Ron Heims | Low-Code, High-Impact: Solving Real Business Problems with Custom AI Apps

Start a little bit with my background. My background is architecture, so I have a degree in architecture. I came to RDG right out of college and I've actually been there 32 years. But about five years in I was doing both technology and architecture and I chose to go the technology route and that has grown over time with our company. And now I oversee the it, the DT and now our practice innovation process. Rdg. We, our mission is to create meaning together. And so that is kind of our, our purpose. We are a company of 240 employees currently and we do have employee owned company. 67% of our employees own stock in our company. So we're, we're actually proud of, of that number. We are a multi disciplinary design firm. So we have big architecture, it's about 70% of our revenue. Landscape architecture is about 15. And then you can see the other ones that we have on, on the page here as well. So we have a very wider range of needs through that process because of all the different disciplines. We do work in a lot of markets. We are primarily Midway Midwest based, but we do have markets all over the country that we, that we serve. We have six office locations. You can see the, the full red dots on the screen there. So again, primarily Midwest based. The smaller, not full red dots are remote employees that we have. So we got about 15 or 16 staff that we've. Many times we've just followed quality staff to, that have moved for other reasons or we've hired somebody that was a quality staff that didn't want to move to one of our locations. We're going to talk about the challenge of getting good data today and I'm going to talk about three different types of data that we all deal with, right? We have data that we're trying to get from our clients when we're working on their projects. We have data while we're doing the projects and that we're collecting about our projects both during and after the process. And then we also have operational data. And I'm going to show you how we built some apps to collect data for all three of these. So I'm going to tell you a little story because getting good data is easy, right? We did this a few years ago. We actually hired a summer intern and said, hey, we want you to go collect this data. And invariably they go out to the file folder structure and they see something like this. And I think this is really interesting because we have four files with almost the same name, three of them being PowerPoint, one being a PDF. We have a Commissioner's update. A Commissioner's update final. The one that really gets me though is the Commissioner's Update Final Final 3. And if you look at the date of the final final three, it's January of 25 and the final is March of 2025. So how does that happen? Right? So how does, how does it intern figure out which of these files do I need to pull the data from? So we, we tell them that without getting any more information. Then we say, hey, go to delltec Vision. We're still on Vision. Go to delltec Vision and enter that data into the system so that we can collect it and have that single source of truth going to Deltec. Not the easiest thing in the world either because they don't know how to search it, they don't know where the tabs are, the, the, which fields to fill in, and all the information there. So what we're trying to do is put the user first in that process. And there's two terminologies that I have up here. One is an engineered UI and one is a designed ui. And Deltec Vision is an incredibly powerful system, but I would consider it an engineered ui, right? What we want is a designed UI that still still has the power of the engineered system, but it has a easy user interface that makes it simple for the end user to be able to know what to do. So I'm going to tell a story of a project. This is our, a project that came to a team that came to me, our public safety team, and said, hey, we're collecting programming data for public safety training facilities and we need a better way of doing this. And so what they were doing is taking, taking this spreadsheet on the left and sending it out to department heads of the public safety training clients that we're working with and having them fill out what their needs were for public safety training classes. And then they would combine that into this huge spreadsheet with over 300 columns, no kidding, in all the columns there of data. And you can imagine the nightmares, right? Links get broken, calculations don't work, you know, delete a line and all of a sudden things are off. So they came and said, hey, is there a better way to do this? And I said, let's take a look at it. So we, we basically started out with a process map. And I said, what is your current process? Because one of the things I've, I've learned here recently is like, if we can understand what the current process is, then we can start to see where there's possibility for improvement in that process. So the current state process, they were sending out the spreadsheet and then getting 80 to 100 of these spreadsheets back, right? And, and then of course, when you send someone a spreadsheet, they don't have to fill everything out. So they had to go through this process to make sure that it was complete. The funny part on this one is that they actually hired a contract worker out of Pennsylvania that would take those 80 to 100 spreadsheets, combine them all into one spreadsheet, because it was such a manual process, and then they would start to analyze the data, they'd start to create graphs and charts, and then they would use that in their presentation. So they said, hey, how can we do this better? I said, hey, let's figure out if we can get an online form of some form that the client can fill out for us. Instead of a spreadsheet that