Digital App Builder

improve this page | report issue

Overview

IBM Digital App Builder is a low-code tool, which helps to quickly create mobile, web and PWA (Progressive Web App) multi-channel applications with AI capabilities powered by Watson services. The apps created using the Digital App Builder leverage IBM Mobile Foundation V8 (on-prem or cloud) for security, backend connectivity, and analytics.

The key features of the IBM Digital App Builder are as follows:

  • Use this tool to quickly build digital apps that can run on multiple channels. The Digital App Builder provides the ability to drag-and-drop components to quickly build an app. This app can be targeted to multiple channels, like apps for iOS (iPhone, iPad), Android (Phone, Tabs), Progressive web apps (PWA), and web pages.

  • Easily integrate Watson AI capabilities like Chatbot and Visual Recognition. Adding a chatbot or visual recognition capabilities to the app becomes as easy as adding a control. Also easily train the AI service by adding a set of questions and answers or drag-and-drop a set of images to classify. There is no need for a data scientist to build a complex machine-learning model.

  • Add data bound controls for microservice backends. A wizard can be used to import an Open API specification (Swagger) for a microservice. This helps to create a dataset for building a frontend for the service which is bound to a data-bound UI control in the app. Switch to code view for performing advanced coding on the app.

  • Add push notifications services as part of Engagements.

  • Use Live Update to dynamically toggle app features on or off after the app is live.

  • Code the app by deploying mock REST APIs to mimic an actual microservice in production.

  • An app owner can enable Analytics for the app. The app now sends data to the Mobile Foundation server.

The app created uses open source technologies like Cordova, Ionic, and Angular. You can preview the app for various form factors before it is deployed. You can also use the quick start templates to build your apps (for example, Watson chatbot).

Samples to get started with Digital App Builder

  1. Create a new sample app using Digital App Builder.
  2. Add a Watson Chatbot to your new app.
  3. Add some application function code to your app.
  4. Test your application against backend code by building some mock backend APIs.
  5. Invoke a microservice backend from your app.
  6. Use an API Proxy to invoke backend microservices from your app.
  7. Engage your app users by adding the capability to send app notifications.
  8. Add feature toggle capability to govern the features your apps provide.
  9. Obtain insights on your app usage by adding custom analytics.
  10. Listen to the feedback for your app by using in-app feedback.

Note: You can also follow the instructions in the Readme for this git repository to get started with the above Digital App Builder samples.

Tutorials to follow

Find below further information about the product:

▲
Inclusive terminology note: The Mobile First Platform team is making changes to support the IBM® initiative to replace racially biased and other discriminatory language in our code and content with more inclusive language. While IBM values the use of inclusive language, terms that are outside of IBM's direct influence are sometimes required for the sake of maintaining user understanding. As other industry leaders join IBM in embracing the use of inclusive language, IBM will continue to update the documentation to reflect those changes.
Last modified on July 17, 2020