRA process has been completed within a ministry, it may need to be repeated with some variations for another team within the ministry if they have different requirements. Other factors such as a change in number of users may also require re-assessment.
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Other Features
Airtable SaaS Directory UX Research carried out by the SaaS Adoption Team produced a set of features that users perceived as desirable:
Ability to report bugs
Ability to search - by title, but also possibly by description
Searching by tag
Simple UI
Search faceting
Search autocomplete
Software features listed in bullets, and what they mean in terms of solving business problems
Product comparison (user have to compare any product over $1000 to other 3 products)
Dark mode theme
App store experience - users would like to walk away from the directory with software that’s ready to use, similar to that of Software Center
Build Options
Backstage.io
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May not cover all use cases
May not integrate with external systems
May not provide APIs
Airtable Interface Designer
Airtable introduced a way to build custom interfaces without any code through the Interface Designer feature. This feature allows users to create alternative interfaces to the standard Airtable management UI using spreadsheets (see Fig.2). Users can then selectively view specific fields through respective UI elements and also update data in the Airtable backend.
Advantages
Does not require development
Disadvantages
Restrictive features may not meet exact requirements
May not support more complex business needs
Airtable backend may need to be replaced to support API integrations etc which would cause frontend redesign as well
Airtable API with custom frontend
Another possibility is to use the existing Airtable backend to manage the data and use the Airtable API to build a new frontend with React or some other framework. This approach will provide the best effort-to-value ratio for the end user by deferring the backend work and focusing on the user experience.
Backend improvements can be done incrementally to address acute pain points, while clarifying the full set of requirements to determine whether a brand new backend is actually necessary or can be accomplished using a hybrid solution of Airtable backend in combination with auxiliary tools such as CHEFs and automation scripts.
Advantages
Does not require building a new custom backend
Decouples front end into a separate project - can connect it later to a different backend
Disadvantages
Airtable APIs may not be optimally suited to drive all front end features, resulting in additional code to bring data into a desirable format
Requires continued Airtable subscription
Backend features might be restricted by the platform and cause issues with more advanced features, like API integrations with external services and more advanced business processes
Continued use of Airtable backend may result in an unstable, difficult to maintain system
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