A Senior Engineering Lead at Persistent Systems, Nimesh Pareek has 12 years of professional experience as a developer and engineer, including two years using Unqork. As one of Unqork Community’s most knowledgeable and active members, Nimesh has been named a subject matter expert (SME) and has earned both his Associate and Professional certificates.

Q: Tell us about an exciting use case you have built using Unqork

Nimesh:  I am working on one of the biggest projects in our office, which is a patient-facing application for a healthcare client. It allows users to book appointments and schedule in-person visits up to six months in advance and also lets them schedule virtual visits. It took about six months to build the application, and we have spent the last two years iterating it continuously.

How does Unqork differ from other software development platforms you have used? 

I spent nine years exclusively working with traditional development technologies, and I feel Unqork provides many advantages. For example, if you have to use an internal database in a traditional development environment, you need to create the integrations from scratch and establish connectivity. With Unqork, you just define your schema, and the rest is taken care of. You just need to set up an operation, which you can create, update, or delete—and that’s it. 

With Unqork you have so many possibilities using the drag-and-drop visual environment, and that means creating or updating a configuration is not a painful task. For example, if you need to add a radio button or a checkbox, or change a radio button to a check box, it’s very fast to do so in Unqork compared to using traditional development technology. You don’t need to add, delete, or change lines of code. It’s just a simple drag-and-drop process, which saves us so much time in the long run. 

Overall, Unqork requires much less time for any development task. For example, if I have to build a new functionality, it might take a month or two in a traditional approach, but with Unqork we can get it done in a ten-day sprint. That opens up many possibilities and lets you really consider how best to serve the customer. 

How does Unqork benefit the business teams you are partnering with?

In today’s world, we have ever-changing business requirements. You may get a requirement today and then after pre-installing it, you may need to discard it and come up with something better. Unqork gives us the flexibility to do this and better serve the business.  

Using a traditional development environment, you might spend a day or two on a requirement and then realize it’s not worth the effort. Then, you find yourself with too little time left to deliver a project in a timely manner. But with Unqork, if you have a new requirement or a request for new functionality, you can often create it in a few hours, and that even includes pushing the change live to production. 

I’d add that Unqork supports integrations with the latest technologies, and even if integrations are not pre-built, Unqork makes it straightforward to connect to them. So overall, Unqork provides a very seamless experience for serving our business partners. 

And how has Unqork helped you better serve your healthcare clients’ customers?

We’ve never had to compromise on any requirement that would better serve the customer. We have never hit a single roadblock. So, I suspect that the customers are quite happy with the features and functionalities that are being delivered. And because we can deliver on requirements easily, we have the time to explore new features and think about how we can make things even better in the future. 

Security and compliance are critical considerations for healthcare organizations. How does Unqork help with that?

In terms of security, there are some very good things about Unqork, like Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). For example in our healthcare application, we have various roles, and not all roles have the same level of permissions to access the application. So, with this role-based access control, we can handle that efficiently and seamlessly. 

The same is true for cloud storage. We upload images on Unqork schema, and then they’re converted to the cloud storage URLs. Again, those are not accessible to anonymous users, which keeps data confidential until users are authenticated and authorized. 

RBAC helps make the process smooth and seamless. If we had to do this with a traditional approach, it would become painful to ensure this happens on every page with a flow. You would need to do a lot of manual coding, which then introduces risk in addition to consuming a lot of developer time. 

“With Unqork, if you have a new requirement or a request for new functionality, you can often create it in an hour, and that even includes pushing the change live to production.”

—Nimesh Pareek, Persistent Systems

What are some of your favorite specific Unqork features and functionalities?

I really like the Data Workflow feature, but recently I have worked extensively with AWS PrivateLink, and that really stands out for me because it’s so seamless. If I have a private link created externally on AWS and just want to connect it with the Unqork’s PrivateLink setup, it takes only two or three steps, and you have a virtual private cloud set up connecting Unqork and AWS. I put AWS PrivateLink at the top of the list because I understand how complicated it would be to do all those configurations manually. 

I would also say Dynamic Refresh is one of my favorites for several reasons. First, it is quite essential in improving the performance. With Dynamic Refresh, you only load the elements of a page that are required on that initial load. Then, if the user performs an action and more elements need to be loaded, they will be pulled in at that instance. 

In addition to improving performance, Dynamic Refresh lets you add multiple modules in a single page without hurting performance. So, you ultimately get more flexibility in designing your application.