we're emailing back and forth, we look at populating that database, populating a database in our system. And then we could use Power BI to analyze the data and then use the graphics from that in our presentation. And so from that process, I started trying all kinds of different platforms to solve this puzzle. And we had kind of a long lead because they didn't have a new planning project coming up for about eight months. So we started playing with these over time. And over the course of eight months, I was working through these different platforms and I was always frustrated because I couldn't get what I was really envisioning this could become. But it came down to we were getting close to when they were going to launch their project. And so I picked one that I felt was the best one. And I started to create this little form over here, which really, really is ugly. Number one, almost looks like an online PDF. It was an online form, but the whole process was they could fill these out, then I'd have to download to Excel and then go to Power bi. The interesting part is that I was supposed to meet with the project or the public safety team the next week on a Wednesday, and this is on Thursday, the prior week. And we were trying to work through some of the fields that we were trying to collect and we couldn't show a dollar sign in a field that was money, right? And it just, it, it was one of those times where you're just like, I was at my, my wits end and I said, there's got to be a better way. So on Thursday, it was about 4 o' clock in the afternoon, I, I started hitting the Internet again. I started searching out and I found I came across a platform like, hey, this could work. And it's called Glide. GlideApps.com so I started playing with this and literally I'd spent eight months playing with all these different platforms. And I literally, in one week, by that next Wednesday, I turned around and I built this app in completion. And they, they were blown away by what I was. I was able to create. And quite honestly, I was too. So we created an online app where they could log into the platform. These are all different individual classes that they, they could collect the information on each class. You could open up, you could collect more details about it. And then we had other things like, do they have classroom needs, do they have prop needs? Do they have different pieces of information that they need to add to this? And we could then take that information and connect it to Power Bi and have a graph of the data really quickly. So I built that app in a week from knowing nothing about their platform, and I was blown away by it. They were so excited about it that we've now used it on a few different projects and we actually are launching another one next week on it and we keep improving it over time. The system logic is one of the key things that's behind this. You look at the app and it has a very nice intuitive interface, but literally this is the database structure that's behind that app. The power is in having this complex system logic, but the user intuitive interface. What Glide was allowing me to do was to have both of those. I was having the structured database plus the interface, plus workflows that allow me to create the. The logic in the app that made it simple and easy to use. So that got me thinking about something else that I tried to solve in the past. Our accounting team had come several years ago and like, gosh, there's got to be an easy, easier way of collecting receipts, right? We have probably 50 to 60 credit cards in the company that are company credit cards. And they're like, getting these credit card receipts is such a pain. And about five or six years ago, I was looking at different things. I looked at PowerApps and I just, I couldn't find anything that would work the way that I envisioned it, right? So we really didn't do anything. But the process was people would either hand their receipts in or they'd email them to our accounting staff and then accounting would have to hound them and follow up with. And the credit card statements came in for the missing receipts and the whole mess. When I saw what I could do with the class data sheets. I basically built an app in about a week that was. That went beyond what I had envisioned, quite honestly. So the app, I built it to connect to Deltec Vision's backend database and I was able to pull in project number information to the app. So they could pick that from the list because before they just write on the receipt what the project was, but they wouldn't always put the project number, they'd put the name. And then of course, there could be variations on that. It's using AI technology to read the receipt. And one of my beta test users was using Expensify and he said that this app would save him two to three hours a month over Expensify. He was a business development guy, did a lot of travel, and so he was really excited about it. So I'm going to click the button here, it's going to start a little video here that, yeah, hopefully pops up. So here we open the receipts app. You click the plus sign in the upper right corner, it pulls up information you can see show favorites is on. In that case, it's allowing you to pick the projects that are on your timesheet in the last 60 days because those are more than likely the ones that you're entering expenses for. You pick the category, you click the image file, you take your camera out, you take a picture of the receipt, and then you accept that photo. You can add a reason if you want. What's going to happen now is it's going to upload that, it's going to prompt, and if you watch that top line, you'll notice within just a couple of 30 seconds or so, it's going to pop in the name of the business and it's going to pop in the name the amount of the, the receipt, as well as capture