Protogrid. The Platform for Business Applications.

Reasons for Protogrid

radBuild Apps Without Writing Code

Protogrid is based on the Low-Code Development model, formerly known as Rapid Application Development (RAD). With other solutions, a developer often has to spend hours or sometimes even days to create and configure an application that in some cases can then only be used on one specific operating system. Protogrid eliminates this burden. Using Protogrid, a user can set up a basic database application within minutes and quickly get to work improving their app and tailoring it to their specific needs, thanks to an intelligent system that automatically creates views and arranges the data in the best possible way. Convince yourself in a few minutes and register now your personal Protogrid Environment for free.

crossplattCross Platform
Users today spend an increasing amount of time working on their smartphones and tablets. Protogrid allows you to work seamlessly across all devices. A database application in Protogrid can be rolled out instantly as a web application or as a fully featured application for modern mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad with a couple of clicks. Soon, you’ll be able to rollout your database applications to Android devices as well.

multilangMultilingual User Interface
Protogrid features built-in multi language support in every application. This means that every written word in a Protogrid database application can make use of a wide number of translations into any needed language. These translations are painlessly defined and can be edited or expanded at any time.

offlineOffline Capable
As you can see here, many mobile Apps do not function properly when the device offline. With Protogrid this isn’t a problem anymore, because all Protogrid Apps inherently work offline. Protogrid Apps don’t need permanent access to the internet in order to function. It’s possible to work trouble-free at any time and any location. You’re never left hanging without access to important information. All relevant data is saved locally and will be synchronized automatically once an internet connection is reestablished.

How It All Began

When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, it quickly became clear that the world was about to change. Shortly thereafter, Android and the Tablet were added as groundbreaking innovations. Apart from email and calendar, the benefits for businesses were rather limited. If they wanted to use their enterprise applications on the go, they were forced to spend a lot of time developing this applications on each mobile platform from scratch. Even big names such as Microsoft, IBM or Oracle unfortunately did not make any serious efforts to address this problem.

Due to increasingly pressing customer needs, in 2012 the smartest software engineers at ATEGRA AG retreated to a war room and tackled only one question: "What must the optimal software platform of the future look like?" Quickly the key points were clear:

  • Critical enterprise applications should be always available and ready to use. Therefore, all possible device classes (desktop, browser, smartphone and tablet) must be supported.
  • Mobile applications are only user-friendly if they are offline capable, i.e. if there is no need for a constantly stable and fast Internet connection.
  • Applications need to be developed as quickly and efficiently as possible. After all, we live and work in an increasingly fast-moving world.

Today we can be proud to have achieved even more with Protogrid:

  • On Protogrid, cross-industry software applications are developed for a wide range of areas.
  • When new requirements arise or general conditions change, the necessary adjustments to the applications usually can be made within minutes.
  • Anyone can simply register a Protogrid environment and get their first application up and running in less than an hour.

The many satisfied customers and their figures speak for themselves!

What the Figures Say

We have statistically analysed our recent development projects and gained interesting insights: It clearly shows that our unique combination of low-code, platform independence, multi-language capability and offline availability leads our customers to direct economic success.

With Protogrid applications can be realized faster and cheaper!

With Protogrid applications can be realized faster and cheaper

On the left you can see how many person months are typically required for the development of a medium complex business application with Protogrid (green) and with conventional methods (grey).

On the right, the resulting development costs are broken down.

Protogrid applications offer significant added value to the business!

Protogrid applications offer significant added value to the business

Medium complex Protogrid applications achieve a return on investment of less than one month (green). This minimizes the risk of write-downs in our fast-moving times due to changed general conditions.

On the other hand, there are the usual runtimes for project initialization (grey) and introduction (blue).

Other Features

  • After the registration, you are immediately redirected to your new, isolated Protogrid Environment. There you find your personal file system, data base and webserver as well as access to the JavaScript environment. Everything is managed by the Protogrid Cloud. In this Environment you may create as many Apps as you want and connect them.
  • List, search, sort, and link – all out of the box without you having to develop anything.
  • Any relational database model is possible. Thanks to the many different types of fields, you can capture your data in a structured manner and link them arbitrarily using relation fields.
  • Thanks to the attachment functionality of every Card, you can manage any desired documents and media in Protogrid.
  • Using the print function, data can be forwarded, processed and archived as PDF or paper without any effort.
  • New or external users can be easily added using just the browser, without the need to distribute any special software or VPN access.
  • Special requirements are no problem, since every App can be extended variously using JavaScript. Due to buttons, triggers and script libraries (client and server side), any comfort functions can be realized.
  • Any thinkable web content such as images, dynamically generated charts or diagrams can be provided using blank canvas widgets. Those can be added on every card at any place.
  • Multitenancy: For every App, every Proto and every Card, read and write access can be defined individually. This guarantees flexible access by maximal security.
  • Backups are done automatically to avoid data loss.
  • Flexible integration into existing systems: All data of an application can be read and written by external systems using the JSON-API.
  • Fast data migration: Data can be imported and exported as a whole block using the CSV import-export function.
  • The data model can be changed anytime. Thanks to the usage of document oriented databases, this flexibility is available even on running systems!

