Google just launched a tool for businesses to build simple cloud apps

Google is launching a new tool that will help companies build custom business apps that run on Google’s cloud platform.

Called App Maker, the tool promises to let businesses build simple cloud apps in a couple of days using a drag-and-drop environment, with minimal coding experience required. It’s geared toward customers of Google’s G Suite (formerly Google Apps), and seems most useful for organisations that need apps that integrate with information stored in G Suite, such as contacts or mapping data, but can be used for other simple cloud apps as well. 

In a video accompanying the launch blog, for instance, a developer at the State of Wyoming talk about how it took him only 5 weeks with App Maker to build an app to monitor log-ins for suspicious activity.

Google wrote in a blog post announcing the news that it’s already tested the tool with some of its larger enterprise clients, who have built apps for tracking suspicious log-in activity, tracking office inventory orders, and digitising claims processes. 

App Maker is available starting Wednesday through Google’s Early Adopter Program. 

Back in September, Google changed the name of its productivity tools — which includes Gmail, Drive, Hangouts, and Calendar — to G Suite. Google is also adding new “recommended for G Suite” partners like DocuSign and Asana, writing on its blog that the new features will help “ customise and extend” the experience of using G Suite.