Do you have any best practices for using Unqork that you’d like to share with other Unqork creators?

I definitely recommend using the Realtime Configuration Analysis Tool that Unqork offers. It is quite helpful in helping ensure that best practices are being followed. I also recommend getting a report from the Configuration Analysis Tool every 15 days or a month. 

Sometimes, developers just build a functionality, make sure it’s working, and forget to think about best practices. However, using both of these analysis tools really helps you to get to understand in real-time what you are building. 

For example, checking the plug-in calls helps. Sometimes, developers fetch everything and then use the data workflow operation to manage the data. But from a performance point of view, that often just doesn’t make sense. 

Also, only use components if you specifically need them. There’s a tendency of developers to add everything because they think they may need it. However, if you don’t really need it, don’t add it, because eventually that can significantly slow down page load times.

A Senior Software Engineer at Persistent Systems, Aditi Narkhede has more than three years of professional experience as a developer, including two years creating on Unqork. As one of Unqork Community’s most knowledgeable and active members, Aditi has been named a subject matter expert (SME) and is currently working towards her Professional certificate.

Q: Tell us about an exciting use case you have built using Unqork.

Aditi: Right now, I am working on a healthcare application with a very wide range of functionalities. Our main focus is solving pain points for patients, including the ability to make and update appointments with doctors online and a feature that allows them to fill out forms before the doctor’s visit.

What is it like to create in Unqork versus other platforms you have used?  

Before becoming an Unqork Creator, I worked on the Microsoft Power Platform. With that platform, you have to create different chunks of functionality and then externally integrate them. With Unqork, you don’t have to integrate different application components, which makes it much easier to create end-to-end functionality. 

For example, if I needed to send an email trigger to a user with Microsoft Power Platform, I would have to integrate three different streams. In Unqork, I can do it all with an automated workflow application and an API module, because SendGrid provides an integrated messaging service.

How does Unqork make it easier to build out the current use case you are working on?

As I mentioned, we have a very wide range of functionalities in our application. With another platform, we’d be really concerned about how many users are going to use a piece of functionality and how we are going to process all the data involved. But by using the Loops and Workflow functionality in Unqork, it is really easy to process the data required. 

It is also really easy to send different kinds of alerts to the users. And if the business team wants us to add a new persona or role, and even build a customized dashboard for that role, Unqork makes that really easy too. Thanks to module-specific and even component-specific RBAC functionality, It is easy to keep access to the dashboard secure. The whole process, including adding the new role building and the dashboard, wouldn’t take me more than a day.

Security and compliance are obviously very important for healthcare organizations. How does Unqork help with that?

We can easily place role-based access controls not just at the application level but also at the component level. As a result, we don’t need a special security team to do all those configurations. It is really easy for me and my team to define exactly which users, and which types of roles within our organization, can access a certain page and what type of access they have.

How has Unqork improved collaboration with the non-technical teams you are serving?

We work in an agile way, sprint by sprint. Often the clients ask for changes, and Unqork makes it really easy to make those changes without breaking something or impacting other functionalities. That is great, because we can easily accommodate evolving requirements and give the client what they need.

“If the business team wants us to add a new persona or role, and even build a customized dashboard for that role, Unqork makes that really easy… The whole process, including adding the new role building and the dashboard, wouldn’t take me more than a day.”

—Aditi Narkhede, Senior Software Engineer, Persistent Systems

What are some of your favorite specific Unqork features and functionalities?

Unqork recently introduced Dynamic Refresh, which is a great feature in terms of improving the performance of our application. Since it launched, we have been layering the Dynamic Refresh feature into our application and have seen a big improvement in terms of performance of page load times across many pages. With Dynamic Refresh, only the required components are included in the first load of the page. Other components can be fetched only when required according to conditions you set. By doing this, we regularly speed page load times by 50-60%. 

I also like the fact that Unqork lets you use a customized spreadsheet in your configuration where you can do conditional formatting. This gives me the option to do whatever formatting I need in Excel, and so I can maintain those templates easily. This feature is really amazing for reporting purposes. Finally, even though I don’t have a CSS background, Unqork makes it easy for me to do CSS and styling. Thanks to Unqork, I have developed an interest in doing some front-end styling because it is so easy, and that is also becoming one of my favorite things.

Do you have any best practices for using Unqork that you’d like to share with other Unqork creators?

