How a tech company built a device finder integrated with Google Sheets

Akveo, a tech company that had previously used UI Bakery to automate the vacation management for their employees, faced the need to simplify one more equally important internal process.

Akveo possessed a particular number of corporate mobile phones and tablets for software development and testing purposes. When a developer or a QA engineer needed a device to check the software under development, it was often impossible to find it, or its search became a major handful. So the company was looking for a solution to get rid of the ‘who-took-this-device?!’ problem forever.

Akveo needed a solution allowing their employees to specify and keep track of the location of each corporate device separately. Due to the positive experience Akveo had with UI Bakery earlier, they chose this low-code platform to create an internal dashboard that would be easy-to-use even for newcomers. 

The dashboard is aimed at providing any user signing up with the corporate email with the list of all the available devices, their software version, resolution, and the name of the employee who possesses a particular device at this moment. 

The lists of devices and users are kept in Google Sheets, and the dashboard is integrated with Google Sheets API in UI Bakery.

While the specific mobile software is used to assign and unassign the devices, the web app built with UI Bakery displays the list, status and location of each mobile phone or tablet, and generates QR code for each employee signing up for the dashboard.

The following flow takes place: when the employee needs a device, they take the device, run the mobile software developed specifically for these purposes, scan their personal QR code generated and viewed in the dashboard, and the device is automatically assigned to them. When they want to “finish the rent”, they just click “Unassign”' – and the device gets back into the list with all the available devices.

Later, the dashboard will be evolved into an admin panel allowing administrators to add and remove employees and devices without the need to turn to Google Sheets.

Opting for low-code development with UI Bakery allowed Akveo to:

• Build a fully-functional internal dashboard in 2 hours instead of spending 2-3 days on hand-coding to implement the same project. 
• Get rid of one of the most common difficulties software development companies so often face: how to find a test device within the company when it’s needed.
• Simplify and speed up the process of borrowing a corporate device by employees with an ability to get access to the locations of the devices when needed.