Connecting to Knack Database

[Jamie]

Hi all. Thank you in advance for reading and providing input

I built a web app using Knack that’s fully functional. Essentially my users take a quiz and one of multiple profiles is assigned to the user based on conditional logic. The logic and databases sit within Knack. The user would then access their profile data to support daily decision making.

I am new at this but 1) at a minimum I am interested in finding a way to stand up a native mobile app for my users to access their Knack profile data and 2) at a maximum determine if Adalo can work with all of my Knack user/admin workflows.

Has anyone connected Adalo to Knack’s database objects and if so, what advice would you have for me as I start this journey? Thank you again.

[appwebmobile]

I am taxed at the moment but I would LOVE to eventually figure out the same Jamie!!! I loved Knack for MANY reasons but I love Adalo for design!!! Integrating these two as a no-coder without much api experience at all, would be monumental!!

@Victor @anon78309838 @Adaloguy @ishantanusrivastava anyone else??

I did just think about placing an app that I have completed in Knack…in a web view in our PWA / web app. I don’t know what that does for performance but I would think it could only increase it especially if we can connect the two with api for some get, put action?.?.

[James_App_Maker]

Hi @appwebmobile @Jamie,

Did you read Knack’s API docs? You could probably bring in data with their API connected to External Collections.

If you’re creating, updating, or deleting records, you could probably use their API in a custom action.

Introduction to the API

@Jamie welcome to the Community!

[appwebmobile]

I did see that @James_App_Maker ! I’m not experienced enough to connect the two yet I guess. They seemed to leave out just a couple things that I am not familiar enough with to plow through and make it happen…yet.

It looks easy(ish) with both parties api awesomeness, I’m just missing a couple small pieces of the puzzle I think… Any suggestion on how to connect the two, an example of how to or hire it done if all else fails? Going broke lol. If I could get one accomplished I’m sure I could figure it out from there. Let me know if you have any resources or links that explain it in lay man’s terms. Thanks much!

[James_App_Maker]

No worries. I can’t really do anything at the moment because I don’t have an account with them.

[appwebmobile]

Ahh I see. Well, I know where to find our Knack api key and appID and I have accomplished a custom action or two I just get lost in the process or probably just missing one thing due to being overwhelmed at the moment. I may post if I get it figured out. Or maybe @adaloguy would know how to add that to his api services yah ?

This would be great to also split up users and companies for better performance of our Adalo app too wouldn’t it? As an alternative to Airtable etc…

[Jamie]

Thanks for your contributions here @appwebmobile and @James_App_Maker.

I am not knowledgeable enough (yet!) to connect Knack and Adalo but am going to roll up my sleeves to find a solution. I need to define my requirements more precisely and will then read through the API docs as best I can.

Welcome others comments if they can add to the conversation.

[appwebmobile]

Knack users would probably come running to Adalo for that combo!!! If you would, let me know as well, thanks! I will do the same if I get if figured out sometime soon.

@theadaloguy has an api service that came in handy for texting, (www.adalify.com) if you are doing anything with sms / mms. Maybe if we are lucky he has time to add knack to his service as well. Don’t mean to put you on the spot but man that would open up doors for MANY! There are lots Knackers that I think would jump over to Adalo platform for the best of the best with the best! Almost guaranteed @ben1 @anon78309838 or @anyone who can accomplish this probably in a matter of minutes .

[ben1]

@appwebmobile @Jamie what features about Knack DB are the most enticing for you?? I’ll spend some time this week to investigate this, but would also love what we could work on in Adalo to make this conversation unnecessary?(not in the near future, but just generally)

[Victor]

Hi @Jamie @appwebmobile,

I agree with @James_App_Maker that most probably you can connect Knack tables as external collections to Adalo.
As I can imagine even filtering should work.

The potential roadblock though is the user authentication. I’m not sure how this is handled in Knack and how this could be connected to Adalo (I mean, having a single user DB).

Best regards, Victor.

[appwebmobile]

Good morning gentlemen! You guys are early risers I see…
Web App / PWA only…

@ben1
Thanks Ben, I may forget some things as I haven’t been in there for a couple months (been figuring out the ins and outs of Adalo) but a couple things would be…

• The builder interface is also very user-friendly and thoughtless in a way, requiring little mental energy to build. (And that may just be because I was there first and running out of energy lol?.?.)

• Some of the “components” & views are so easy to work with and include things like form options (timer, complete signature / stores image in db, maps use here maps to stay away from google / fees and have location detection, search within mile/radius, custom map markers, allowing custom filtering for users, resize images as they are uploaded with simple settings in the builder, “time functionality” (I have never received a reply to my posts about time clock functionality in Adalo) and several more

• Setting access to pages / views is very simplified

• Calendars are very advanced and easy to setup / customize and they just work

• You can also embed any view anywhere and it remains whitelabeled to the user. Hides the company’s url etc…

• Multilingual by selecting a dropdown…

• You can copy / duplicate many different things like views / tables / forms / etc. Saving a ton of time and energy recreating.