the date on the receipt. So now I've been able to take that process, which was so complex, and make it where it was almost, you know, three or four clicks, where they could just get into that they could enter their receipts and. And now it's saving our users time and it's saving our accounting staff time chasing their users. We added up, and we think it's probably saving 150 hours a month. When you add up all the different people doing time doing receipt receipts for our company through that process, we got this running and then we're like, hey, can we make this better? So we took that to the next step and accounting was already taking our credit card transactions and downloading them from the website. And they're importing them into Deltec Vision. I was like, I can access the Deltec Vision database. I can synch it to my Glide system. And so we actually pulled in the credit card transactions on the left and. And we just. When accounting imports me to Deltec, they go click another button and it imports them into my app. Then you can see there's a matched column there. On the left is the transactions that come from the credit card, and on the right are the credit card receipts that this individual user had done. I'm filtered down to one individual user on this. And then accounting would just go through and match those, right? Hey, this one is this one. And they'd click those and the buttons turn red when they're matched. And anything that wasn't matched would actually go back to my app. And you can see at the bottom, I have a My Missing Receipts app. So once accounting went through the process, they matched them. They would send an email out to the user and say, hey, go check your missing receipts. So the user pulls it up and they see the list of receipts that are missing that weren't matched on the transaction. The credit card statement. They would then click on the receipt. It gives them almost the same form, except now I don't have to take a pic, I don't have to know the business name and the amount because it already came through the credit card statement. They add the project, they add the category, they take a picture of the receipt. If they don't have the receipt, there's a little lost button there. But now I can also track how many are lost, right? And then we can have a conversation. Our COO will have a conversation if they lose too many. And then they submit it. And the coolest thing is that when they submit it, it comes off the list on the left. And now it gets one shorter, right? So if they have 10 receipts, they click, it goes away. And when they're all gone, they're done. And they don't have to wait, worry about it. This made our accounting staff incredibly happy. They love the fact that they don't have to chase them now. They used to, like, you know, have to match everything through an Excel spreadsheet and then send them an Excel spreadsheet. And people are like, this is just a pain to go through this Excel spreadsheet and figure out. Now they basically send them a link, say, hey, go hit your missing receipts and upload them and get them in there. So it streamlined the entire process with what we were able to do with the receipts that Led me to another project where our parks team came and they're like, hey, we're doing these master plans of parks. And so we're doing these for a city. And we'll go in and look at, you know, 30, 40, 50. We even have one now that's like 90 different parks that they need to. They need to analyze. So I said, well, what is your current process? Right, we start with looking at what their current process is. And they said, well, we have this word form that we basically follow. This is the things that we're looking at. We're looking at the name of the park, the location, the type, the size, and then we want to do an analysis. What's the condition? What does it need? What are the recommendations? What maintenance does it need? They said, is there a better way to do this? And I said, yeah, we can do that. So literally in a day and a half, I built this app, which is a parks master plan app. And I'm going to click the button here. It's going to start a little video, too. So when they open the app on their phone, they can pick the project. They see a map of all the projects or the parks in that particular city, and they click on one. We've imported that data from ArcGIS. They can rate it with the little rating feature. They can add amenities to it. Like it's got baseball field and they can put how many there are. They can put a rating on those. They can add notes to that, and then they can submit that. And then if you scroll down further, let me think here. There we go. We can actually start to capture the analysis, but we're using voice transcription. So they click a button, it says, hey, allow your microphone. And now in the video, which I don't have audio on, I'm actually speaking. And you can see at the bottom, the little. The little voice recorder there. And then it transcribes that information and it will put that back in the field for. I think this was the condition analysis. So I'm now making the process of capturing the information easier for the person on site. And they can then go through and do that under condition and program and all the different pieces from that. But we basically told them they don't need to be like, they don't have to even talk in complete sentences. They just need to get the information to the system. Then they can add photos, which I'm just adding one here, not on site, obviously, but they can add photos. They can add multiple photos. Before they had to match those up later when they came back to the office. So now all the photos are tied to that particular park. So again, they're capturing all that information in one spot in an app on their phone while they're in the field. The next video I have here is going