Tushar, Author at anteelo

Teams, not individuals, are the greatest achievers in Technology.

Posted on 07/02/202014/06/2021 by Tushar

Developing high-performing teams will be the focus of many enterprises in 2020. Companies will confront the fallacy that pace is what unlocks the company’s full potential and recognize that how the company organizes its people and information flow is what determines performance.

Organizing for a dynamic and complex environment requires a much different structure than the traditional command-and-control pyramid. Talent acquisition and development strategies must be built on a team-of-teams approach consisting of multidimensional individuals, rather than traditional siloed teams consisting of single subject matter experts. Put differently, the focus shifts from developing so-called 10x individuals to developing 20x teams.

Lessons from the battlefield

The transformation of the battlefield and the U.S. military’s adaptation offers an excellent case study, specifically the experience in Ramadi, Iraq. The unpredictability and dynamic conditions of the battlefield are similar to the current business environment: combating insurgents who utilize asymmetrical tactics and are well equipped with the latest technology, while having to maintain and grow the customer base (citizenry).

The “clear, hold and build” strategy that worked in Ramadi revealed that capabilities such as raids had been elevated to the level of strategy. Modern business has done something similar by elevating the increase in pace, agile and DevOps capabilities to strategy. However, merely holding meetings more frequently and in a different manner falls short of desired results. What companies need, as the military learned, is more flexible joint power from multidimensional teams that provide multiple options in the face of volatility, rather than the limited options of a traditional pyramid of teams.

As retired U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal explains in Team of Teams, the military in Iraq needed to be not only efficient but also adaptable. It became a priority to focus on reconfiguring to be able to deal with volatility quickly. Simply deploying more resources and putting more people to work, to become more efficient in the current operating model, was not enough. As McChrystal points out, the traditional pyramid constrains team productivity due to choke points, ineffective communication channels, stifled creativity and inadequate response time.

So the military created linkages between teams, put people from different service branches and agencies on the same team, and shared information widely so everyone understood the larger mission and could make decisions accordingly. McChrystal understood that “technology had changed in such a way that management had become a limfac [limiting factor].”

The same is true in today’s business environment, where an explosion of technological progress — improved capabilities to track, measure and predict via big data and advanced analytics; moonshot projects; and unconventional business models — has created a more interdependent, fast-paced and complex business environment. In this environment, companies need interconnected multidimensional teams that can adapt and scale.

The new teams

The new interconnected teams have diverse skills that capitalize on the team’s collective intelligence and increase a team’s productivity. The shared sense of purpose and mentoring that occurs within the team not only strengthens the relationships and performance but also mitigates knowledge gaps between senior and junior employees.

Populate these teams with double-deep personnel and now you have the ability to scale across the company, purposefully cross training your people to fill gaps. This creates a natural talent pipeline. Rotating people through different teams means employees advance through project-based promotions and team assignments rather than the traditional subjective requirements.

In order to be effective and maximize the potential of these multifaceted teams, they need to be empowered to make decisions. This does not mean they operate totally on their own, but they “have implicit trust that their senior leaders will back their decisions,” as Navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin point out in Extreme Ownership. With proper decentralized command, teams that are closest to the situation can execute in a manner that supports the overarching goal without having to ask for permission.

In 2020 leaders will determine how to, in the words of McChrystal, “scale the fluidity of teams across entire organizations” amidst the chaos of ongoing business transformation. Ultimately, building better teams will build better individuals and enterprises. The ability to develop and lead a network of high-performing teams will be key to business success in the post-digital age.

Workday Payroll dashboards: How to Get the Most Out of Them

Posted on 06/02/202014/06/2021 by Tushar

Como construir e manter uma boa reputação on-line no ambiente escolar

The future of work is bringing new challenges for Human Capital Management (HCM) practitioners, especially as the skills shortage becomes a day-to-day reality. In the near future, the people responsible for people in your organization — from CHROs to payroll specialists, will need more time to strategize, analyze, and innovate. With truly innovative HCM technology, not only will employees have more time, employee productivity and engagement will increase.

Workday Payroll is designed to help employees increase efficiencies, eliminate errors, and anticipate changes, particularly around compliance or tax related items—a competitive advantage in a fast-changing regulatory environment. Plus, Workday Payroll not only saves employees time, but perhaps most critically, reduces questions to the payroll department and increases insight around the complex process of compensation.

Workday Payroll best practices

Our Workday experts at Anteelo recommend starting with the following simple steps to drive user engagement and adoption to get the most out of Workday Payroll dashboards:

Share—and share often.

For employees involved in the day-to-day work of payroll (or any HCM work), new technology requires that management does their due diligence in communicating the change. But we’re all bombarded with hundreds of messages every day; so this requires creating messaging that has meaning:

Empathize with the difficulties of change (even positive change is stressful!).
Make it personal: Share how Workday Payroll dashboards will benefit both employees and administrators in day-to-day work. For example, teach employees how to easily compare pay periods and make updates, such as tax elections, from one place.
Show payroll partners and administrators how the dashboard gives them instant visibility into the status of each payroll, retro differences to be paid, and employees affected by regulatory changes (such as tax rates).

Follow-up with non-users.

It’s simple: Ask employees who aren’t using Workday Payroll dashboards why they aren’t. Engage employees by providing more training, enabling one-on-ones with power users, giving employees extra time to learn about the dashboards, and/or scheduling frequent check-ins to answer questions and provide encouragement.

Invite existing users to share why they love Workday Payroll dashboards.

Ask employees who are using Workday Payroll dashboards what they love about it. And then ask them to share this with their peers. Happy users are the best advocates for new technology. Product evangelists—your employees who love payroll dashboards—can greatly influence others to get on board.

Make sure updates go smoothly.

Build a repeatable test plan for updates and always communicate any upcoming changes to Workday Payroll dashboards far in advance. If you need help, our experts can help you develop a solid testing plan that is both repeatable and not overly taxing on resources.

Plan ahead—and communicate frequently—about big events, such as audits.

One of the advantages of Workday Payroll dashboards is that they enable users to start the audit process early. Help employees understand that auditing early and often, using the tools in payroll dashboards, can make the end of the year far less stressful—and even reduce the need for overtime around the holidays.

Creating a positive, engaging user experience is the first step to getting the most out of Workday Payroll.

It’s imperative that employees doing the day-to-day payroll work need to know how Workday Payroll dashboards help them personally do their jobs better. Organizations can drive greater adoption and engagement by actively sharing the employee-centric benefits of payroll dashboards, encouraging existing users to advocate for the technology, and making it easier for non-users to become engaged users.

Business continuity with a remote workforce-Checklist

Posted on 06/02/202015/06/2021 by Tushar

Whether dealing with the current coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis or anticipating a future natural disaster, organizations need to prepare for emergencies that require employees to suddenly switch from a corporate environment to a home office. Even once the crisis arrives, organizations might have to drastically adjust their plans to address the scale required. Continuity plans must encompass not only the technology required to keep the business up and running but also the human aspect — making sure employees are well-trained and prepared to work remotely. As the size of the remote workforce suddenly increases, here is a checklist for IT leaders to consider when tackling the technology piece of the puzzle:

Network capacity planning: Conduct a capacity analysis to determine whether internet bandwidth is sufficient to handle the increased WAN traffic that occurs when large numbers of employees access the network. Additional items on the capacity planning checklist include firewalls, VPNs, and other remote access-related technologies that might be overwhelmed by the increased volume of traffic coming from outside of corporate headquarters.

Security monitoring: Intensify activities designed to detect and prevent attacks. Hackers are likely to take this opportunity to increase malicious activities. “Secure the Human” training can be delivered remotely to ensure that employees remember the organization’s security practices.

Identity and access management: Beef up identity and access management for remote workers through methods such as multifactor authentication.

Data protection: Ensure that security is extended and corporate data is encrypted to prevent the unintentional or malicious exposure of sensitive data.

VPNs: Make sure that VPN agents are installed on every device that connects to the corporate network to provide secure remote access.
Devices: Prepare for a shortage of devices to support the growing number of remote workers. Have a contingency purchase plan as well as a template for quickly configuring the device and loading the appropriate software.
Bring your own device (BYOD): Consider BYOD as supply chains are strained and the ability to get the needed hardware to employees becomes increasingly difficult. Using a cloud-based portal, employees can self-register their devices and download VPNs and other security tools, with the ability to segregate corporate data from personal information.

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI): Consider deploying a thin client architecture for remote workers as another option. However, upfront planning is required to make sure the thin clients are available and that the back-end server infrastructure is in place to support the thin client model.

