CloudBase Updates: Time Tracking, Gemini Tips, and Tools We Love

If your organization uses one app for timekeeping and a different app for tracking projects and tasks, stop the insanity. Save your company the money, time, and headaches by doing all of the work in one system.

It simplifies time reporting. It provides up-to-the-minute information on the actual cost and status of the work. It eliminates the cost and complexity of having two or three systems when one will do.

Want to see it in action? Watch a quick demo here.

Question: I run a public agency that provides social services to people experiencing homelessness. We currently use Google Sheets to track the services each person receives. We've built charts and reports in the sheets. Our summer intern even set up email templates that notify caseworkers when a client receives a rental subsidy. Our intern is gone, and senior managers are asking for detailed analyses. They've even given us some "what if" scenarios. What should we do?

Answer: Google Gemini may be your new best friend – or at least your new intern. Gemini is built into most Google office products. Just click on the diamond in the upper right-hand corner to access it. When it opens, you can ask your data questions.

Suppose your manager wants to know the percentage of clients who are over 65 and what percentage of the rental subsidy dollars awarded last year went to people over 65. You can type those questions into Gemini and provide the Google Sheet URL. Gemini will give you the answer. You can ask it to create a graph illustrating the answer. If you told Gemini that you expected the number of people over 65 experiencing homelessness to increase by 5% and that you expected market rents to increase by 3%, Gemini could estimate how many more dollars in rental subsidies would be requested.

Vibe Coding – It's text-chatting your way to an app. Vibe coding is the practice of people writing code by telling an AI bot what software should do, and then the AI writes the software. It's a great way to quickly and inexpensively create a new app or webpage. Product managers, designers, and other non-technical people love vibe coding tools because they enable greater creativity.

What's not to like? One thing to keep in mind: the software may not behave exactly as expected if key details are left out, and AI-generated code can be tricky to modify later.

Workato is a tool that connects different software programs to each other AND lets non-technical people automate long, multi-step processes. There are many workflow orchestration tools on the market now. Zapier works for simple processes. Boomi is a sophisticated, enterprise-grade tool. Workato is easy to configure, reliable, and can expedite processes that require small actions by many people and systems.

For example, when a new person joins your organization, they may need to submit a headshot, attend workplace safety training, and sign up for benefits. In most companies, the new hire (or their manager) would contact a different person for each of these things and enter information into a different system for each activity. Tools like Workato integrate with many disparate systems and automate actions that a new employee, their manager, their HR contact, and others would otherwise take. Workato has great reporting and notifications so that everyone stays informed.

CloudBase has helped organizations implement tools like Workato to streamline exactly these kinds of workflows.

Meet Madan Kumar. A former founding member of APT Life Sciences and Arda Technologies, Madan has managed engineering and technical teams on three continents. He thrives in dynamic, innovative environments like the one he helps guide at CloudBase. Madan is also proud of his non-profit work on workforce development, education, water, and sanitation. He holds graduate degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.