to show where we took it. The next step with AI, because there's AI tools built into the Glide platform where we can generate reports. So I'm flipping through a little carousel of all the images that I took, but then I'm going to go down and click that generate report. The generate report is going to take all the information that's been entered, basically the address, the park name, as well as all the text, voice to text information we put into the project. And you'll see then I scroll down and it's now generated a initial PARC report. And we found, I mean, it's again, it's AI, so you can't trust it fully. You got to validate what you're getting. But we have found that the more information you put in, the better the report is by just what you're speaking. And again, it doesn't have to be in complete sentences. So we're streamlining that process that they can just capture. Our Parks team love this and we've expanded it now to some other groups actually using that app as well. So it's been a wonderful platform. I will say here with the map, we literally took again the ArcGIS information with the size, the address and everything, and it imported into here. And with the map feature, we were able to create that little map view that brought us to our next project that we decided to work on and marketing and communications. And I heard it in some of the conversations today we're or this week, getting the good project marketing data is always a challenge, right? And so I realized what we were doing with these other apps, like, well, we can turn that internally with our Parks, not Parks, our design narrative app. So our marcom team wanted to get the story behind the project, plus the details of it. So they had built a Word document, a Word template, and they would email this out to anybody participating pretty much when they asked to have a project put on the website. And so step one, they would ask for the basics information. And I looked at this form and I said, a lot of this information is already in Deltec, right? The name of the project, the project number, the project type, the address. If they filled it in, they may or may not have who the consultant team is. That information is in Deltec already. So why are we reentering that data and Spending more time connecting, capturing data that we technically already have. But then the second step of this is the deep dive, which is really the story of the project, which never gets captured unless we ask them to write a little project profile for it. So we basically worked on building a design narrative app. And so this app, as I click the video here, there's an RDG projects that shows all the projects and you can filter this by market, then you can request. And when you click the request button, our Marcom team will do this and they will request, they'll send an email to the project manager. The project manager can add other editors to this. And then we have different pieces of information, project details, a design narrative, a project profile, and project media under the project details. They can come in here and it sucks all the information out of Deltec in these fields into the app. And then people can type for and add the missing data, right? Or they can change the incorrect data using the app and then save it. And then they can go on to the dates tab and they can start to enter the critical dates of the project and just add them using the fields inside the app. What we do with this data then is we actually round trip this back into Deltec and overwrite the data in Deltec with the app. So we're capturing cost data, we're capturing area data, we're capturing sustainability information. And then one more here we'll talk about the companies because in Deltec we already track who the, who the consultants are on the project. So I pull in what the consultants are because it's already in Deltec. And then we can edit that to add more information. So we can click the edit button here and we can say, hey, you know, the engineer on the consultant, they actually did the mechanical and in the electrical, so we can add that and we're using selection so we get consistency of data. We can also add additional companies that maybe weren't contracted through our, through our contract that still worked on the project. Maybe they work directly for the owner or somebody else on the project, so we can add them to it as well. And again we round trip this data back into Deltec under the team tab, inside of Deltec Vision. That's kind of the raw concrete data that are filling in fields. Then we go to the story. And so here we have the design narrative tab. And on this tab you click it. And again I'm using the transcription, the voice transcription piece. So we give what is the project overview and we have a little hints there to tell them what we're Looking for. And then they can click the record button. So here we're recording the scope and again it's going to click the record button and in the video I'm speaking, but you can't hear it because I didn't record the audio. And then it's going to transcribe that information again. You can record, you can stop, you can think, you can start to record. And it adds information to that particular field, it doesn't override it. So I'm gonna do a second recording here just to show that that can happen and you can add additional details. So they'll go through and then add like, hey, what are the project challenges? What were the unique design elements? And, and this can be as much information as they want. And with the AI tools that we have, we can then generate the project profile from here. Now we go to the Generate profile tab. So we go over to the project profile and we have a generate button. We click the generate button and we have an AI prompt in the back. And we're still working through the details of how