In our documentation, we provide practical info about the Ninox application sorted by topics.

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Your Ninox Product team

To create your own applications, whether it’s an invoice management system, event calendar or customer management solution (CRM), you normally need detailed knowledge of at least one programming language.

With Ninox, though, you can

• get started straight away without any prior programming skills or knowledge about coding and

• easily create your own applications that are always flexible and customizable.

But before we get started, we would like to briefly familiarize you with a few terms, as these will keep cropping up.

We recommend that you simply click through the tutorial in sequence by pressing the Next button (on the bottom right-hand side).

Of course, you can also navigate to specific topics individually.

Now for the terms, you need to know, as you will keep coming across them ...

Forms

In some applications (especially databases), a structured window, box, or other self-contained element provides a visual filter for the underlying data it is presenting.

A form can also be a template into which you enter information (data). For example, first and last names, customer addresses, etc.

Views

A view shows only the data selected for that particular view. You can therefore determine which content should be displayed and how.

With large amounts of data, it makes sense to only display the information that is specifically needed, for instance, you might want to show only those customers who paid by credit card and spent more than €1,000 in the last week.

Databases

A database is a collection of data structured so that you can easily search for and retrieve items.

If you take a closer at our logo, you might recognize the standard symbol for databases in it. At least, that’s the idea behind it…

Tables

Tables contain data. A table is a database object that stores data in records (rows) and fields (columns).

The data usually relates to a specific category of people or things, such as employees or orders. You’re probably familiar with this from using Excel spreadsheets.

A database can consist of various tables.

Table structure

Tables are really important when it comes to databases. That’s why we would like to take a look at their structure. But don’t worry, we’ll come back to them again when we work through an example in a moment.

Applications, often simply called apps, are complete, self-contained computer programs developed for end users.

Applications perform specific and useful tasks that have nothing to do with the IT system itself or its maintenance; and can include mobile and desktop programs.

Ninox is such an application. Ninox runs everywhere via the cloud (i.e. in your browser), but is also available as a native app for Android and Apple.

Have fun!

We will now create a form with various fields in which we want to enter our data.

Preparation

For our example, we need the following fields:

More information on the individual Field types

Procedure

Here you can watch us do it. Watch and copy!

Result

After you have dragged the corresponding fields from the right column to the center in the table settings, it should look like this.

Everything OK? Then we’ll move on...

Before we save the changes, we would like to make a few updates.

You’ve already clicked the Save button? Then we will quickly show you how to return to editing.

How to do it

1. Go to the table where you want to make some updates.

2. Click the gear icon in the top left corner.

3. Select Edit fields from the drop-down menu and you’re back in the table settings.

Take a look

Every Ninox project starts with a database where you store your information.

How to do it

1. Go to the Ninox homepage and click the Login button in the upper right corner (more about Create account).

2. Log in to your Ninox account.

3. Click the Start Ninox button. The Ninox app opens in your browser.

4. In the app screen, click on New database.

Ninox offers a variety of different templates that you can use as needed, for instance for your address book, collections, own custom CRM or inventory, and much more. However, here we are creating our own small database from scratch to manage events. Step by step ...

How to do it

1. We create our database without a template and select Blank database at the top. This opens an empty database.

2. Your new database needs a name. In the New database pop-up, enter the name Event Management and then click the Create database button.

3. Your new database is ready.

Now we will continue working with the Event Management database that we’ve just created.

Tables

We will now create an Events tabIe in this Event Management database. There we will store information for each new event, such as the agenda, venue, participants, etc.

Each table in a database is assigned a name, ideally so that you know straight away as to which information is held in this database.

Reminder: Table structure

Here are the most important terms again.

Creating and naming a table

Open your new Event Management database.

How to do it

1. Then click on New table in the next screen.

2. The table settings open.

3. Enter a name for your table under Table name. Since this table will hold data about events, we will name it Events (this is a bit shorter).

You don’t need to save it yet, as we are about to continue working in the table settings.

You can display the options stored in a Choice field in 3 different ways.

Combobox

The desired value is selected from a drop-down menu.

Recommended use

• There is a default option, which can be placed at the top of the selection list

• There are more than 7 entries (then it’s best to sort them alphabetically)

• The options do not need to be compared

• A “More” or “Other” option is needed

Radio Buttons

All options are visible. Simply click on the desired value.

Recommended use

• All options should be visible at a glance

• When there are 5 or less choices

• It should be possible to compare the options

• It should be possible to quickly select them

Switch

In our example this would probably not be the best choice, as there are 4 options. Nevertheless, we would like to show it to you so that you can get a better idea as to how the different display options compare.

Recommended use

• There are up to 3 options

• There is a default option

• It should be possible to toggle quickly between 2 simple options like On and Off (if you need only Yes and No, we recommend the Yes / No field).