Transcript
If you're a small business stuck in spreadsheets, I want you to take a look at the AI Co-Builder by Softr. Spreadsheets can get you really far, but before long, your day is a lot of copy-pasting or going back and forth between the spreadsheet that's managing tasks and the person who needs to do the work. We are going to show you how we can take a spreadsheet and make an application out of it in one prompt.
By the end of this video, you will see that you can pull this off without any technical experience. You are building on top of an amazing foundation with Softr where they take care of your database. It gives you a friendly, spreadsheet-like interface to use, but with the true power of a database behind it.
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Note from Softr: When moving from spreadsheets to apps, data structure is key. Softr Databases provides a powerful, native way to manage your data directly within Softr for maximum performance, without needing an external tool.
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Softr is going to build the UI for you and take care of all the authentication, permissions, and app structure. You can quickly adjust it with a few clicks once it is done. I really want this technology to work for you as a business owner, and I can't say enough about how this takes app creation to the next level.
You build something that you can have full confidence in. Let's throw the prompt in there, give it a go, and watch what happens. We will start with examining our current spreadsheet.
In this particular situation, we are managing multiple client projects. A project has a client, a client can have multiple projects, and there are many tasks related to every project. Currently, this has to be tracked in the spreadsheet and pasted into Slack to make sure everybody knows what they are up to that day.
This creates a lot of manual back and forth in Slack for the manager and the team to make sure those tasks are being completed. At first, this spreadsheet was a great way to start, but eventually, you hit a ceiling. We want to take this use case and turn it into a prompt we can use in the AI Co-Builder to make our app.
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Note from Softr: You don't have to start from an empty canvas or manually connect data. You can simply open the AI co-builder and describe what you want to build, and it will generate a complete app instantly.
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The first tip here is to open up a chat system like Claude and explain what you are trying to do. This will help generate the best prompt to put into Softr. We are going to give it a sense of our goals, our stuck points, and even provide the raw spreadsheet data.
When it finishes, it will give us the prompt we can use directly in Softr. So we have our spreadsheet, we have our goals, and we have AI helping us write the prompt. Now we can take that prompt and head over to Softr to get started.
We are ready to use our prompt and click the generation button. We are going to get the application we need to turn our tedious workflow into something we can easily manage every day. Let's paste the prompt in there and give it a moment to run.
It will ask a few clarifying questions as it gets going to make sure it understands your business goals. I am going to answer a few things about the business. Sometimes it will ask about permissions and other important details you might not have realized you needed to think about.
Just answer the questions in a way that makes sense for your goals. In my case, I did not want people registering, I just wanted to invite them. For the theme, I chose a top navigation bar and a color scheme that matches the company colors.
It is really that simple because it gets you going and shows the progress on the left side of the screen. On the right, it shows you how it is building your database, which is just amazing. As I mentioned before, the database is very intuitive, giving you that spreadsheet experience but with the advanced capability of relationships and AI integration.
As you watch on the left, it continues to show the progress it is making so you know exactly what is happening. Next, we see the shift from building the database area to constructing the user interface. One of the key separations from your typical AI workflow is that Softr builds this on top of a well-executed foundation.
You are not just building on a blank slate. You are building on top of a platform where you get authentication, database connections, user login systems, and permissions out of the box. You also get all these visual components that are already baked into the system.
It is like coming to a new Lego project where you already have the bricks ready to assemble, rather than trying to 3D print every brick from scratch. You are prompting your way to an application that already has all the pieces you need. Now, if it doesn't have a specific piece you need, like a particular chart, it will automatically generate that custom component for you.
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Note from Softr: If a native block doesn't quite fit your advanced UI needs, you can use the Vibe-Coding block. Just prompt for the exact custom component you want, and Softr will generate the code and connect it to your database seamlessly.
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I really like seeing the checklist update as it builds, giving you a clear sense of progress. Once it finishes, we can open the first window to try the application live. Don't worry, it is not live for the whole world to see because it already has authentication placed in front of it.
We are going to jump into preview mode, which is another huge win for testing. You are able to preview your app and view it through the lens of different user groups and roles. This is a feature that goes far beyond what anyone else in the space is doing right now.
Up at the top, we have a navigation bar for previewing the app as different users. Keep in mind that this bar is part of Softr's internal workspace interface, not the final app itself. While in preview mode, we can look at the application as if I was a manager or a regular team member.
Now let's explore our application and do some quality assurance testing on the permissions. I have built apps like this a number of times, and I still forget how incredible it is that it built this in just five minutes. It has a working search function and the ability to view all my clients and their specific projects.
If I add a project, it will automatically relate it to a project type and link it directly to a client. You get a fully relational data system without needing to be a database expert, far exceeding what spreadsheets can handle. Now you have a dashboard where your team can log in and individually mark their tasks as done.
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Note from Softr: Turning a spreadsheet into a dedicated app like this is perfect for project management. It centralizes tasks, aligns team members, and eliminates the manual back-and-forth of sharing spreadsheet links in Slack.
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You no longer have to manage all of this through manual copy-pasting. We have our task lists and we can easily filter those tasks by the specific project. Back on the homepage, I want to take a closer look at the permission rules it set up.
I am currently logged in as a manager, and you can see that I have the ability to add a client. From a permission standpoint, I do not want just anyone to be able to add a new client. When I switch to a standard user, I can impersonate them to test exactly what they are allowed to see and do.
This is such a nice detail to ensure things are working the way you intended without needing multiple browsers logged into different accounts. When viewing as a standard user, the button to add a client is gone, which is exactly what I want. If I navigate to the projects tab, I also shouldn't see any button to manually add a new project.
If I switch back to viewing as the manager and go to the projects page, the button to add a project reappears. Clicking it opens a nice modal that handles all the data relationships seamlessly. This is built in a way that is fully prepared to scale and grow alongside my client list.
That covers our preview mode testing. Next, I want to tweak a few small things and then get this application published. We still have our Ask AI assistant available in the builder to help us make changes.
If we happen to close the AI assistant, it is always available to open back up and modify elements on the page. In this case, say I just want to change a color or adjust a specific section of the layout. I can simply click on these individual blocks and immediately control their data connections, styles, and settings.
This granular control is a big deal because you don't have to rely entirely on AI to code every little change. You maintain complete control with simple clicks to manually adjust elements since they are built on solid visual blocks. For example, if I wanted to change a list into a table, I could do that with just one click by swapping the block type and shifting the data fields around.
You can easily see how simple it is to come back to your project later to fix or tweak things as needed. Now, let's look at the projects page within the studio. If we navigate to our pages section and open the projects page, I actually noticed a small functional bug that I want to correct.
When I click the open button, that open action needs to be adjusted.
