Create a Web App from an Excel file in Just 5 Minutes
APEX is a platform that allows you to build web apps without coding experience. I have developed many web applications from scratch, but not many with full production capabilities because that is hard even for technical people.
Sometimes you need really complex business rules and carefully crafted features on your web. However, in many cases, you need to build a web to aggregate information from different users and sources, show them the information they need to do their job, build reports and the like—kind of an Excel spreadsheet but in a web format.
Also, engaging with your development team takes time and coordination. What if you could drag and drop your excel file, where you are manually tracking the information, into APEX and build a web app with an easy wizard. That is what is about to happen here.
In the end, if it is not what you were looking for, that’s fine. You have spent just 5 minutes of your time giving a good try to something that otherwise might be exactly the solution that enables you to have accurate information, updated by users across your organization so you can do better things with your time.
Why APEX?
It is an established platform with a lot of users working with it on production. A ton of documentation, samples apps, tutorials, videos, etc. are available on the official web site:
Visit Apex Official website!
A big community is ready to help you, the same way you can return the favour by helping others. To have an idea, there is a dashboard where you can track what is happening on the APEX community: slack channel, Twitter hashtags and the newsfeed.
Visit Apex World dashboard!
It is flexible, available in cloud (simple to use) or on-premise (for technically-savvy users). The simplest way to try it out is in the cloud. Oracle Cloud has a convenient fully-managed APEX service as part of their Free Tier.
Dedicate just 5 minutes
We will create an APEX instance to hold our web applications and the data of your spreadsheet.
Do you have an Excel file to try? If not, don’t worry. You can choose from different samples included in the wizard.
Do you have an Oracle Cloud Account? If not, you can create one in a few minutes.
Remember, Oracle Cloud does not charge you anything unless you explicitly request the upgrade to paid account in the future.
All the steps in a short video
Oracle Cloud operations team manages APEX as a Service; you are only responsible for the lifecycle of the instance: create, use and terminate, all of this done with a few clicks.
You will create an APEX instance. Then, a workspace, APEX can hold several web apps created in a Workspace. The next step would be to load your Excel file. That is all.
Want to learn more?
If you like what you’re reading and interested in taking on some of these challenges with our team, do check out our free training sessions on many topics like Spatial and Graph, Document database, APEX, Digital Assistant, etc. The next event is:
There are periodic free training sessions, around 1 hour long, done by experts and Oracle Cloud Advocates. These are instructor-led training. You can follow along with our team to solve your questions on the spot.
And keep tuned for more articles about the amazing things you can build with Oracle Cloud.
I am Victor Martin, a Software Developer. I deploy on Oracle Cloud Infrastructre.
Feel free to get connected with me on LinkedIn.
I am also interested on Scuba diving and space engineering. Happy to help, everything is easier than rocket science!