Collaboration: Provide strong communication and collaboration capabilities to help keep employees productive and engaged. Organizations may want to look at videoconferencing tools to compensate for the lack of face time to help employees feel more connected. Collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Office 365 with Teams activated and G Suite, as well as videoconferencing services such as Zoom, are providing new ways of working, connecting and collaborating. Training employees on how to conduct work in these virtual spaces is critical.

Omnichannel support: Be prepared for a significant volume increase for IT support. Some employees may have been abruptly moved to a remote access environment, while others may now find themselves with new devices, software or tools they have never used before. And as a remote working model typically provides increases in flexibility, spikes in support needs may not follow the traditional patterns of regular business hours. The IT department needs to be prepared to offer omnichannel and remote support, including video options for face-to-face communications. Of course, service desk employees may themselves be working remotely, so pay special attention to make sure they have the capacity and the tools to respond to service desk issues from their home offices. Proactive and predictive analytics tools, combined with an easy-to-use support portal, can drastically reduce the calls to a strained service desk for rudimentary problems.

As we all know, even the best-laid plans don’t always work perfectly. In the midst of a global crisis, organizations might find that their business continuity plans haven’t accounted for an unprecedented level of scale, urgency, capacity and employee needs. In these instances, organizations should stay in close contact with their preferred vendors. There is no need to go it alone when expert help and support are available.

Unexpected challenges can cause maximum disruption to people’s lives and to business. The way in which we mitigate risks to ease the strain on businesses and their employees will ensure an organization’s ability to continue into the future.

The Insider’s Guide to Repairing Your App’s Bad Reputation

Posted on 05/02/202014/06/2021 by Tushar

In a time when the internet is filled with bits of advice telling entrepreneurs to opt for a mobile-first approach, can you really afford the source of your future business empire to have a bad reputation online?

The challenges that a mobile app startup face is already a lot to ignore and left unseen. And when you add the issue of bad app reputation in the mix, the whole app journey becomes a lot more haywire, instantly.

Answering how to protect your brand’s reputation in the dog eat dog world can be an act lot easier said than done. In a time when there is a constant race to win and then rule the already crowded space, it can get really difficult for you to maintain that nothing bad is said about your offering. Especially when a lot rides on it – Uninstall Rates, Abandonment, Decline in Downloads, etc. (Talking about downloads, know how to get million downloads on your app)

Every single day past the day when you launch your application act as a landmine. While you can be overly careful to never step on them, chances are that when you do, it would take a lot to recover from the damage.

In this article, we are going to give you the secrets of how you can manage your brand’s reputation, both on the app and in terms of your empire online.

Refraining from spilling out the secrets from any single POV, we are going to look at three different stages – Prevention. Manage. Secure – of mobile app reputation management.

Without further delay, let us get to it, straight-away.

Set up Listening Tools

Much before you even approach the submit app button, you should set up the subscriptions for app monitoring tools – the first step to How to Monitor Your App’s Reputation.

The idea of these software is that they fetch everything that is being mentioned about your application online and at the same time, they update you of new reviews on the Play Store or App Store.

There are a number of application reputation management platforms you can opt for in the quest to be one step ahead of combating negative reviews about your brand – Rankur, Brandeye, Social Mention, amongst others.

Set a Team to Reply in Real-Time

Before your app hits the market, you need a team in place who would be responsible for answering all the app reviews in real time in the play store and app store. For one of the biggest way of how apps influence brand reputation is by not replying to the users.

Doing this will ensure that no bad mention goes unaddressed. Because an unaddressed review is in many ways equal to being a catalyst to a tarnished reputation.

Bring Troubleshooting Tips to Website

One of the root causes of genuine bad reviews and mentions of any brand is users not getting a solution to their problem. So, when you give them a platform full of troubleshooting solutions that they can apply and get a redressal, the chances of them passing a bad review will automatically be nullified.

So, we recommend is that you hire online experienced online mobile app reputation manager and brainstorm all the different scenarios that the users can face which can frustrate them and then work on troubleshooting guide to solve it for them in one place.

Being prepared for the somewhat inevitable time of negative feedback and mentions can be one of the most sound decisions that you can take in the app journey.

And now that we have looked at the precautionary tales, let us now get into the ways you can combat bad reviews on your app in real-time – whether they are in the stores or on the social media. Here are the tips for app reputation management when you are in the second stage.

Reply in Real Time

This pointer here, to reply in real time, has to be the mantra of your mobile app reputation management. You will have to ensure that a team is always ready to reply on the negative feedback with a solution or an apologetic message.

No matter what technicality the problem’s solution calls for, your mobile reputation management strategy should ensure that the first level of message always goes through in real-time. None of your users should ever feel abandoned, for it would only leave room for more frustration and thus the bad word of mouth marketing.

Do Not Be Defensive

A very important thing to understand when tackling bad reviews is that the users who are making them are frustrated. Now, no matter how small you believe the problem is and how invalid the users’ responses are to it, make sure your reply is always on a defensive note. No matter what word the users make use of, your reply always have to be on the softer side.

Keep the Reply Very Short

The number one formula in every guide to increase the prestige of mobile apps is to never use the comment section of the stores or any social media platforms as your way to reply paragraph-sized solutions or justifications to the complaining user.

Try to keep your comment very short and precise, for example, you can take 3 lines as your standard response size.

Take the Commentator on a Private Channel

Refrain from justifying or clarifying the miscommunication on a social platform which is open for everyone to see. After all, if you pass a negative message online as a brand, the user out of ego will only take it forward and beyond, in place of understanding the situation.

So, simply mention your email id in the comment and ask the users to contact there – thus taking them away from the platform where there is space for the good reviews to grow.

Reply When the Issue is Resolved

Make it a mandatory process to reply to your customers when the issue is resolved in a timely manner. Even if it takes a week on end, make sure you come back to the comment and drop in a line saying that the issue is resolved now and that you are sorry that it caused inconvenience in the first place and that you value the association that they have with your brand.

Now that we have looked at the ways to combat and get your negative reputation in control while it is happening, it is now time for the last segment – Repair Damage. The part we look at mobile app reputation management solutions for after the plans are retouched and users are now content.

Experience Before Ratings

One of the most annoying things which only aggravates the frustration of a bad experience offering mobile app is when the app asks for reviews at every possible occasion.

While it is important to ask for reviews, it can backfire when you have not timed it right. So, let the users arrive at a particular app stage before you pop up the message to leave a rating.

Also, instead of directing them straight to the store, first give them the option to share what they are feeling in the app – this way you will be able to create a gap between negative feedbacks and the stores.

Influencer Marketing

If there is anything that marketing has taught us, it is the fact that when you attach a reliable face to a product, the trust sentiment automatically flows between the face and the product.

Following the same formula, it would help if you introduce an influencer into your mobile app promotion strategy.

After all is said and done, the one compressed secret to managing and reimaging your app’s image in the market and to achieve the fruits of your online app reputation management labor is to be present at all times in a non-defensive mode.

Are you facing a time of bad app reputation? Let us help you get to the root of it.

FinTech vs. TechFin: What is the Destiny of Global Finance Economy?

Posted on 04/02/202014/06/2021 by Tushar

“There are two big opportunities in the future financial industry. One is online banking, where all the financial institutions go online; the other is internet finance, which is purely led by outsiders.” – Jack Ma

The Finance and banking economy across the whole globe is facing a new level influx of changes coming its way since the past many years. And the changes are in no way showing a picture of stoppage – giving no breather to the finance sector to hold and react.

First from a traditional banking system to digital then from fiat currency to digital currency, and now while the Finance world was still getting habitual to all this modernism, a new trend entered the domain, introducing itself as the future finance and banking ecosystem.

This latest trend in banking technology that is soon making an entry in the world is TechFin. But what is TechFin? And what impact would it carry?

While closely resembling the concept that we have already seen and warmed up to, FinTech, the idea in itself is very different. Something that is now slowly causing the rise in search engine queries and queries that financial software development agencies are receiving: FinTech vs TechFin: Is there a difference? And if there is, then where the future of Finance and Banking lies between TechFin and FinTech?

Let us try to look at the answer of both in this piece.

The beginning of modern financial software development began roughly 10 years ago during the global financial crisis, which convinced the incumbents that they were fighting for survival. This provided a great deal of room for innovators to build businesses, and this is when Square got started, which was a seminal moment.

And as the economy got stable, so did the hold of players who entered with the support of financial application development companies to take some of the banking work away from banks. Ever since Square and PayPal, the innovations in Finance industry saw no stopping. One after another new offerings kept coming in the domain, promising to set newer standards in user experience.

And the movement that started then has today come to a point which was difficult to imagine years ago – the stage where tech and finance merge.

