Applications

What Are Applications

Applications in Webooto are self-contained internal tools that bundle entities, builder pages, and navigation into a unified experience for your team. Each application gets its own sidebar, dashboard, and URL namespace (e.g., /app/inventory), making it feel like a standalone product within your workspace.

Unlike public-facing website pages, applications are designed for internal use by your team members. They provide structured access to your data through entity list views, record editing forms, and custom builder pages -- all organized behind a configurable menu. A single workspace can host multiple applications, each tailored to a different department or workflow: a CRM for your sales team, an inventory tracker for operations, a project manager for engineering, and so on.

Every application is defined by a set of core properties: a name, a URL slug, a description, an icon, a color scheme, an active/inactive toggle, a menu order for positioning in the global sidebar, and an allowed roles list that controls who can see it. These properties give administrators fine-grained control over how each application appears and who can access it.

Creating an Application

Creating a new application takes just a few minutes. You configure its identity, choose a visual style, and then populate its menu with the entities and pages your team needs.

Menu Configuration

The menu is the heart of an application. It defines what users see in the sidebar when they open the app. Webooto supports five distinct menu item types, each serving a different purpose. You can mix and match them to build exactly the navigation structure your team needs.

The Menu Items section of the Application Editor is split into two panels. The left panel ("Available") lets you browse and add entities, pages, groups, or dividers. The right panel ("Active Menu") shows the current menu structure with controls for reordering, grouping, visibility, and removal.

Role-Based Access Control

Every application has an allowedRoleIds list that determines which user roles can see and access it. If no roles are selected, the application is invisible to all non-admin users. This makes it easy to build department-specific tools: a "Sales CRM" visible only to the Sales role, an "HR Portal" restricted to HR, and so on.

The Role Access panel in the Application Editor displays every role defined in your workspace (Designer > Permissions > Roles). Simply check or uncheck the roles that should have access. Changes take effect immediately after saving -- users with a matching role will see the application appear in their sidebar, while users without the role will not.

Role-based access on the application level works in conjunction with entity-level and field-level permissions. Even if a user can access an application, they will only see entity data that their role permits. This layered approach ensures that sensitive data remains protected regardless of which application surfaces it.

Linking Pages to Entities

When you add an entity to an application menu, Webooto automatically generates system pages for listing records and editing individual records. These auto-generated pages follow a naming convention based on the application slug and the entity slug: the list page is named app-{appSlug}-{entitySlug} and the edit page is named app-{appSlug}-{entitySlug}-form.

For many use cases the default pages are sufficient. However, if you need a custom layout, branded styling, or additional components on the list or edit view, you can override the defaults using the Linked Pages Modal. Click the link icon on any entity menu item in the Active Menu panel to open this modal.

The Linked Pages Modal presents two dropdowns -- List Page and Edit Page -- pre-populated with system pages that match the current entity. Select a custom page to override the default, or leave the selection on "Auto-generated (default)" to use the system page. Custom pages are built in Designer > Pages with the page type set to "system", and they have full access to data sources and global variables like the current app slug and entity slug.

Application Dashboard

Every application has a built-in dashboard that serves as the landing screen when a user opens the app. The dashboard provides an at-a-glance overview of the application's data and recent activity, helping users orient themselves before diving into specific entities.

The dashboard is divided into several sections. At the top, a Data Overview panel summarizes the total number of records across all visible entities and highlights whether the data is healthy and active. Beside it, an Entity Health panel shows a progress bar indicating how many entities have at least one record, along with a per-entity breakdown.

Below the overview, a Stats Row displays four key metrics: total records, number of entities, active entities (those with data), and the count of recent changes. These counters update automatically every two minutes.

The lower half of the dashboard features two panels side by side. The Recent Activity feed shows the latest create, update, and delete events filtered to the entities owned by this application, with clickable links that navigate directly to the affected record. The Your Entities grid displays cards for every visible entity, each showing its record count and a direct link to browse or manage its data.

Quick actions are available in the header: a "Browse" button navigates to the first entity's list view, and a "New" dropdown lets users create a record in any of the application's entities without leaving the dashboard.