Supported Platforms

The following platforms are currently supported by Protogrid:

DesktopIn the browser as a web application

We basically support all common browsers and versions. For the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome we test and guarantee the full functionality of all features.

AppleiOS Client (native App)

An existing Protogrid App can easily be made into an offline-capable iOS-App.

AndroidAndroid Client (native App)

Currently in closed beta version. Please contact us if you want to be a part of it.

Upcoming Enhancements

The following enhancements are comming soon. Would you like to see something else prioritized, or have something in this list moved up? Please let us know.

  • Android client (currently in closed beta version)
  • Automated password recovery (can be deactivated)
  • Sending mail from Protogrid
  • Integration with external file hosting services such as Dropbox
  • Freely defineable Card icons
  • Desktop Client
  • Unified iOS Client, allowing your Protogrid apps to be rolled out in minutes
  • LDAP and Active Directory integration
  • Rich Text support
  • Workflow engine
  • Import and Export of entire Protogrid apps or a subset of their Cards

Getting Started

Start now with your first Protogrid application. The Quickstart Tutorial leads you step by step through the developement. There is also the possibility to visit a Crash Course with one of our developers. You find some inspiration and examples in our blog.

A Reliable Partner

Swiss Made SoftwareSwiss Quality

Protogrid is supported by ATEGRA Corp., a software engineering company founded in 1994 with hundreds of satisfied customers worldwide. ATEGRA runs development centers in Zurich (Switzerland) and Barcelona (Spain). The headquarters are at Kreuzstrasse 60 in Zurich, Switzerland.

ConsistencyWe Are Here to Stay

Your Protogrid Environment is guaranteed to be up and running for at least the next five years, starting from January 1st of the current year. In other words: We would inform you 5 years ahead of a possible shut down. Protogrid is unique in giving you such guarantees. Protogrid fits into your contingency planning.

First Class ServiceFirst Class Service

Protogrid has a friendly support ready to answer your questions and solve your problems.

ETH ZurichThe Smartest and Most Creative Engineers

Protogrid has been designed by smart engineers from ETH Zurich, one of the top ten ranked universities in the world.

SecurityHighly Secure Data Storage

Protogrid is hosted by Hetzner in Germany, a country with very high data protection standards, according to the "List of Countries" (in German) of the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).

Technologies

Protogrid makes extensive use of high-quality open-source technologies. Here we list the most relevant:

Docker is a modern solution that offers isolation, virtualization, and dependency management for Linux environments without significant performance loss. We use this technology to give each Protogrid environment its own isolated container and to bundle the Protogrid runtime.

couchdb-logoProtogrid is based on CouchDB, a lightweight document-based database system. Each Protogrid “card” is mapped to a CouchDB document for persistence. We chose this database system because it allows replication without any preconditions and because it is mobile-capable using Couchbase Lite. In other words, our mobile clients sport a fully-featured database system that replicates with the Protogrid Cloud, so you can have your data ready for offline use whenever and wherever.

python-powered-h-140x182The Protogrid Webserver is Python-based. Using Python, often called the Swiss Army knife of scripting languages, makes our back-end powerful, yet highly versatile. It also ensures that we’ll be able to offer APIs to all important environments in the future. Do you need your Domino, Sharepoint, Oracle, SAP, MSSQL, JSON, and/or Excel to talk to Protogrid? Contact us and we’ll work out a solution for you.

We use Node.js® as runtime for the server-side JavaScript that can be programmed directly in the web browser. This allows us to both have Low-Code Development in the web UI as well as arbitrary extensibility for your specific business workflows.

Meet the Team

Protogrid is being developed by members of the highly motivated and qualified Cloud Innovation Team of ATEGRA AG, Zürich, Switzerland.

mmuMichel Müller
Head of Engineering, System Architect
MSc ETH in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology

rbaRobert Baumgartner
UX Engineer, Graphical Designer
BSc in Visual Communication, Zurich University of the Arts

hmaHeinz Mathys
Chief Security Officer
Dipl. El.-Ing. ETH

druDominik Rüttimann
Head of Marketing & Sales, Fullstack Engineer
Software Engineer ETH

rbrRoman Brunner
Fullstack Engineer
Software Engineer ETH

sblSonja Blum
App Engineer, Customer Experience Manager
BSc ETH in Computer Science

rgrRaphael Grob
Lead of User Testing
BSc ETH in Computational Science and Engineering

sanMarkus Haller
Project Leader, Customer Care Manager
Dipl. Informatik-Ing. ETH

sanMark Frey
DevOps Engineer, Fullstack Engineer
Software Engineer ETH

It’s awesome. It’s free.

Protogrid is completely free for up to two users with any number of applications.