While FinTech had already created a pivotal position in the users’ life, TechFin – a.k.a the movement – is something that will bring a monumental shift in not just the use of financial institutions but also the reason for their existence.

Before we move on to the phases of how FinTech came into existing and where the future of FinTech is headed – TechFin, let me answer the glaring question first – FinTech vs TechFin: What is the difference. For the article will only dissect the other in much detail from here on.

Difference Between FinTech vs TechFin

Putting it simply, FinTech is the concept where the Finance industry starts using technology to offer better customer experience. TechFin solutions are where the Technology Domain enters the Finance sector to change how users interact with the industry.

The examples of TechFin organizations include Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple (GAFA) in the U.S. and Baidu, Alibaba & Tencent (BAT) in China.

Now that we have looked at what differentiates both the concept, let us talk about the different phases that the Finance sector has seen and identify the space where TechFin entered.

The Evolution of Finance and Technology

The rate at which the Finance and technology industry is evolving is one that is in many ways bringing a stark transformation in the domain. What was Finance decades before is not what it is now and won’t be the same next decade. Let us track the steps of Finance and Technology’s unison movement.

Stage 1: Exclusion

The first step of fintech or techfin evolution is the era when there was no technology in the picture. Financial consumers had to wait in long lines in banks to perform any and all types of money related work.

Stage 2: Mobile Payments

The next phase was when payments – a small fragment of the banking sector came on mobile banking services. Users now standing in queues were making payments of bills, electricity, and water on mobile through apps that came majorly from non-banking institutions.

Stage 3: Mobile Basic Banking – The Now

Seeing the ease that this digital revolution in finance was offering to the millions of their user base, a number of banking institutions also entered the space by developing a financial application for their bank.

Meanwhile, the non-banking technology companies too expanded their offerings and entered services like lending, credit facility etc. This stage, right here is where the Finance industry entered into a competition with technology firms to emerge as the best service provider – the stage which was known in the fintech app development world as online banking.

Stage 4: Full-Service Mobile Banking – The Future of Banking Technology 2020

The stage where the Finance and technology combination is headed on to next, is one where the competition that started in stage four only becomes much cut-throat. The time to come is set to move from FinTech to TechFin. The technology based companies who made an entry in the banking services will only make their presence stronger and the Financial institutions will start involving technology at a greater level in their processes.

Since we have looked into both – what differentiated FinTech from TechFin and the evolution of Finance, it is time to give an in-depth share of attention to what is TechFin and what are TechFin benefits, at the outlook of the basis on which it operates and where does the future of financial services industry lies.

The Basis of TechFin Ecosystem

A. Customer Base That is Willing to Experiment

The biggest perk that operates in the favour of TechFin is the fact that the user base that a technology firm is able to attract. A number that almost always is much greater than the number of users a finance firm is able to acquire.

One of the reasons why technical companies are able to attract more users through their finance app development effort is also because of the subconscious image. When someone uses a banking app, there is a subconscious fear of something going wrong, while the same is not there when the app offering the same service comes from a non-banking parent company.

Lastly, the consumer base that is present in the case of TechFin apps is a lot more diverse as compared to the restricted FinTech user group.

Lastly, the consumer base that is present in case of TechFin apps is a lot more diverse as compared to the restricted FinTech user group.

B. A Strong Technical Infrastructure

The reason why technological firms have an upper hand when it comes to boasting their infrastructure excellence is very obvious. When a technology firm enters the finance domain, it is already armored to handle the user flow of millions in real-time.

After all, even in the race of coming out as the ultimate finance sector leaders, the finance companies take help of technical firms to help develop their infrastructure. This partnership is a key enabler of the future of the financial industry.

C. Better Mechanisms of Data Management

The whole data related cycle in case of TechFin firms is a lot better than that of FinTech agencies. The difference in how well the data flows in TechFin vs FinTech can be seen in the simple fact how users are a lot more comfortable sharing their data with Technological firms as compared to Financial.

While on the one hand, one of the biggest challenges of banking software development is to get quality data out of the users, the technological firms, on the other hand, simply have to give the users a form and they themselves send it back, all filled.

In addition to this, the system and algorithms needed to manage data are in themselves a lot more readily available to a technological company than their financial counterparts.

D. Similar Regulation Set

Unlike normally assumed, the level of regulation levied on technological firms that enter the finance domain are the same as the financial institution’s who involve technology in their offerings. So, there is hardly any legality that is standing in front of TechFin as a roadblock.

The TechFin segment of the Finance sector, as we just read, is paving the grounds to enter and transform the segment. But does it mean the end of traditional banking as we know it?

The answer of where is the future of finance, lies with the finance economy itself. The truth is, the time will come when TechFin and FinTech companies will merge and their offerings will become similar if not competitive.

And when the time does come, the true benefit will lie in FinTech collaborating with TechFin and becoming one with the latter. For, individually, both domains, no matter how far and big they grow, will have some spaces left to be filled. Plus, the mix of subconscious carefulness and easy flowing user experience will only be achieved upon the transformation of FinTech into TechFin. Now, whether the merger happens or not, one thing is certain – the Banking industry is destined to change and Fintech transformation is bound to happen. It is not going to be the ecosystem that Generation X operated in.

A peek into the Coursera like App Development cost

Posted on 03/02/202014/06/2021 by Tushar

Gone is the time when education ecosystem was restricted to brick and mortar schools. And even the time when people, because of lack of funds had to keep their dreams on hold. The present now belongs to MOOC apps like Coursera and the supporting questions that surround the question – What is the cost of Coursera like app development?

When we talk about mLearning, there are few names that come on top of our head almost instantly – Coursera, Udemy, Lynda by LinkedIn, etc.

All these names that hit our thoughts belong to the sub-category called MOOCs.

Massive Open Online Courses officially came out to play a significant role in the transition from brick and mortar classes to digital.

All the benefits that the category now offered, not just made it a sub-category that students and instructors from around the globe were accepting from open hearts but made it one of the most quickly flourishing industries in a very short time-period.

Let us look a little into the whole MOOC market – the present and expected state, the fundings that the sector has been able to avail and the top players, before we look at what concerns the entrepreneurs most – Cost of coursera like app development.

Present and Estimated Future of the MOOC Market

Recent Funding in the Field of mLearning and MOOCs

The market scenario that you just saw is one that has not just attracted market players, as we will see in the next section, but have also warmed up the investment world.

The ease that these MOOC platforms offer to the world full of learners and instructors both in terms of convenience and cost saving is something that has not gotten unnoticed by the investors community. Time and again a number of funding rounds have been happening in the edutech platform, keeping the momentum of Coursera clone app builders high.

Let us look at some of the recent ones –

A. Emeritus, a U.S-Indian company that partners with universities to offer digital courses, landed a $40 million Series C round led by Sequoia India.

B. DataTrained, raised a second round of funding of Rs12Cr from a pool of 3 investors for a stake of 20% in the company in 2018.

C. MasterClass, platform for online video courses on topics from film directing to tennis taught by iconic figures in each field (like Martin Scorsese and Serena Williams) launched in 2015 and has raised $136M from top VC firms like IVP, NEA, and Atomico.

D. In July 2018, Edutech start-up Unacademy announced the closing of a $21 million Series C funding round from SAIF Partners, Sequoia India, and Nexus Venture Partners.

These funding rounds are simply a peek into how big the MOOC sector is and how mobile apps are changing the future of the education sector, especially from the point of view of educational institutions that are witnessing a change.

Now, before we move on to looking at the feature, tech stack info you will need to enter the flourishing market and to answer the question of how much does Coursera like eLearning app development cost, let us look into top market players, you will soon be competing with.

Top Players of the MOOC Domain

The market which is majorly known through the name of Coursera has a number of other names working on constant innovation to eventually become an associated word for MOOCs.

With all of them aiming to earn their own share of the market and revenue pie that the industry has to offer. Let us look at the some of the other established names of the MOOC domain besides Coursera –

The names that we just saw to be ruling the edutech and MOOC domain are not restricted. The list is ever-growing and more and more brands are now entering the segment to try their luck in the flourishing sector.

Now, irrespective of what the headcount of players are today and what is the estimate of its growth are, the one thing which is constant remains – The list of features.

There is a set of features, which is common among all the top players of MOOC sector that have turned out to become the standard or must-have features.

Today, we will be giving you a cost estimate on the basis of these exact features for the additional costs only gets added on the base features. Thus, read our answer to What is the cost of Coursera like app development, as the MVP costs, something that will grow in the direction you would want it to grow.

Without further delay, let us get straight to it.

Must-Have Features of MOOC Apps like Coursera

Here is the list of must have features set shared by our team of mLearning app development experts that will add on to the answer of how much coursera like app development cost. And would also give a clear picture when making eLearning applications.