to get the best AI prompt here, but it'll actually create a long profile, project profile and a short project profile. So now we have a first draft that our marketing team can take, modify, edit, they can review it with the project manager and when they're happy with it, then they can mark the project as complete and again we'll round trip that data back into Deltec. So that is our single source of truth in this area. We also said, hey, there's other media that we may be using on this project. So we basically added links where we can put a website link. Maybe this project was won an award and was on a website. So we can click and add a link to that. We could add images and files and then the links will actually go right out to, in this case, it's just our website in one of our projects. But we can also add images. Now most images should be in the file folder structure anyway. But if there's one off things that they that aren't there. In fact we have a link directly to our Ignite file folder for the project images. They can actually go there and add them or they can add them, quite honestly, right here inside the app if they're more of a one off type of situation. So the value of all that information now is that we're making it easier because we're not overwhelming them with a Dell tech interface, quite honestly. We're giving them the three projects that we maybe want them to look at and we're sending an email, say, hey, just go look at your design narrative projects, fill that information in. They can, they can include others if need be. But then since all that information synchronizes Deltec, it also synchronizes out to our intranet called the Know. And now I can go out to the Know and say, hey, tell me about, in this case the High Trestle Trail Bridge project. And the AI search is actually going out looking at the project profile and it's given us a very good search summary of what that project is. And the first link on there is the project profile page. And of course that data is now being fed directly from Deltec Vision, but the users are using the app to enter the information to get to the project description and we're round tripping all that information. So it's allowing us to now get much better information across the board with what we're doing in multiple areas on the project. This piece right here, we just launched about two and a half weeks ago or so. So we're still refining it and trying to like figure out is this going to work the process correctly the way we need to. But our marcom team is incredibly excited about the possibilities of being able to capture that data in a much easier and simpler format. So let's talk about the challenge of this. One of the things we really want to do by making these apps is to avoid new data silos, right? It would be easy to set up a app that has another data store, but this is our setup where Deltec Vision is still the major store for all of that data. But you see that we feed synthesis from Deltec Vision, Power BI Reports, Open Asset, New Forma, our public website. And what we've done is we've actually set up a postgres SQL Server inside of Azure. We are synchronizing relevant data that we need for the Glide apps to that PostgreSQL server. Glide Apps is accessing the PostgreSQL server to enter that data and then we're round tripping through synchronization back from postgres to Deltec Virtual. So integration is that key piece because we want the single source of truth. We don't want to have another data silo, another location for it. Governance becomes even more important because quite honestly, this platform is so easy to build things with it. A lot of people could go in and build things, but in that process we also want to make sure that we're not making, if I feel like if I just let this out to the wild right we'd end up with a bunch of data silos. So we're focused on synchronizing back to the system as we look at what we decide to build. Right. Once we've shown a few of these apps and what we can do, people have come back with questions like, hey, if you can do that, can you do this? Right? So we're getting all kinds of requests now of can we make this process simpler and easier? And so, but we have to stop and say, okay, is it worth building this? Do tools already exist that we already own? Many times they do, but people aren't using them, which then weighs that conversation of like, okay, if they have tools that we already have that they're not using, why are they not using them? Most times it's because they find them cumbersome, right? So we're like, okay, do we build it or don't we build it? So we have a conversation about that. We do look at the process map to find out what their process is. Currently, a lot of what we're building I think are unique processes, maybe to us now when you look at a whole, you could say, like the assessment app, that's really not a, a unique process that everybody's probably doing something similar in a different scope of work. But integration for us is the key and can we simplify that process? Right? So the, a lot of what we're doing is replacing people's either word docs or spreadsheets with apps is what we're doing. They're still doing that in another, if you will, different data silo. Now we're putting into the single source and we're actually able then to collaborate all that data into one place so that we can learn from that. Many of the apps are built to do one thing well, but then we get additional requests for that, which always adds more information and more details to it. And really, when you look at, there are three options to solve the request, right? We can buy a platform. Some of these are very small and simple things, so it doesn't make sense to buy something to do it. We can build a platform, but what I really think that we're doing is we're actually a hybrid because we're