• There’s some more but I can’t remember them all without more coffee.

You guys are both awesome, one just advanced in one way and one in the other way…and “one” is catching up to the other in both ways, just not yet respectfully. (From what I see anyway)

If ever I could set 2 companies up on a date with the hopes of getting married, it would be you two

@Victor
Thanks Victor! I’ll try to make sense here but again, I’m not experienced in this realm of things. I’ve always been too overwhelmed to really let it sink in… So bare with me

Yes, as mentioned I would be using it like I see many recommend… splitting up our Adalo app by using an external database to increase efficiency of our apps. As far as filtering and authentication I’m a rookie! In their developer docs there is this:

" The API is used to make requests to create, retrieve, update, or delete records that are stored in your Knack apps.

Requests are made for records from either a specific object in your app or a specific view on one of your pages.

Object-based requests require an API key and have full access to every field and record in your app.

View-based requests follow the rights and fields that were set up in the view, so no API key is required. For example, requesting records from a table view would only return fields for the columns that are included on that table.

All requests are authenticated via HTTP headers that need to be passed in with each request.

Note that you can make a maximum of 10 requests to the Knack API per second, while your plan will determine your daily API call limit. Read more about limits here."

LIke @Jamie I was using Knack before coming to Adalo and I have our entire app built over there too. I want to use portions of Knack tables and views to improve our app instantly while things evolve with further development of the Adalo platform. Our Knack app would be performing some of the tasks of our 105 screen Adalo app that will (hopefully) be used by thousands or more of businesses daily (like time clock management for example and/or storing of users data, images and other…).

Thanks much and please let me know if anyone can help me / us with this!!! Good day!

Update: I just tried building an html page with the other app login, embedded in a web view and then loading it in our pwa and it does not completely load. Just the menu of the html page loads. Does adalo web app accept javascript embed code?

Update again for info to new users: Found that there is an in-app web browser! I read that the webview is better for viewing pdf’s?? But loading the Knack app worked using link > website > set advanced settings to use in-app browser. Nice! It loaded it in a new window though…how can we make this load in the app, like an in-app web browser???

If we can connect custom actions to put and get some data & open views from Knack in our Adalo app!! .

[appwebmobile]

Update ALL IN THE SAME PLACE: !! And now I have things that worked yesterday and I spent ALL DAY getting them to work correctly, simply aren’t showing up as I’m testing the above approach. @ben1 , this is a big reason why I want and NEED to connect Knack somehow for now. It just works and not hard to figure out how. But it lacks your design ability!

I cannot get an in-app browser to appear and I’ve tried creating a link to a website, both with the url directly in it (opens in new tab, not in-app) and tried putting it in a collection and opening the url from there. I’ve tried from a button, from text, in a webview component which has only loaded a menu in the html portion of the page I have our embed code (with script / javascript involved). I tried making it a list with a button inside of it just for the so much fun of it too. I am worn out hombre’s.

The text at the top of one of our home screens has shown the full name of the business (from the collection) for months now, it has also disappeared with no change to it… I don’t know if I accidentally moved something and it jacked the order of my layers again or what but it’s no longer there.

My icon (notifications bell icon) that has worked and tested for awhile now just disappeared after logging in fresh. Still no company name showing up either.

But to find that what I finished and tested last night is not working mysteriously I am out of time. I had sums in a list, that finally worked to add up users billable hours for one person’s assistant, between one date to another (set by the company) and nothing has changed. I could NOT get the formula to work, that I know should have worked the way I had it. (company’s>connectedClient>billablehours>sum x company’s>connectedClient’s>hourlyRate). AT least the sums worked and were showing in the list…and now it’s all vanished.

[appwebmobile]

I “THINK” I am almost there but cannot get past this point!!! Can anyone tell me why this is invalid?? I’ve tried every possible thing to make it valid json and NOTHING is working. I tried a space between the ": (colon) and the “email”, and no spaces. Tried semicolon in case my eyes are getting bad…nothing.

Heeeeeeelp? @James_App_Maker @ben1 @Victor @theadaloguy ?? Allllmost there I think.

[James_App_Maker]

@appwebmobile try removing the comma after field_40.

[appwebmobile]

Well that worked @James_App_Maker James! Except I got this on the next screen lol

[James_App_Maker]

are you trying to get users account details? because that would be a “get”

[appwebmobile]

Hmmm, that’s where I get confused sometimes. I’m trying to create this action to have an Adalo field component create a user in the knack app so that I can split up the users in our 105 screen Adalo app…for now. Am I thinking backwards?

[James_App_Maker]

so once a user signs up you want to add the user to your knack database?

[appwebmobile]

Yes for the moment! And then hopefully figure out how to pull that info back into the Adalo app for use in different places

[ben1]

Are you sending a value for “name” in the test? I also wonder if you swap 41<>40 order if it would work. It may just see 41 and fail because an earlier field than the first field in the request is required.