A. Search, Filtration, and Recommendation

It is the first and most important part of the whole eLearning software building process. All the eLearning platforms – website and application, showcases a whole catalogue of courses, which requires a properly outlayed search and filtering mechanism. There should be multiple ways users can arrive at the course that they are looking for –

By entering the keyword in the search bar
According to primary and secondary categories
Filters and sorting
Recommendations

B. Stakeholder Profiles

Usually, you will have to accomodate three profiles inside your application, as the top mobile app developers would tell you – Student, Teacher, and Admin when answering how to create Udemy clone app. Let us look at what features the three should individually entail –

Users Profile –

Personal and payment information
List of present and completed courses
Information about the earned credits or points or certificate
History of purchases
Wishlist
Profile settings
Contact admin option
Rating and Review facility

Teacher Profile

Personal and payment information
Create and Submit courses
Dashboard with details of interest shown in their course
Contact admin option

Admin Profile

Modify blacklist users
Modify courses
Get statistics reports
Assign roles to the users
Help with change in subscription plan
Manage newsletter and notification

C. Course Creation

There should be a tool integrated within the application that would enable the teachers to develop a course, prepare quizzes, questionnaires, etc. The platform should allow multiple things – design a course structure, write scripts, and add – slides, videos, text, coding exercises, quiz, PDFs, audio files, etc.

D. Dashboard

The instructors should be given the facility of a dashboard where they can track several activities and gain useful insights.

Usually, a dashboard consists information on –

Detail of courses
Monitoring of students counts, conversion, and revenue earned
Insights into what the students are looking for.

E. Course Detail Page

Every course should be given a dedicated page where all types of features can be feeded in. The page should have details like –

Description of the course
Information about the creator
The instructions of usage
Material required to study the course
Duration of the course
Rating and review

While this was about the course detail page, the course in itself should have – videos that have been pre-recorded, subtitles, quizzes, assignments, discussion forum, and maybe even gamification element to increase user engagement.

F. Payments Integration

Since, offering paid courses or taking payment for certification are the two most common source of revenue models present in a MOOC application like Coursera, you will have to have a complete know-how of the process of payment gateway integration for estimating your cost to develop eLearning website like Udemy. There can be multiple payment modes that can be added in the application – Debit/Credit, UPI based, and integration of P2P Payment systems like PayPal, Venmo, etc.

G. Notifications

Notifications, as we have discussed on multiple instances before, is one of those important mobile app design tips that improve conversions. You should integrate the notification mechanism in the app in a way that the users are always updated about the topics they are interested in.

H. Business Side of the App

Although this is a feature that must be added at a much later stage, the option enables companies to give learning material to their employees. With the help of an API, you can send in the details of the employee’s learning progress to the partnered company.

Now that we have looked at the different features that must be present in you application to bring it to a point where it contributes into the flourishing market, it is time to look into a factor that according to all the for dummies mobile app development guide deem important – Technology Stack.

Technology Stack for Coursera and Udemy like Applications

Here is the technology stack that apps like Coursera and Udemy are usually based on.

Language – JavaScript, Scala, php, Python
Web Server – Nginx
Storage – Amazon S3
Database – Amazon’s Relational Database Service, MySQL
Search – Amazon CloudSearch, Elastic Search

After seeing all the technical and market side of the coursera like app development, we have finally arrived at the section which will have a direct impact on your dreams to enter the edutech domain – How much does it cost to make a Coursera like application.

Cost of Coursera Like Mobile App Development

Now, while the answer to the question depends entirely on what you wish to add in the application, in case you are looking to go with the features we mentioned above and are planning to keep the technology stack same as well, the cost range will come down to something like this – USD 76,500 to USD 1,03,000.

However, what we would like to specify here is that while this is just a basic level cost, it does not necessarily mean that it would also be YOUR eLearning app development expenses. The more the features you plan on adding in the application, the greater would be the ultimate cost of the application.

Revenue Model

Now that we have looked at a number of different elements surrounding the development of MOOC apps like Coursera or Udemy, along with the answer of how much it would cost you to develop a coursera like application, it is time to look at the ways you earn money. Ways that we help our clients with in our role as the top education app development company of the nation.

So, as a parting note let us see how get back and grow the money you had put into the development of your MOOC application.

A. Paid Certificate

Course certificate is the one element which majorly attract students to the eLearning MOOC platforms like Udemy or Coursera. The fact that students will have to pay an amount which is a lot less than what a full-time college would cost is something that makes them pay for certificates very willingly.

B. Subscriptions

A common mode of earning money within the MOOC platform which quickly covers up the cost of coursera like app development is subscription. The students in this revenue model are asked to enroll in the app for free for a fixed period of time before they are asked to pay to complete the course.

C. Affiliate Marketing

Platforms both new in the market and old can earn good amounts through affiliate marketing. By simply following a process where they add an Amazon link in the course and then directing people to that Amazon link from where the users purchase the book, brands can earn good amount in name of affiliate marketing.

D. Corporate Learning

While this is the step that will only show results once your app has established itself in the market, you can in fact keep corporate learning as a part of your future business objective. For, it is estimated that the role of corporate learning mobile apps will be on a high in 2019. Coursera and Udemy already have a separate corporate learning packages in place, which makes it possible for them to charge on user group basis.

With this, you now have the answer to not just how much Coursera like app development costs but also to everything that you need to get started and then even earn money from. Well, there is just one thing left to do now – Get in touch with our educational app developers.

Enterprise Mobility Solutions: Why to Invest in Them

Posted on 02/02/202014/06/2021 by Tushar

Gone are those days when employees were supposed to check the notice boards or contact management for every query. Today, they can connect with the management and get the right information/product in real-time regardless of if they are in the office or at home. And this has been made possible by Enterprise mobility solutions.

Enterprise mobile apps are transforming the working environment of the company. They, unlike business apps, are targeting the employees of the company and providing them with a surplus of options, making it necessary for the organizations to look into Enterprise mobile application development.

But before we jump into the benefits the mobile apps avail to the Enterprises – the one that differentiate enterprise apps from consumer-end solutions, let’s have a look at this data giving a hint of the Enterprise app market:-

Enterprise mobile market is expected to hit a revenue of $430 billion by the year 2021.
4.67% of companies acknowledged that Enterprise mobility solutions are becoming the need of the hour.
65% of companies are using 2-5 enterprises apps, while 27% are relying upon 6 or more applications for catering to the needs of the employees.
5.66% of companies decided to develop Enterprise apps in the coming 3 years.
47% of agencies observed an improvement in internal communication, resulting in better relationships and lower disputes under the roof.
59% of workers in America worked beyond their 9-to-5 shift because of Enterprise mobile apps.
Around 250 hours have been saved per year using Enterprise app, which is nearly equal to 6 additional working days.
77% of employers shared that the market for Enterprise apps has grown in the past two years.
39% of employees admit that they are using Enterprise mobility solutions due to efficiency potential they have.
19.23% of increase has been experienced in terms of customer satisfaction.

With these interesting fact known to you, let’s check the reasons to build Enterprise apps:-

1. Effective Communication

Various companies still rely upon emails and other desk-based means of communications. While these methods sound effective, they act as a barrier in communication when the employees are not at their desk or are into field work, resulting in isolation and disputes.

Enterprise business solutions, in this scenario, reside on their phones and provide them with a chat feature which is faster, easier and more effective than an email. An example of this is IBM launching its video streaming application enhancing workplace communication. It enables them to enjoy communication on the go and the best part, share the information with multiple people in group conversations without undergoing the risk of forgetting to click on the ‘Reply All’ button.

2. Real-time Data Sharing

Unlike the traditional methods that demand staff members to prepare offline records and hunt for getting every single information, the Enterprise apps rely upon the cloud technology and offer quick and comfortable sharing of files and information anytime and anywhere. This encourages organizations to look forward to investing in Enterprise app development.

3. Higher Productivity

One of the benefits of Enterprise app software is that it comes with various handy tools that help them work efficiently. For example, the calendar aids the employees to monitor their work schedule, while the push notification feature provides them with information about the upcoming meeting, project deadlines, and more.

4. Better Employee Involvement

An Enterprise application also helps the management to bring all the workforce on the same platform. It gives the employees an opportunity to freely give their feedback, share relevant information, make an announcement, and much more effortlessly – rather than waiting for their turn or visiting the management personally.

These apps also help organizations to realize the importance of education app in Enterprises and thus, provide the facility to their workforce.

This, as a whole, improves the relations and build effective work culture and productivity, prompting the organization to look ahead towards how to build Enterprise apps.

