How and why I use Retool to create Admin Back Offices
About me
I'm Abdurrachman, a software engineer, mentor, and consultant. I serviced clients and worked with companies at various staged from single-founder, an early-stage startup, to unicorn and multi-billion dollar MNC.
The problem I wanted to solve
I'm running my software development agency, kulkul.tech, an EdTech company which mission is to help software engineers in Indonesia advance their skills with our expert-led workshops and courses. We also serviced client from all over the world and build product with them. One of integral part on building software system is having really good Back Office to operate the system on Production.
From the other perspective we're specializing on JAMStack (JavaScript, API, and Markup stack). For example in a project where I use Firebase, I can always open for Firebase Admin Console, but there's always need for full-fledge admin dashboard for the software operations.
What is a Cost-effective Admin Back Office?
I define a cost-effective admin back office as a tool that helps the company that uses software for their operation to have a tool to manage their operation. For example, an insurance company might need an admin dashboard to check their insurance operations e.g. insurance application, lead from agent, etc; a bank might need system to manage bank account creation, credit card application, etc.
I also consider engineering cost and financial cost as consideration. Retool, the tool I'm introducing today provide free access to create back-office if you don't plan to have access-control. This is suitable for early-stage startup, but when your business is big enough, you might consider upgrading to paid plan that supports access-control.
Tech stack
Primarily at my company I'm using JAMStack to develop back-office system for my clients and our internal tool. The tech stack might look like this
- Client Side: React with Gatsby.js
- Database: Firebase
- Back office: Retool. A no-code platform for building back office
In this post I want to emphasis on Retool as a back office system. Retool has a clear objective to help companies build internal tools remarkably fast.
The process of building a Back Office using Retool
- Register for a Retool account here
- Make sure you have database access to your system, it supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebase, Google Sheet, and many more.
- Connect your database system
- Create your first back office using Retool. You can create a query to your database by using few clicks. See the demo below to learn more.
Challenges I faced
While for most basic use case all the basic building blocks of Retool are sufficient, for our use case sometimes we need more functionality, for example because I'm using Firebase, a NoSQL database. In a NoSQL database I need to change data on multiple places, this operation sometimes complex enough that the basic building block is not enough. When facing this issue my approach is writing JavaScript script to compose multiple different query and sometimes combine it with API.
Key learnings
- Retool is a cost effetive way to create back-office admin especially for early-stage startup.
- Retool has complete building blocks to create internal tools you need. While most things are easy to implement using no-code building blocks, sometimes you need to create simple script to achieve functionality you wanted.
Tips and advice
- If you're a member of Startup School, you'll get opportunity to get $5k in Retool credits. Consider joining Startup School when it open. Last time YC plans to open it 4 times a year.
Final thoughts and next steps
There are several good resources to try Retool for your next project, here are my favorites:
- Official Retool, 4 minute demo
- February NY Enterprise Tech Meetup: Retool Demo
About Me 😄
I'm Abdurrachman and currently, I'm managing a software development agency called Kulkul.tech. We're a web and mobile software development company providing excellent software for business. We're working with companies all over the world from a single-person business to large corporates. We are a solid remote-first firm with a high emphasis on people and clear communication.
We begin each project with understanding the client's business and problem then provide a contextual solution and applicable technology. We make sure that cooperation with us develops the business of our client.
We provide excellent engineers and designers to deliver a complete product from spec gathering, product road mapping, UI/UX design, development, QA, and DevOps.
We're experts in the following technologies:
- JavaScript and Node.js
- Python and Django
- Ruby on Rails,
- Mobile (iOS and Android) especially Flutter
- DB: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB,
- Frontend: Elm, React, Angular
We working in Codementor too, please reach me in Codementor if you're interested.
