Last week, the world was shocked to discover the risks of our IT mono-culture. Having all eggs in one basked turned out to be a bad idea. Especially the public sector should make sure their services don’t go down when somebody makes a mistake, or in the worse case of a cyber attack. We need a digitally sovereign AI Copilot for Europe!

We have good news today. With our partner plusserver we launch a full SAAS collaboration platform with document sharing, video chat & groupware. And unique: it comes with a built in AI assistant that runs entirely in a German data center. No data leaks, no training on the files you upload or questions you ask from the AI Assistant.

Given even the US Congress doesn’t trust ChatGPT or Microsoft CoPilot, there are good reasons to want control over the data send to and from an AI service! Learn more in our blog post about our approach to AI.

A choice of AI models

The all-in-one service uses plusKI, which allows a choice of large language models like the freshly released LLama 3.1 to be used for processing and generating text. Users can use the powerful and well integrated Nextcloud Assistant to see email or chat threads summarized, video calls transcribed, generate images, translate chat messages or create headlines for their documents.

Learn more about the powerful Nextcloud Assistant here.

Available now

This new managed Nextcloud Hub, operated by Nextcloud Platinum partner HKN GmbH, is available for organizations ranging from 50 to 5000 users. The digitally sovereign AI Copilot for Europe offers near-instant availability, making it easier than ever for the public sector to enjoy the benefits of a secure, efficient collaboration platform that protects their digital sovereignty.

plusKI brings cutting edge, open source AI technologies in a compliant and digitally sovereign service to the German market. We are excited to work with Nextcloud to make this available to their customers as back-end to the new generation of the Nextcloud Assistant.

Christian Schmitz, Director Open Source at plusserver

Interested organizations can learn more and sign up to their digitally sovereign AI Copilot for Europe here.

The post First digitally sovereign AI Copilot for Europe now available appeared first on Nextcloud.

For the IT team at Deutsche Lebens-Rettungs-Gesellschaft (DLRG) or the German Life Saving Association, it was crucial to provide its users the best possible experience to get their life-saving work done. Combining the benefits of open-source software and the security, expandability and simplicity of Nextcloud, their team found the perfect solution.

About The German Life Saving Association

The German Life Saving Association, DLRG is the world’s largest voluntary organization for water rescue with over 600,000 members. Since its founding in 1913, the DLRG has made it its mission to prevent people from drowning. The main tasks of the organization include swimming and lifesaving training, raising awareness about dangers in and around bodies of water, as well as water rescue services.

In approximately 2,000 clubs, volunteers contribute over eight million hours of voluntary work each year for the people of Germany. More than 49,000 members annually ensure the safety of bathers and water sports enthusiasts at around 2,700 bodies of water.

Collaboration across boundaries with Nextcloud

DLRG desired a central location to store documents and files that could be easily accessed anytime, anywhere and by anyone with permissions. Their goal to set up file exchange across organizational boundaries was met with Nextcloud, where no IT intermediary has to be involved, streamlining efficiency and productivity.

For these reasons and more Nextcloud Enterprise was the ideal solution:

• Open source software that they could operate and integrate into their own infrastructure
• Have a central location accessible from anywhere
• Data protection-compliant file storage
• Ability to exchange files across organizational boundaries (no intermediary user) with group folders
• Guaranteed security with regular updates
• Customization with various add-ons
• Compliance with GDPR
• Nextcloud Groupware: Calendar
• Nextcloud Forms
• Work on mobile devices
• Strong community base
• Long-term, lifelong solution

Implementing Nextcloud Hub

DLRG’s Nextcloud instance is directly on their own servers, making it extremely date secure. It is operated on virtual Linux machines and delivered via several virtual web servers. Up to 20,000 users have access to one or more folders!

A solution that fits user needs

Implementing the Nextcloud Content Collaboration Platform was the key to give users the much needed flexibility and autonomy in their work.

Members say they love the simplicity of central file management in Nextcloud Files and easy access and sharing with Group Folders. In addition, being able to collaborate on a shared document in Nextcloud Office, even from their mobile phone, is extremely valued. Nextcloud Calendar is also used widely for planning and scheduling.