5. Seamless Record Maintenance

Another reason behind rising Enterprise demand for custom app development is that it gives management an escape from the manual record management process. These apps enable employers to keep an online record of all their employees and retrieve the data easily and anytime based on different factors, such as age, department, contact number, etc. And, in this way, prevent them from going through the hassle of checking each record to find the right employee.

Let me explain this with an example. Suppose, you have a French client and are finding language as a barrier in communication. You need someone to have fluency in the French language immediately.

Now, if you talk about the traditional method, you were supposed to ask every individual to find the right person. Whereas, in the case of Enterprise mobility solutions, you can easily filter the data and contact the candidate with the required skills.

6. Robust Security

One of the prime reasons to invest in Enterprise app development is that it adds security to the process. These apps, by integrating technologies like AI and Blockchain, enable the companies to ensure that their data is safely and securely stored on the cloud.

7. Improved ROI

By providing all these features, the Enterprise mobile apps enable the employees to work seamlessly, effectively and safely, which eventually boosts the ROI.

Now as you know the reasons why invest in Enterprise mobile apps, it’s evident that you must be looking forward to hiring an enterprise mobile application development company in New York and get an app ready.

Taking the same thought forward, let’s see what it takes to hire an enterprise mobile application development company in New York, Florida, Texas, Middle-East and European countries for your enterprise app needs.

1. Experience

The foremost factor to consider to develop Enterprise apps is the experience of the app development company. If the company is highly experienced, it will be well-versed with the challenges and trends of the mobile industry as well as that of yours, implying they will provide you with the best solution as per the market needs.

Whereas, on the flip side, a newbie company might fail to deliver the application at the right time or may serve you with a low-quality product.

2. Platform

The decision of investing in Enterprise Android app development or Enterprise iOS application development or both also depends on the fact that the platform chosen makes a huge difference in the development area, timeline, cost, and the corresponding outcomes. This is because every team has its own level of expertise at tech stack associated with developing an application for Android, iOS or both the platforms individually or using Cross-platform app development approach.

3. Design

Many companies focus completely on the coding part, leaving no time for the design element. An outcome of which is that they fail to gain the attention of the target audience and thus, enjoy higher outcomes from Enterprise business solutions.

So, it is necessary to learn more about the designing skills of the company you are planning to hire before getting into a deal.

4. Portfolio

A portfolio, like a window, can help you to get a comprehensive look into their skills and visualize the type of application you will be served with. So, do not skip this step.

5. Communication

Though often overlooked, the level of communication also makes a difference in the choice. This is because if a mobile app does not connect you throughout the process, you would find it hard to know what and how they are developing your application, what challenges they are facing and how they are mitigating them, and ultimately fail to understand the impact on your application. In the worst scenario, you get delivered an app solution that is entirely different from the idea you shared, implying you need to ask them to invest additional effort and time in return of funds to get the same facilities available. Thus it is safe to opt for the enterprise mobile application development company in New York or other areas around the globe to get a top-notch application.

6. Security

Considering the level of sensitive data stored/shared/exchanged on the platform and the growing interest of hackers into the mobile data, it is again important to consider an app development team that looks into the mobile app security best practices and strive to deliver a secure experience.

7. App Cost

Last but not least, check how the cost to develop an application is defined at their end – do they provide all the services in a single package or has added a price tag to each service individually. Depending on the answer to this question, check for the company that can deliver the right set of services within your budget.

As covered in this article, Enterprise mobility solutions are becoming an indispensable part of the organization. They are encouraging the enterprises to serve their employees with the right insights and resources, and thus empower them to add more profits to their business.

So, in case you are also an Enterprise, look forward to investing in the process of how to hire the right mobile app development company and introduce Enterprise mobility solutions to your traditional process.

A Glimpse of the burgeoning On-Demand Home Services App Market

Posted on 01/02/202014/06/2021 by Tushar

Imagine a scenario. You woke up, had your breakfast and left for the office with a messy room and stinky dishes behind. But, when you come back in the evening, you find everything in the perfect order – dishes cleaned and organized in the shelves, carpets vacuumed and the floor shining like a star. What would be your first reaction?

If I would have asked this question a few years back, the answer would have definitely been elation and curiosity of whether there’s any genie (spirit) who is cleaning everything up. But, in the present time, all these incidents are common to experience – thanks to On demand home services apps.

Eager to know more about these mobile apps and the future scope? For the next 8 minutes, we will be on a journey to the on demand home services app market– looking into the reasons why the industry is gaining momentum, who are the top players, the future predictions, and more.

On Demand Home Services Apps – Why are They So Popular?

An on demand home service app, as you can sense from the scenario shared at the beginning of this article, aid people in managing their busy lives. These on demand service apps enable people to hire someone to manage their household chores and boring tasks including cleaning, plumbing, painting, and moving and storage. On the other side, it also provides a source of high and constant revenue to on demand app development companies.

The home services segment of the On-demand economy is reshaping the world around us by acting a solution of the three challenges of the industry:-

1. Availability of Service Providers

While some areas have plenty of service providers to take the help of, others have countable numbers of options. In such scenarios, an on demand service app development company acts as a medium providing the users with multiple options both locally and those ready to visit their areas for delivering services.

2. Reliability of Service Providers

In the traditional market, it is quite tough to rely upon any service providers when not performing the task in front of you. But, when it comes to on demand household services app market size and on demand home services applications, then these platforms empower you to connect only with authorized service providers and pick the right one- based on the feedback from existing customers and other factors. This encourages the users to rely upon the service providers and feel free to leave their place with the provider while performing other tasks.

3. Quality of Work

The reviews and ratings for the on demand app for home services, when created by the reputed on demand app developers help to get an idea of the quality of work the service providers offer and thus, go with the online on demand app development company that matches your needs and expectations.

While these were some of the challenges that On-demand apps for home services have catered, there are a myriad of advantages it offers, including:-

Significant Convenience

A majority of the On-demand home services applications provides all the home-related service options at the same platform. This makes it convenient for someone to look into different services without jumping from one platform to another.

Considerable Flexibility

While the customers get an opportunity to enjoy multiple services at the same platform, the service providers obtain the freedom to choose their own working hours and conditions. This way, the On-demand home services platform designed by the best software development company is adding flexibility to the marketplace.

Simplified Appointment Scheduling

Another reason why companies are investing in on demand services app development is that these applications offer the users and service providers the opportunity to check their calendar and fix an appointment for the job accordingly. This way, they can manage that the task is fulfilled on the day of their availability or the day with better optimal solutions.

Ease of Payment

The On-demand platforms that connect users with service providers often manage billing and payment transactions. This gives the service providers an escape from the stress of the payment and avails their best efforts into their responsibilities while making it easier for the customers to pay in different forms, apart from cash.

Higher Lead Generation

Last but not least, lead generation is also one of the reasons why businesses are embracing the concept of on demand mobile app development.

While the traditional methods might be still applicable, the On-demand mobile apps provide the service providers a platform to connect with a greater audience and transform their service offerings into a wholesome business.

With all these benefits, the online and instant home service market has become popular in the marketplace – making both users and service providers turn towards the On-demand economy. A few statistics proving this statement are:-

On Demand Home Services Industry Market Statistics (And Future Predictions)

The global on demand home services market size is anticipated to reach USD 1,574.86 Bn during 2020-2024. That indicates that more and more startups and established service providers will plan to enter the arena.
The landscaping segment generates annual revenue of about $600 Bn market in the United States only. This is also one of the online on demand home services market statistics to focus upon.
The moving and storage market has around 8,000 companies involved who produces around $12 billion of collective revenues.
The online home services app market, as previously covered in our article about On-demand mobile app economy statistics, will gain higher popularity this year. It will experience more requests from people for services like home cleaning, tutor service, carpenter, water heater repair, painter, etc. in addition to the demand for delivery of food, cab, and fuel.
The Global commercial dry cleaning and washing sector will become 3.4% more in demand between 2017 and 2023. Whereas, the Flooring segment will observe a 5% rise in their market value and Plumbing market will grow by 12%.
However, it is also predicted that the major slice of the market share will remain confined to the Top market players, implying it would be necessary for the new startups to take a deep thought of how to succeed your On-demand business in a crowded app market.

Now as you are familiar with what is the current scenario of the On-demand home services industry and what will be the future of the sphere, it’s the right time to look forward to uncovering everything related to on demand home services app development.

So, without ado, here are a few things you must consider when partnering with an On demand app development company to design your own home services application –

1. Understand User Persona

Since customers are the prime element of every business, it is necessary for the service providing companies to gather in-depth knowledge about their customers – their needs, expectations, age, region, and more to get a clarity of your goal and the target audience. It is also important because not all the people from all the areas across the globe are relishing the advantages of On-demand home services economy equally .

