Make your own Online App!
And other ways to take advantage of
the Cloud
Perseus Rex Molina
“Libraries Without Walls”
St. Paul Center for Renewal
October 21, 2014
The World Today...
“The world is being reshaped by the convergence
of social, mobile, cloud, big
data, community and other
powerful forces. The
combination of these
technologies unlocks an
incredible opportunity to
connect everything together
in a new way and is
dramatically transforming
the way we live and work.”
Marc Benioff
founder and CEO of salesforce.com,
a cloud computing company
Outline
What we will explore:
●Cloud computing? What’s that?
●Should I use Software-as-a-Service for/in my
services? (The whys and why-nots)
●How to make it “SaaS-y”. Leveraging SaaS
for work!
●Take it from experience: Practical samples of
how to use SaaS
What is Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS)?
●Part of “cloud computing” concepts
●Aka “hosted applications”
●software and associated data are centrally
hosted on the cloud (over the Internet)
The Cloud
Used to refer to any network, but now usually
refers to the Internet in general
Cloud computing layers
Software-as-a-Service
Samples
Email
Software-as-a-Service
Samples
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Software-as-a-Service
Samples
Content Creation, Class Management & Other
Educational Tools
Software-as-a-Service
Samples
Online Storage, Office Suites, Social media and others
Google Apps?
Nov. 2012- DLSU started to shift
email services of employees from MS Exchange
to Google Apps for Education Edition
Rationale of the IT Services Office:
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Lower infrastructure costs
Ability to consolidate platforms
Lower support costs
Innovative solutions
Highly scalable environment
Access to services anytime, anywhere
More collaboration features
Instant messaging
Advantages of SaaS
●Can reduce IT support costs by outsourcing
hardware and software maintenance and
support to SaaS provider
●No installation, can be accessed anywhere
●Scalability - grows with your business
●Upgradeability - auto-updates
●Resilience - disaster-proof in business’ area
Disadvantages of SaaS
●Internet connection required
●Security - would you entrust company data to
someone/where else?
●Outages - inspect Service Level Agreement
●Upgradeability - auto-updates
●Compliance - are legal requirements met?
Disadvantages of SaaS
●Data mobility - can your data be transferred
elsewhere?
●Software integration
●Cost - Pricing model of apps can be more
costly than on-location software if user is not
careful
Google Apps & Productivity
Mail
•Organize the library’s email support inbox by adding
tags/folders, categorizing them by type of email
(notifications, high priority, etc.) and status
(“Answered”, “Forwarded”, “Followup”, etc.)
Google Apps & Productivity
Mail
•Using the email delegation feature so that reference
librarians can simultaneously login to their personal
account and the library support email.
Google Apps & Productivity
Drive
•Sharing of and collaborating on documents
Google Apps & Library Marketing
Drive
Embedding of uploaded
documents to blogs and
other sites.
Google Apps & Library Marketing
Blogger
Creation of library
newsette/blog
Google Apps & Productivity
Sites
Creation of Information-Reference Dashboard
• One-stop site for reference tools and other resources
needed in the IRS
• Can be accessed by reference librarians only
• Created by templates, widget codes, etc. (work in
progress)
Google Apps & Productivity
Sites
Google Apps & Productivity
Sites
Google Apps & Productivity
Google Apps & Productivity
Integrating various apps for
collaborating on reference services
Google Apps & Productivity
Integrating various apps for
collaborating on reference services
Google Apps & Productivity
Integrating various apps for
collaborating on reference services
Google Apps & Productivity
Integrating various apps for
collaborating on reference services
DLSU’s Reference
Platform/Suite SaaS
Springshare
• LibAnswers
• LibGuides
• LibCal
LibAnswers – Online Reference
Platform
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Email, Chat, SMS & Twitter Channels
Create unlimited FAQs
Searchable Public Knowledge Base
Full Reference Statistics
Embed chat anywhere
LibAnswers – Online Reference
Platform
LibGuides – Web Publishing
Platform
• Create subject, course, or topic Guides
• Use LibGuides as your library website
• For curation and knowledge-sharing
LibGuides – Web Publishing
Platform
LibCal – Calendaring Solution
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Manage Calendar & Event Registrations
Create an Online Room Booking System
Display Library & Departmental Hours
Manage Consultation Appointments
LibCal – Calendaring Solution
Other handy SaaS
SuperSaaS
•Online appointment scheduling for facilities or oneon-one tutorial services (up to 50 users, 50
appointments a month free)
Other handy SaaS
Gliffy
•Online diagramming/flowcharting software.
•Can also be used to create floor plans (up to 5
diagrams free)
Other handy SaaS
Dipity
•create, share, embed & collaborate on interactive,
visually engaging timelines that integrate video,
audio, images, text, links, social media, location &
timestamps (up to 3 timelines free)
Create your own SaaS!
Zoho Creator
•Free plan: 3 apps, 3 users, 750 records
Create your own SaaS!
iFreeTools Creator
•Free plan: unlimited apps, 10 users, 2,500 records
Create your own SaaS!
iFreeTools Creator
• offers free hosted applications for business needs
• enables one to build custom database apps without
programming skills required
• log in using a Google or Yahoo account
Create your own SaaS!
iFreeTools Creator
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Built over Google App Engine
● What is Google App Engine?
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lets you run web applications on Google's
infrastructure
no servers to maintain
supports apps written in several programming
languages (Java, Python, or Go runtime environments)
All applications can use up to 1 GB of storage and
enough CPU and bandwidth to support an efficient app
serving around 5 million page views a month,
absolutely free
Reference Referrals Database
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library account + IRS staff has read/write access
Why was it created?
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for reference referral service
to have a database of contact info of libraries and
other resource centers plus their visitor
requirements
can be accessed simultaneously by any IRS
workstation/s
changes reflected instantly
instant search by keyword/s
sortable by attributes
Reference Referrals Database : How
was it created?
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First, create an entity named "Library"
Reference Referrals Database : How
was it created?
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Then, give attributes to the created entity
Reference Referrals Database : How
was it created?
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Choose which entity to associate the attribute
Choose a data type for every attribute
Reference Referrals Database : How
was it created?
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Name the attribute
Give a number index to the attribute (determines
order in forms)
Option for attribute to require value
Reference Referrals Database : How was it created?
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There are also options depending on attribute's
data type
Reference Referrals Database : How
was it created?
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An attribute's value can also depend on
another attributes' value (calculated via formula) or
can be validated to be within a specific range (via
expression)
Reference Referrals Database : Using
the database
Reference Referrals Database : Using
the database
Reference Referrals Database : Using
the database
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Actions
View Details
Edit Details
Delete
Duplicate
Reference Referrals Database : Using
the database
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Instant view: clicking on a row will show full details
of the record at bottom of the page.
Reference Referrals Database : Using
the database
• Other features: toggle visible columns, instant
search, sorting, filtering
ILL/DD Tracking System : Using the
database
Create your own SaaS!
iFreeTools Creator
Create your own SaaS!
iFreeTools Creator
Conclusion...
“The Libraries’ forays into
utilizing Software-as-aService applications have
been successful so far, and
not only are SaaS
applications faster to
deploy, but they free the
Libraries from installation,
maintenance and hardware
requirements a typical
software for team
collaboration may
demand.”
Thank you for listening!
Questions?