Internal news app: Squad Daily
Communication is important. Even though we’re not a multinational, with a growing team of consultants (who aren’t in the office daily) we find it crucial that everyone stays informed about what’s happening within our company. Whether it’s about new clients, new colleagues joining, apps going live, marketing activities we’re working on or scheduled events.
We were looking for a way to facilitate this in such a way that it wouldn’t be just one-way communication; everyone should be able to share his or her news. So, where to start? We knew what we didn’t want. We didn’t want to use email, a Slack channel, a Whatsapp group, (bi-)weekly calls, a newsletter or videos.
We wanted something that suits Squad Apps. One plus one still equals two, so it had to be an app!
News App
We took the app and website of the Dutch public broadcasting foundation (NOS) as an example, because a) it has the same goal as we have (informing) and b) we all find it very user-friendly.
“But can we really build the NOS app with Mendix?”
“Miranda, everything is possible with Mendix.”
Okay, let’s go!
Can we help you?
Contact Martijn!
No items found.
Development Process
We asked our colleague and Mendix consultant Kris to build the app. He had one week for it, as he started working for one of our clients the week after. He worked tirelessly and with great results! After four working days, the following functionality was in place:
- Login capability (only Squadrians have access to the app)
- Overview of posted articles, with the two most recent ones prominently featured at the top
- Ability for everyone to post articles with a main image and optionally additional images
- Ability to edit/delete your own posts
- Commenting feature (with emojis)
- Admin user role that can:some text
- Create editors so you can see who posted the article
- Create categories
- Grant admin rights
- Delete posts
Then he, along with colleagues Wesley, Erik, Walter and Sander, worked on the finishing touch(es) to ensure the app looks perfect.
Squad Daily
Here’s how it works now. As a user, you can read and post news articles. These consist of a title, header image, description and optionally additional images. Type the article in a user-friendly editor, select a category and once published, it’s immediately visible on the overview page. It’s as easy as pie!
The app works flawlessly and it looks great on mobile devices and desktop. Seeing is believing, because I might be a bit biased, so here’s some footage of our latest asset ‘Squad Daily’.
After a week, we also added the ‘push notifications’ feature. These come through via Slack, your phone and your smartwatch - if you enable them in your settings, of course.
This is Squad Apps.
And this is what I love about working at Squad Apps: someone has a great idea, we figure out how to make it happen and we just do it! And it’s not a half-baked solution; we now have a fully functioning and (very) beautiful app that we can use as a platform for our internal communication.
At Squad Apps, we always aim for the best results. For ourselves and for our clients.
Curious about what we can do for you? Or would you like to be part of our squad? Get in touch with us!
PS “Miranda, everything is possible with Mendix.” That wasn’t a lie.
PPS If you’re interested in the technical aspects of the app, drop me a message. I’ll ask my Mendix colleagues to write a separate blog about it.