So, be open to performing extensive market research, gathering enough customer feedback and ensuring that you minimize the pains of the customers.

2. Analyze the Top Players

Though the demand for on demand household services app market size is increasing, the larger market profits are still going with the top players. In a scenario like this, if you perform competitive analysis for their mobile app idea, you can easily figure out what makes the customers magnetized to the services of these top players. This information can enable you to integrate those elements into your mobile app and thus, increase the chances of app success.

3. User Experience

Considering the importance of UX mobile app success, the next thing to pay attention to the type of onboarding and UX experience you are introducing in your application. This implies, adding the elements that keep the app users hooked to your platform and convince them that it is adding some value to their lives.

4. Push Notifications and Other Engagement Options

Focusing on the right use of Push notifications and other such engagement options is yet another thing to consider when making a ‘Home services On-Demand’ application. The push notifications, acting as a reminder to the users, will encourage them to tap on your app icon more often and perform some activity. This will improve your app engagement as well as ranking in the competitive world. Besides introducing push notifications, getting familiar with how to localize your app to increase its conversion rate by 200% is also a profitable method. So, look forward to exploring its potential in your niche market also.

5. Tech Stack and Development Cost

Last but not least, having a sound knowledge of what tech stack to integrate into your On-demand app development process and how much does home services app development cost is also helpful.

While these were some of the factors that must be considered while making an On-demand home services app, there can be various other constraints and challenges associated with the development process depending on the type of services and business model you pick. So, to get a complete idea of what things to watch out for turning your On-demand app vision into a mobile app, you should consult with an On-demand app development experts.

Get Your App Featured in Play Store (Step-by-Step Guide)

Posted on 20/01/202012/06/2021 by Tushar

According to the Google Play Store statistics, there are the interest that the famous mobile app store is getting is bigger than ever.

The fact that the number of Android device users are present in the manifold in almost every corner of the world only increases the liking for the store among the business world, irrespective of what industry you look at.

While the ultimate aim of all the businesses/entrepreneurs who opt for Android application development revolves around greater reach which ripples down to high download rate and as a result high revenue charts, the one position everyone wishes to reach is ‘Featured App’ or ‘Editor’s Choice’.

Besides the usual feeling of pride that comes after google play store featuring your app, there are a number of benefits of getting featured on the Play Store. Benefits revolve around giving a bigger boost to featured apps with greater download, greater reach, and ultimately, greater profits, once you have completed the long process of Android app development.

In this article, we will tell you the ways of how to get your app noticed on Google Play and ways you can ensure your app gets featured on the Play Store. Ways that have been confided in us by Google itself.

Steps to Get Your App Featured in Play Store

Why Does Google have a Featured List?
What are the Different Options For You to Get Visible on the Play Store?
Steps To Get Your App Featured in the Google Play Store
User Interaction and Visual Design
Functionality
Work on Latest Technologies
Measuring Vitals of your Android App
Localization
Reach Out to the Google Developer Agencies
Factors to Avoid When Looking to Get Your App Featured in the Play Store

But, before we move on to the steps you should take to get featured on Google Play, let us first tell you the reason Google confided in us the secret, in the first place.

In the start of 2017, our team at Anteelo was sent an invitation by Google to join its Developer Agency program.

Under the program, we are given the access to get all the latest updates in the Android industry straight from the horse’s mouth before it is ever made life for public knowledge. In addition to this up-to-date information on new software and product launches, we also get the complete support of the Google in-house developer agency who conduct sessions to help our team get on-board with the latest technologies and standards in the design and development world.

Now beside the tech and knowledge support, Google, from time and again, has been confiding in us the steps that we need to follow in our design and development to ensure that the brand we have partnered with gets the most in terms of revenue and growth.

Before we move on to telling you the ways an app can get featured in the Play Store, let us first look into the reason why Google even has a list of Featured apps for Android in the first place and the different ways your brand can gain visibility.

Why Does Google have a Featured List?

With millions of apps present in the Play Store, it can be difficult for the users to identify which app is the best out of the apps released on play store and from the developers’ side, it can become demotivating for an Android developer to first create a Google Play Store app for Android users and then watch it get lost in the crowd – something that gets resolved through Google’s several initiatives like Developer’s Badge, Editor’s pick etc.

What are the Different Options For You to Get Your App Noticed on Google Play?

When it comes to getting the word out for your Android app’s superiority in terms of performance, there are a number of options that are given to you by Google, besides getting featured on Google Play.

New

To determine new apps that google play features and are less than 30 days old, Top New lists use the date of first availability; this includes the first time an app was published, or the first time an app was made available in a location.

Note: The time period when an app is exclusively in Alpha or Beta (without a Production APK) has no effect on its first availability date or its ability to be on a “Top New” list.

Top New Free: Most popular free apps less than 30 days old
Top New Paid: Most popular paid apps less than 30 days old

Selected by Google Play team

Featured: Selected new apps
Staff Picks: Rotating set of staff-selected apps
Editors’ Choice: Some of the best Android apps of all-time on Google Play
Top Developer: Some of the best developers on Google Play

With all said and done, let us now look into the ways on how to get your app noticed on Google Play and then get it featured on the Play Store and maybe even come in the list of Editor’s Choice. These ways are a sure fire way to get an answer to the question― how to get your app featured on google play?

*Disclaimer*: For the sake of this article, we will assume that you are already updated with using the right ASO practices to increase your app visibility in the store.

While, it is a given that Google Play Store optimization in terms of following Google Play App description guidelines, are a very important step that you need to follow when it comes to getting your app popular in the store, it is not sufficient. Here are the other steps you will have to follow to get your app featured on the play store.

Steps To Get Your App Featured in the Google Play Store

Here are the different google play featuring requirements that we, the leading Android app development company, follow to ensure that Google Play is featuring your app and that makes it to the google play editor’s choice list.

User Interaction and Visual Design

Google suggests that all Android apps should follow strict Material Design guidelines in their mobile app User Interface, in order to get featured on Google. Following the standards set by Material Design guidelines, not just leads to an interactive experience for app users but also raises the probability of app getting chosen in the Featured Article section of the Play Store.

In the end, having your app designed in a way that user experience is kept at the top is not just a way to get million downloads on your app but also has the potential to makes yours a Featured Play Store app.

With respect to Material Design, Android has shared a list of particulars for brands to follow.

In Terms of Standard Design:

Apps should not redefine the obvious function of system icon, e.g, Back Button or Home icon.
App should not replace the system icon with a completely different icon.
If the app offers a customized version of the standard system’s icon, the icon should 100% resemble the icon of the system and perform the typical standards system behaviour.
The app should not misuse the Android UI pattern in a way that the resultant action is misleading.

In Terms of Navigation:

The App should support the system Back button and not make use of custom back buttons.
All the dialogs should be made dismissable with the back button.
Pressing the home button should take the user back to the home screen, no matter at what stage they are in the application

In terms of Notification:

Multiple notifications should be stacked as the single notification
Notification should be persistent only if they are related to the ongoing user task.
The notification should not have an advertisement or any content which is not related to the main functionality of the mobile app.

Anteelo UI AND VISUAL DESIGN CHECKLIST TO GETTING AN APP FEATURED

TANGIBLE SURFACE

Use of shadows to communicate which surface are in front
Use of surface and shadows in a structured and consistent way
Avoid too much layering or surfaces nesting
Scrollable Content should scroll to either the screen edges or behind some other surface.
Surface should have single-colour, simple background

PRINT LIKE AESTHETICS

The apps should use a primary and accent colour which should be contrasting to each other.
Icons, texts, images are to be coloured ‘ink’. They should not have shadows or gradients.
Colours taken from the image can be used as the adjacent Ul element colour.
App icons should follow system icon guideline and material design icon set.
Elements such as thumbnail, app bar titles, etc should be aligned to 3 keylines.

AUTHENTIC MOTION

Ul and content element should animate into place
Ripple effect to show where you touched the screen
UI elements should reveal with a circular reveal animation
Animations should be under 300 ms

ADAPTIVE DESIGN

The app should use best responsive design practices
key action should be shown with a floating action button on the screen
App should use standard Android app bar
App bar should be 2-3 time higher than standard height
App bar can scroll off screen when user scrolls down.
Tabs should follow material design based styling and interaction
Tabs should have a swipe gesture for movement between them

NAVIGATION DRAWER

The leftmost icon of app bar should be navigation drawer indicator
App drawer should be no wider than 320dp on phone and 400dp on tablet

Functionality

Google usually insists that the app made for Play Store should be developed with the help of Android Studio.