building on top of platforms we are already have and integrating and syncing those together. So we feel it's a kind of a hybrid approach. You can build totally one off apps very quickly and easily though, through the process of doing that. Again, we start with that process map because when you map out the process and you can get very detailedness Sometimes you can get too detailed, but you can start to see where the inefficiencies are in that process. So that we can start to look at how do we change that process, on how do we make this more efficient so we don't have to, we don't have to go through the manual labor of combining spreadsheets into one piece. Who's building it? So quite honestly, we've built probably, I would say maybe 10 or 12 apps that we're currently using. We've got other ones that we're just kind of in beta testing right now or building. But there's three people right now. It's myself, it's Sean Page, who's our computational designer, and then Tony, who's a graphic designer, is also very tech savvy. So really, there's only three people that I'm allowing into the platform right now. I could certainly open up to others, but I'm just more concerned about going off and doing something that isn't going to integrate in the system. These guys know the vision of what we're trying to do and accomplishing that, so we're doing that. What we are trying to do is take a look at our strategic plan and build things that help our strategic plan as a company. And we are trying to scale without creating duplicate systems. We're trying to promote innovation and not lose quality. Right? We're trying to make that process simpler and easier because sometimes we can, we can stifle the innovation by making things too complex. And so as, as we've had more requests, I'm, I'm asking my question now. Do we need a systems integrator, somebody that will know how to, like, use APIs and call and, and connect all these different systems together? Because we have a lot of requests. Because I'm building a lot of this right now, and I probably need to be a little more strategic in some areas within our company. So we're looking at that process right now. In the end, the low code, no code platform blew me away with what we're able to accomplish and what we're able to make. But it's allowing us to do things faster and it's allowing us to do things with better quality and better data structure. I think because we're doing this in house, we also have empathy with our users. Right. I come from the architectural world, so I understand what we're trying to accomplish overall. And because of that, we're like, okay, I feel your pain. So let's figure out a way that we can make this happen right now. The apps usually are built by one or two people. Right. We're really managing the project and developing it all together. So we're kind of a one stop shop in that respect versus having someone that's managed the project and the developer passing the information off to the developer. But again, some of these things we can build so fast that we're. It doesn't take the time that it would take to do this in the previous platforms. We're meeting people where they're at and we're finding that the people are loving the interface and the simplicity of it. I mean, all the apps are responsive, so they work on your iPhone or your Android device. They also work on a desktop. In a web browser you get a little more real estate and you can build the UI accordingly based on the needs. I think one of the biggest time savers is that voice as ui, right? We're able to, instead of saying you've got to take the time and write all this stuff out, hey, just capture the snippets of the basics of the story, let AI write the first draft and then allow us to go in and edit that information. Another thing we've just looked at adding is research too. So like in that Parks app, we played with this where we already know the address of the park and we've added a research tab which I didn't show, but we can then click a button and it will take the park address information and go out and search the web for what's the public's perception of that park and bring that back into the app and it will also add that into the generated report. So we've got some big ideas of what we want to do in that area, but we haven't had the time to maybe to follow through. But ultimately we're looking for better data quality and we're looking for an easier way to capture that that allows our staff to enter the data directly without the data silos. And ultimately my goal in all this is to make systems that are so easy and intuitive to use that the employee would rather use it than not use it. Right. Because many times I feel like we're struggling to help. Hey, you gotta use this because there's gonna be benefit over here. Some of these apps are like going, oh man, that was so easy. I'm gonna use it on this and I want it to do this and do other things. But as they're excited about using that because we're building it with that integrated system, the capturing of the good data is a byproduct of them just doing their job. And we found that that has been incredibly powerful for what we're wanting to do. So we're very excited about where it's headed. We've got some bigger projects that we're looking at. Like, we have some procurement. Our procurement team has a complex process that goes across, like, four different applications to track the whole process. And it's probably a little bit bigger build that. We're thinking that we could build an app that could do it better because of the integrations we can do to multiple platforms. So. So we're very excited about where it's going again, but the goal is really to make life easier for our end users, to get that information so that we can have better information and then better knowledge to. To learn and go from. Thank you.