Lifelong data security

Since the introduction of Nextcloud at DLRG, data protection has significantly improved. As previously files were stored decentrally with various commercial providers, today members can store their data on the association’s own servers in compliance with the GDPR.

With the ability to perform regular software updates, DLRG can rely on Nextcloud and can guarantee security for its users and the people outside their organization.

One aspect they are currently working on updating is the expansion of storage capacity and in the near future, the further development of automations is planned.

Love this story?

Nextcloud is used by many organizations, putting the control of data back into the hands of the people, helping to make a difference around the world.

Discover another inspiring success story!

The post DLRG’s innovative use of Nextcloud Hub for managing the world’s largest water rescue network appeared first on Nextcloud.

With the release of Nextcloud Hub 8, Nextcloud Talk enables federated chats, extending the range of cross-instance features available in Nextcloud Hub. In this article, learn how to connect users across different Nextcloud instances to organize collaboration between distant teams.

Nextcloud Talk is a chat and videoconferencing platform that enhances the flexibility of your daily work. With app integrations available through Smart Picker, supported interactive widgets from multiple Nextcloud Hub apps, AI-powered features, and more, Nextcloud Talk enables rich communication while prioritizing your privacy. Federated chatting adds even more flexibility, providing an additional bridge between Nextcloud instances for faster and safer communication.

What is federated chat

The federated chat feature is ased on the Open Cloud Mesh (OCM) open standard developed at CERN with the help of Nextcloud and other open source projects. Similar to federated sharing, it uses federated user IDs to enable cross-instance data exchange. To understand how federation works in Nextcloud, you can watch our recent webinar.

The federated chat feature lets you create group chats between the users from federated Nextcloud Talk instances to enable written chat communication among the teams. Although video calls are not supported at the moment, plenty of features are available in federated chats, including user mentions, markdown commands to format message texts, chat polls, and more.

Federated chats can bring customers, partners or colleagues from their instance to your own for easier communication, ensuring that you maintain maximum privacy and keep the data within your perimeter. It is ideal for temporary projects and shared tasks, complimenting other federated features in Nextcloud like file sharing and federated user groups created via Nextcloud Teams.

How to create a federated chat

To create a group chat with federated users, you need to obtain their Federated Cloud IDs. The Federated Cloud ID consists of a user name and an instance address and looks like person@cloud.example.com. You can retrieve it in Settings > Sharing > Federated Cloud.

To add a federated user to a chat, simply put their Federated Cloud ID in the search field of the Participants tab of your chat. Click add, and user will receive an invitation to the chat via notification.

Other updates in Nextcloud Talk

Other updates in Nextcloud Talk released with Nextcloud Hub 8 include:

• Message editing
• Draggable speaker video
• Improved call UI
• Flavored markdown support
• Unified Search in individual Talk room
• Accepting individual users when the lobby is enabled
• Caching unsent messages in the browser
• Improved highlight for “Stop screenshare”

Regain control over your time with Nextcloud Hub 8

Federated chatting is one of the most noteworthy features in the new Nextcloud Talk. Nextcloud Hub 8 offers even more updates that help you work even more efficiently and comfortably, saving a lot of time for you. From new AI tools in Nextcloud Assistant to new apps and serious performance improvements throughout the platform, there are many reasons to upgrade to the latest Nextcloud Hub.

New to Nextcloud? There’s no better time to try it out! Get control over your data today with the most secure open-source collaboration platform.

Get Nextcloud Hub 8

Download and install Nextcloud Hub 8 here!

Get Hub 8

More articles about Nextcloud Hub 8 features

The post How federated chat works in Nextcloud Talk appeared first on Nextcloud.

July 19 saw a CrowdStrike update taking down countless Microsoft systems, disrupting flights, surgeries, banking and more all over the world. The incredible impact this single outage had shows the importance of digital resilience, especially in the public sector. This can only credibly be achieved by decentralization and diversity in infrastructure and technology.

Incredible impact of CrowdStrike-Microsoft outage

While German satirical news site Der Postillion noted that fax machines were not impacted so the German public sector was fine, the effects could be felt everywhere.

Many politicians have already come out with statements about digital resiliency. In the Netherlands the minister of Justice noted there should be plans to deal with the fall-out of events like this. “Concentrating production can concentrate risk, so that a single natural disaster or disruption has cascading effects,” US Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan wrote in a series of posts on X.