First, I recommend taking a modular approach to building applications. In other words, create small individual components that are, for example, differentiated by role or some other condition. This makes those components easier to reuse in another application or another module, especially if you combine them with the Dynamic Refresh feature. 

Also, make sure you include Error Handling for each API call. Otherwise, the user won’t understand what is happening in case an API call is failing during execution.

And don’t forget that if you have a question, you can always go to Unqork Community Hub. When we face any issue and are not able to resolve it by discussing it with peers, we just go to Community Hub. In most cases, we can get the solution within a few minutes. And when I have free time, I just go to Community to see if there are any open questions that I can help answer.

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.

Q: Let’s start by talking a bit about your background and the work you do. 

John: I’ve been working in the software development space for about 12 years, and I’ve had experience in a range of different areas. I’ve been a test automation developer, a quality assurance developer, an implementation engineer, and a sales engineer. Once I discovered sales engineering I found that it was a really good fit for me—I’m a people person.

What’s your role at Unqork today, and what do your responsibilities look like? 

I’m a sales engineer for Unqork. I’ve been with the company since March 16th—I was one of the last people who got to interview in the office before starting remotely.

A sales engineer has a few different responsibilities, but the overarching responsibility is to bring technical expertise into the sales process. As you work with potential clients, a lot of technical questions come up around things like our architecture, or how we might accomplish certain requirements in our platform. My job is to know all of the answers to those questions—and if I don’t know them, my job is to track those answers down.

The majority of the questions early on are fairly high-level, but more detailed questions need to be answered as we get closer to the contract phase to make sure we’re a good fit for the customer and vice versa.

During these sales conversations, I also work to build a proof of concept for these potential clients. It’s really helpful to be able to build out a small subset of their use-case to prove that we can, in fact, meet their needs and deliver.

“We get a lot of questions about integration because so many companies are dealing with legacy systems that have been a real obstacle. It’s definitely a great selling point because even if there are legacy systems that Unqork can’t directly connect to, we can use available APIs to make that connection.”

What are some common problems that prospective clients are looking to fix?

I would say it’s somewhat of a mixed bag, but I think one of the common themes across all the verticals relates to our ability to integrate with other systems. We get a lot of questions about integration because so many companies are dealing with legacy systems that have been a real obstacle. It’s definitely a great selling point because even if there are legacy systems that Unqork can’t directly connect to, we can use available APIs to make that connection.  

Is selling no-code different from selling other technology stacks you’ve worked with in the past?

I think it’s actually easier. Let’s say a potential client comes to us with a specific use-case and they need an application to accomplish this task. It’s really more of a question of building trust with that potential client, because we can absolutely build an application that meets their needs. That’s not the challenge. The challenge is, “How do I make sure this customer believes in us enough to know that what we’re selling is real?”

A lot of potential clients who have experience with other no-code or low-code platforms have a bad taste in their mouths. We have to fix that problem for them and make sure they believe in us, trust in us, and then I can show them the capabilities of the platform. If all I have to do is build a good rapport with the customer, earn their trust, respond to technical questions, and explain the different ways we might approach a problem, I’d say that’s a lot easier than selling a widget with limited capabilities. Selling Unqork is great because we really just don’t have as many technical challenges to overcome.  

What are the key qualities that you think make a good salesperson?

I think to be in sales at Unqork, a level of creativity is definitely necessary because any given problem can really be solved in a variety of different ways with our platform. Having a bit of creativity and being able to think outside the box allows you to come up with solutions for things that are a little more difficult to do. 

I would also say attention to detail is important, because there are a lot of subtle details that come up in the sales process. Whether it’s a technical challenge or a client requirement, it’ll be more difficult for us to meet needs if we miss the details. Being on the lookout for potential pitfalls might seem like a small thing, but it can be very, very big in terms of scoping.

Finally, although we know this question might be a bit tougher to answer since you’ve had to start work remotely, what can you tell us about the culture at Unqork? 

Yeah, it’s always hard to get a read on culture from a remote position. However, I’ve spent a good amount of time already working with various team members, and I’ve built relationships with those people. The key thing that stands out about Unqork is that everybody is very positive, very team-oriented. Everyone’s willing to help you if you need help. 

I’ve never run into a roadblock where I needed information or needed assistance and no one was there to give it to me. I think that’s something I haven’t found at other companies and I think it’s very unique—that mindset of being one team, one fight. Especially having started remotely, I think that’s been exciting to see, and I’m really happy to be a part of this organization.