An application developer for Colorado’s Arapahoe County, Becky Onifer discusses how she uses Unqork to digitize resident services, tells us what she loves about configuring with Unqork, and shares app development best practices.
Q: Tell us how long you’ve been using Unqork and what certifications have you earned.
Becky: I started working on Unqork in July, 2022, so it’s been more than a year and a half. I took the Associate Configurator learning path, and now I’m in the middle of the professional configurator path. I’ve also earned an SME badge from the Unqork Community.
What use cases are you currently building using Unqork?
We’re tackling a combination of internal and external use cases with Unqork. Externally, it’s all about how we can improve the resident experience for people who live in our county, meeting them where they are. As a local government IT department, we could always use more resources, but with Unqork we can automate and optimize processes internally as well.
Tell us about an exciting use case you’re tackling with Unqork.
We used Unqork to build a curbside ballot pickup app for voters whose ballots are lost or damaged. Voters get a text notification when their ballot is ready. Then, they can text us on-demand when they arrive at the site. Instead of using an appointment-based model, someone will bring the ballot right to their car.
How did Unqork make it easier to build out the curbside ballot app?
The program started with COVID-19 a few years ago, and the county used an all-Microsoft solution, which was extremely limited and felt very hacky. It was really not scalable, and there was no versioning, either.
With Unqork, it became way easier to test, and it’s also more scalable now. Before, standing up a new location was a huge process and resulted in a bunch of duplicate code. With Unqork, we’ve also been able to add in enhancements, like an integration with Twilio. And we can use shared modules and just import them as a panel. And so it’s going to be way easier to scale the app in the future.
What value has the project delivered to stakeholders, including the tech teams, business teams, and end users?
It is going to be way easier for the tech team to test and maintain. The reusability and composability of Unqork has been really big for us. In government, we’ve got all kinds of systems, big and small. If we’re able just to switch out small pieces here and there, that’s really beneficial.
For the actual election staff, it means less setup on their side for every election. It’s also an overall more intuitive solution for them. For residents, we’re better able to meet them where they are. Instead of having to make an appointment, we send them a notification, and then they can come and pick up their ballot at any time.
quickly to show the elections team what the app might look like. That’s been a theme across projects that we’re doing in Unqork.”
—Becky Onifer, Application Developer, Arapahoe County
Has Unqork made it easier to collaborate with the non-technical teams you are serving?
Yes. For example, we met a lot with the elections team. We could show them what Unqork is, what we can do with it, and how it can help them. I was able to build a POC really fast and make changes quickly to show the elections team what the app might look like. That’s been a theme across projects that we’re doing in Unqork. It’s not a huge time investment to spend a couple of days building a quick proof of concept to see if it’s something we want to move forward with or not.
How is Unqork helping you optimize internal business processes for the county?
A lot of our internal use cases involve a little app or a little form that’s not quite meeting the need. But with our limited resources, it doesn’t warrant building a full custom-built solution using traditional methods. Unqork has been great because we can solve the problem in a short period of time and have a good outcome.
What are your favorite things about building on Unqork?
First, the ability to integrate with other systems easily is really beneficial. I didn’t know the terminology or how to connect to external systems before using Unqork, and I was able to learn it pretty quickly.
The other thing I like is the styling. It’s really easy to build a nice-looking app with the default styles, which are great and look good automatically, And then if you need any customizations, I like the flexibility that you can do your own style sheet with your own customizations. I didn’t have experience with CSS, but it was a good way to get my feet wet, and it helps if you’re trying to make something look like the rest of your branding.
Please share some best practices you’ve discovered using Unqork that you’d like to share with other Unqork creators.
The first best practice is very specific but very useful. With API modules, always use the sse.httpResponseCode. If you build an API module and you’re calling another module or you’re calling a back-end service and then you execute your API, it will automatically show the 200 Response Code regardless of what happened on the backend. So if there was an error, it’s still going to show success. It’s a better user experience to pass the error back to the calling module by setting the sse.httpResponseCode, because you can choose what to do if an error occurs. Then you can let the user know .
I’d also say, even though Unqork requires zero code, you’re still building software and need to take the time to think it through and architect it. With a lot of low-code/no-code solutions, you can’t really do anything complicated, but with Unqork you can. So, you need to ask yourself what’s the best way to build us, how you can make it maintainable, and consider how it fits in with your other systems.
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