In Terms of Permission

The app should request only the very minimum set of permissions that are needed to support the core functionality of the mobile app.
Apps cannot request permission to access sensitive, private user information or service which can cost users money, until and unless they are related to some core app capability.

In Terms of App Installation

The apps should function normally when it is installed on the SD Card.
Most of the large apps should support SD Card installation.

In Terms of Audio

Audio should not play when the screen is off until it is a core functionality
Audio should not play under a locked screen
Audio should not play on the home screen or above some other app
Audio must resume when the app is brought to the main screen.

In terms of UI

Apps must support both portrait and landscape orientation (if possible)
Irrespective of what orientation your app is following, the features, actions, and functional parity should be preserved.
Apps should use the whole screen in both orientations and should not letterbox for changes in orientation.
Apps must handle the rapid transition between orientations.

In Terms of App State

Apps must not put any service in running when the app is operational in the background.

Work on Latest Technologies

The chances of your app getting featured on the Play Store increases, even more, when the apps are based on the leading Google technologies.

To increase the probability, we, at Anteelo always try to find out the scope for adding these technologies to your app, wherever viable. Let us look at what these technologies are –

Action on Google

With Google recently launching Google Homes in India and several other regions, developing an app and making it in sync with Google Assistant is what increases the chances of your app getting visible whenever a user ask the assistant for a similar service that your app brand offers.

Firebase

While the debate between Real-time vs Cloud Firestore is an ongoing one, when you develop an app using Firebase, users get to sign in the app through a system that they trust and use. The app saves users’ data in a secure cloud environment and offer personalized experience across a number of devices.

Implementation of Firebase brings in the factor of innovation and trust in the app, which ultimately increases the chance of getting your app selected as a Feature app.

Flutter

The Google flagship for Cross-Platform App Development, Flutter has been getting special attention from the developer community for being easy to use and packed with features that are standing points ahead of React Native.

With the aim of making the tool become synonymous to Cross-Platform App Development, Google editorial team is giving special focus to apps that are based on Flutter.

Measuring Vitals of your Android App

It is no surprise that stability and performance are linked directly to good Google Play Ratings. So the more issues you fix, the better goes your app rating on Play Store and the more users you are able to retain, which ultimately leads to a stage where your app gets featured on the Play Store.

Anteelo LAST MINUTE MOBILE APP RELEASE CHECKLIST

Adding App Analytics in Android app
Proguard in Android app
Low APK Size
Crash Reporting Library
Turn off debugging and logging
Check app version name and code
Test app on different OS version and screen size

Localization

Localizing your app UI and UX in a way that it is not made just for the native English speakers and readers, also plays a contributing role when it comes to getting the app featured in the Play Store.

Google has always shown a sweet spot for brands that don’t restrict their audience to any one particular geographical location, so for an app that supports its multi-linguality preference, tends to get a higher spot than the others as well.

Anteelo CHECKLIST FOR ANDROID APP LOCALIZATION

Identify countries where there is a market opportunity and where you can provide user support
use single set of flexible layouts having alternative layouts where needed. Support right-to-left text, use system-provided formats for times, dates, numbers, and money.
Optimize app for low and no bandwidth connectivity and low price range phones
Translate app, store listing and other resources
Test the localized app
Run open test in markets you are focusing on
Create forum or user group to support international users
Run store listing experiment to see what works best.

Reach Out to the Google Developer Agencies

While you cannot nominate your own app for getting featured in the Play Store, Google developer agencies like us can help your app get featured.

Let us tell you how.

Google Developer Agencies have access to the internal Google development and design team, who help them develop apps that is since inception up to the standards of getting featured in the Play Store. Also, the scope of us using our connection with the Google editorial team to push your app for nomination is of a high possibility.

So, here were the factors that Google has confided in us, which can directly lead to your app getting featured in the Google Play Store. While these were the things that you should do, there are steps that you should avoid at all costs to make sure that your app falls in the Featured section.

Factors to Avoid When Looking to Get Your App Featured in the Play Store

Do not use a payment provider other than Google
Do not make your app download other applications
Do not bribe your users with rewards in return for a high application rating.

Pointers to Consider and Avoid to Get Your App Featured in the Play Store

VISIBILITY OPTIONS THAT GOOGLE OFFERS TO ITS ANDROID APP DEVELOPERS’ COMMUNITY

New

Top New Free
Top New Paid

Selected by Google Play Team

Featured
Staff Picks
Editor’s Choice
Top Developer

BENEFITS OF GETTING APP FEATURED IN THE PLAY STORE

High Download Rates
Increase in Positive User Reviews and Feedbacks
Greater App user Retention Higher Revenue

DO’S AND DON’TS OF GETTING APP FEATURED IN THE PLAY STORE

Do’s

Proper Visual Design and User Interaction
App Functionality to Meet the Standards of Billion Devices
Work on the Latest Technologies
Test Your App to Make it Bugs and Complaint-Free
Localize Your App to Make the World Adopt it

Don’ts

Do not use a payment provider other than Google
Do not make your app download other applications
Do not bribe your users with rewards in return for a high application rating.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q. What is Editors Choice in Google Play?

Editors’ Choice refers to the apps and games that introduce users to the best innovative, creative, and designer apps on Android. Google also released an improved Editors’ Choice section that features app and game reviews accumulated and organized by the editorial team of Play Store. If your app gets featured on editors choice google play, there is a high chance for your app to gain million downloads.

Q. How to get your app featured on google play?

Well, Google really helps developers with its Google Play app description guidelines. With that, we have 6 tips up our sleeves to help you get your app on Google Play.

Follow launch checklist
Preach simplicity rather than over-stacking app with features
Develop attractive UI/UX design
Employ Google Product Initiatives
Acquire Press coverage
Analyze larger market forces.

Q. How to get your app noticed?

Everyone devises different tactics to make their app popular. For you, we have accumulated 7 tips that will ensure more active users for your app. They are:

Practice App Store Optimization
Promote your app on your website and other platforms
Devise email marketing campaigns
Optimally use Social Media
Make online and in-app ads
Create an effective Public relation strategy
Give your time to offline campaigns

Flutter Ideal For Cross-Platform App Development

Posted on 20/01/202012/06/2021 by Tushar

For mobile app development- iOS and Android are the two main platforms. Each of these platforms need different types of coding for application development. This separate coding has become a problem to various mobile app development companies; which has resulted in the use of cross platform development. Gone are the days when developers had to sweat double in order to create an app for app development platforms. Now, creating an app with one-time coding is possible, thanks to cross platform app development frameworks. The best cross platform app development includes creation of mobile applications in a way that they can be run on various platforms. In this type of development, programming is done only once in a manner that the app is supported by Android, iOS or Windows. Cross platform development has become popular because of its features and tools which are loved by developers. Some popular cross platform development tools are Xamarin by Microsoft, React Native by Facebook, and PhoneGap from Adobe. Each of these development tools have different features along with pros and cons. Developers are always looking for something new and improved to make app development a time saving and efficient process. This constant improvement in technology gave birth to Flutter.

What is Flutter?

Flutter is a software development kit and an astounding cross-platform app development tool, introduced by Google. It uses Dart language for programming. Flutter was launched in 2018 with the features that were missing in the previous cross-platform development tools.

Apps built with Flutter can be run on Android, iOS and Google Fuchsia which is another app development platform developed by Google. However, a debate of Flutter vs React Native is always going on among developers since the time it launched.

Flutter is being used by developers for its proficiency and efficaciousness. The developers at Google had been working rigorously on this before general use. Here are the things they worked on:

Ability to support more Firebase APIs
Has its own tools
Bug fixes
Improved documentation
Support windows development
Enhanced engine performance
Tools for Android Studio and Visual Studio Code
Support different languages i.e internationalizing
Accessibility for all types of developers
Additional features like inline videos, charts and ads

What is Flutter Good for?

Ever since Flutter has become famous, this question has been making rounds. Before deciding to build a Flutter mobile application, people want to know which type of development it supports and does not support. Flutter is not the choice for you if you are developing:

Instant or Progressive Web Apps – These type of apps need to be small and apps built with Flutter, on the other hand, are larger than native apps.
Apps that need uncommon native libraries – Flutter is new and it does not have all the native libraries in its repository so if any uncommon native library is demanded by an app, it can complicate the process. In that case, developers will have to add custom-made platform channels which is definitely going to take time.
Applications communicating to hardware via bluetooth – This feature can be built separately for both Android and iOS and then added to the Flutter app. However, this might be time-consuming.

Developing an app with Flutter

We did reveal the real Google strategy behind Flutter in our previous blog. Moreover, Flutter has been around long enough to provide the impeccable user experience. The exponential popularity of flutter for cross platform encouraged developers to build apps with this framework. Now, there is a sea of flutter cross platform apps out there, served with proficient flutter app development services.

Some IoT banking use cases of flutter include apps developed by Google- Adwords app which tracks the advertising reach and buys Alibaba app by Alibaba Group, a Chinese e-commerce company. Another examples are Watermaniac, Hookle, Coach Yourself, Reflectly, and many more.

From an app owner’s view, developing an app with Flutter is fast and less costly. There are other advantages of using Flutter for app development which are discussed below:

Pros

Hot reload – Whatever changes are made on the application is immediately visible to the developers and that makes the process easy and less time-consuming. Hot reload allows developers to quickly change anything that doesn’t look or fit perfectly in the app. This also allows developers and designers to collaborate better. However, the changes may take several minutes to reload.
Perfect for MVP – Flutter is the best option if you are looking to build quickly to show it to your prospective investors. It takes less time and built native looking application for both iOS and Android. This will let your investors see what your MVP looks like and you will not waste time developing apps for two different platforms.
Less coding – Flutter uses Dart programming language which is an object-oriented programming language. It does not need to code an entirely new programme if any changes are made because it allows hot reload. Flutter is slightly similar to react native so it is reactive and declarative.
Cross-platform development – Flutter is a cross-platform development tool. In this, coding is done only once and then the same code can be used in another platform as well. Also, Flutter is the only access to development in Google’s Fuchsia platform. With Fuchsia developer portal now live, developers are trying their hands on it. Looking at its reception so far, it is said to replace Android in the future, which is precisely the strategy of Google behind Flutter.
Widgets – One of the importance of flutter for app development is having many widgets that are natural looking, fast and customization. Widgets are necessary for an app because that’s what makes the apps interesting. Flutter has a wide range of amazing widgets that perform well and can be customized as per the need. The widgets are unified for all platforms and layouts.
Different themes – Most of the time, the themes of the same app are different for iOS and Android. The difference is not in the theme color and design but more than that. Flutter allows to put in different themes while coding for both the platforms. Take a look at the image below and see how the theme data is set for target platform iOS.

Cons

Limited to mobile only – To build an app with Flutter means to build an app only for mobile. Flutter is still not available for web browsers. This can majorly impact your decision on the development platform. If you are looking for maximum flexibility then maybe Flutter is not the right choice.
Few libraries – Flutter does have libraries but not a wide range of it. The most common ones that Google decided to include are available but many useful libraries are still unavailable. If a developer wants to use any of the unavailable libraries, he will have to build it on his own which is a time taking process.
No TV support – Even though Flutter development is supported in both iOS and Android mobiles yet it is not available for Apple TV or Android TV.
No CI support yet – Other platforms sure do allow continuous integration support like Jenkins and Travis to the iOS and Android apps but Flutter does not. There are other ready-made solutions instead of these CI platforms but to use that developers will have to set up toolkits.

Smooth Development Cycle and Rapid Results

There are numerous features in Flutter that simplifies the development process for engineers, upon relying on the experience of Flutter-based tasks, some of the important features are provided below:

Business logic components (BLoC)

Flutter’s principles depend on the reactive programming that guesses streams. This architecture pattern is called BLoC (Business Logic Components). This architecture permits separation of the application’s UI from the business logic by utilizing streams.

The fundamental value of BLoC design is its reactivity, and freedom of UI from data. In comparison to other architectural patterns, where UI might be stacked with delays, the BLoC design prevents delays in the application’s performance by using organized, async techniques, and streams. It implies that animations and screen scrolls will work easily, while data is stacked from the server.

We have been utilizing BLoC pattern architecture for years now. It is the best fit for applications with complex architecture and a lot of information. In a case where the app’s architecture is simple, additionally the Provider design is utilized that simplifies resource allocation and increases scalability for classes.

Code architecture

The measure of settled objects in Flutter code doesn’t impact the last presentation and responsiveness. This is because there are no recursive calls when preparing the layout.

For example: if there are a lot of gadgets accumulated in the native app – it probably influences the application’s performance. In any case, with Flutter, it is feasible to carry out UI/UX plans of any complexity, stylization, and onboard plenty of widgets.

Flutter supports multithreading, where threads are known as Isolates. When beginning to code in Dart, only a single essential Isolate is referred to as the UI Thread. It is the correct answer for long-running undertakings that ought to be processed alongside the smooth running of the entire application.

DartPub

Since Flutter uses Dart programming language, mobile developers generally utilize the DartPub as a package supervisor since it contains numerous reusable packages and libraries. While picking any plugin module, one can see both its popularity and the code’s health and maintenance. It is significant when creating custom highlights – it’s not as imperative to pick modules by the notoriety rate as to see that the code is in effect constantly refreshed and checked. The actual module may not be that well known, however in the event that you have some novel programming highlights, it is feasible to pick it relying upon the code’s wellbeing.

Why Choose Flutter?

Support and Community

The Flutter 1.17 release has lots of improvements and it has resolved an unprecedented number of issues since its last release. This enormous number of enhancements is the consequence of coordinated effort with Nevercode, an incredible nonstop mix and constant development tool that helps any Flutter application developer to effectively discover and resolve issues.

With each year, a number of issues are resolved than opened, and this permits the Flutter group to end up with less issues left. The greater part of the issues have been settled with the assistance of 3,164 pull requests from 231 contributors.

Core elements

Flutter utilizes widgets as its core element just like other progressive languages. Widgets permit developers to perceive how they’re doing with their code very quickly and save heaps of time on creating fundamental UI elements for each screen and resolution.

This is the thing that makes Flutter advantageous for developers, wherein they simply need to develop a UI element once and it will automatically adjust for any screen. This likewise saves time for QA professionals, as they don’t have to test the Flutter mobile app design on all devices with various screen sizes.

Lifecycle management

An application’s lifecycle is normally managed by the operating framework. This implies changing the condition of an application. Flutter used to be not that awesome at lifecycle management, as it didn’t have any tools that would permit developers to follow each phase of their application’s lifecycle.

Presently, developers can see their app’s lifecycle in Stateful widgets. They can likewise utilize extra widgets like OrientationBuilder, which tracks changes in screen direction and so on.

How Much Does it Cost to Build a Flutter Mobile Application?

It takes 50% less time to build an app with Flutter as compared to building apps separately for Android and iOS. According to the mobile app development guide on how much does an app development cost that we wrote recently, the cost of an app depends on the hours it takes to build it. To build an app with Flutter that works both on iOS and Android, it takes about 250 hours. On the other hand, it takes 400 hours to build the same app for iOS and 250 hours for Android.

To determine the flutter mobile app development cost, just multiply the hours taken to build the app with the hourly charge of an app developer. A Flutter app development company, however, has its own price range for its flutter application development services. It usually ranges between $15,000 to $40,000.

It is seen that the hours taken for Flutter app development is low hence it will save money. So if you want to save money and built an app in less time then Flutter is a great choice.

What is the Future of Flutter?

Often a compromise is made between quality and productivity while developing separate apps for iOS and Android. But Google decided to remove this issue and introduced Flutter as a cross-platform development tool.

Flutter has just entered the app development industry and has already seen a lot of fame. The future seems to be bright for Flutter. Google also launched Flutter 1.7 with added new features and functions such as Rangeslider, 64-bit support, typography features, game controller support and so on. There is no denying that it is certainly more powerful than the previous Flutter 1.5 and 1.6 versions. Flutter has a lot of potential in the industry and if it is able to bridge the gap between quality and productivity then it sure is going to take over the app development world.

Flutter app development platform is still in the development phase which can be a risk but it shouldn’t take Google long to launch a stable version of the framework. Flutter has an official website where you can find all about Flutter.

This was our take, as a Flutter app development company in USA and other countries, on the newly launched Flutter for cross platform development. If you wish to know about our development process for android and iOS cross platform development within this framework or want to gain insight into our flutter cross platform app development services, get in touch with us today.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. How do you make a flutter app?

The very first step in the process of making a flutter app for your business model is to hire the best flutter app development company, which has the experience in this field and is trustworthy. Moreover, you need to make sure to calculate flutter Mobile app development cost before taking any solid decision.

2. How do you make cross-platform apps?

With the growing technology, many cross-platform mobile app development tools have also emerged to facilitate the whole development process. Software and mobile application development kit, such as Flutter, is the most effective way to develop a remarkable mobile app.

3. What programming language does flutter use?

Flutter uses the Dart programming language to create rudimentary codes and essentially the base for any cross-platform app.

4. Which framework can be used to develop cross-platform applications?

From the myriad of frameworks, the best ones to use for cross-platform development are Xamarin, React Native, and Phonegap.