Existing and upcoming legislation

There is a number of legislative initatives to protect the resilience of infrastructure. Examples include DORA, the Digital Operational Resilience Act, for the financial sector, coming 2025, and the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) for consumer technology. The Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems, NIS, specifically targets the protection and resilience of critical infrastructure and digital services, mandating security measures and incident reporting.

In the US, the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) mandates federal agencies to implement an information security program, including measures to mitigate the impact of IT outages. Additionally, there’s a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Framework that provides guidelines for improving critical infrastructure cybersecurity.

But none of the regulations seem to effectively tackle risks related to the centralization of IT. This means that the digital sovereignty and resilience of the public sector, as well as hospitals, banks and other critical infrastructure, continues to be critically endangered. A mono-culture of services delivered by just a handful of big tech firms threatens the continuity of service in case of mistakes, cyber-attacks and political conflicts.

Solutions

While this was just a mistake, a sustained cyber attack would have far more devastating consequences, and that is not to speak of attacks on physical infrastructure. Underseas cables are incredibly vulnerable, and in 2021 Russia also showed that satellites can be downed by rockets.

The key to digital resilience is decentralization and heterogeneity. In the end, every IT system will go down at some point. An over-reliance on a single service is thus inevitably a risk. Even if that vendor is ‘too big too fail’ and has tons of redundancy and data centers.

Decentralize and federate

The public sector in particular should be following a focused strategy to differentiate their IT infrastructure, reducing the reliance on a small number of big tech giants. 

First, a strong multi-vendor, multi-platform strategy can do wonders against cyber threats. But beyond that, the solutions themselves should be less centralized.

The cloud itself is a particular risk – globally connected datacenters might have a bigger capacity to absorb denial of service attacks, but they are simultaneously more vulnerable to mistakes and more advanced cyber attacks. Technologies that are fundamentally distributed and federated, rather than relying on a single point of failure, offer a big advantage.

With on-premises solutions, the most critical platforms can even be entirely air gapped, disconnected from the internet, either all the time or in response to attacks. This can ensure their availability even in the worst case scenario.

Open Source brings resilience

Open source solutions are not only more robust in the face of constant security threats. They also provide more transparency in their functioning. When there are issues, engineers can dive deeper than in black-box solutions, to the point where they simply read the code or even modify it to add extra information to hunt down problems. Patches from vendors like Crowdstrike, if they were open source, could be scrutinised before deployment.

Perhaps most importantly, access to their source and more widely distributed knowledge of their code base means open source products can be patched and fixed during emergencies even without vendor help.

There are solutions to the risks and economic damage caused by our dependence on just a few big tech vendors. It’s time for decisions now.

The post Global outage shows lack of digital sovereignty and resilience appeared first on Nextcloud.

So many Nextclouders – from enterprise and education to activists and families – decide to self-host their privacy-focused IT infrastructure. What exactly motivates us to self-host? Is this inherently an increased data security risk? What of the grit needed to host your own digital infrastructure? The answers to these questions may surprise you!

Lea Gröber, PhD student in Usable Security @ CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, shares insight from two recent studies exploring motivations in self-hosting and Nextclouders specifically.

We explore the topic of Usable Security and how, in terms of security, the human aspect of your digital infrastructure may be the most important, and yet the least understood. Afterall, “Users are not the enemy.”

Lea and Brent touch on a wide gamut of related topics throughout, including:

• CISPA’s study featuring 1000 Nextcloud instances in understanding self-hoster motivations
• Technological self-determination as a modern fundamental right
• Self-hosting as a socially embedded activity, and a democratic act
• The many multi-layered trust relationships involved in self-hosting
• Are self-hosters more privacy-aware than the general population? (spoiler: no!)

Episode Links

• Vote for Nextcloud in the CloudComputing-Insider Award 2024 – Nextcloud
• Lea Gröber | CISPA
• Lea Gröber | LinkedIn
• To Cloud or not to Cloud: A Qualitative Study on Self-Hosters’ Motivation, Operation, and Security Mindset | CISPA
• To Cloud or not to Cloud: A Qualitative Study on Self-Hosters’ Motivation, Operation, and Security Mindset | USENIX
• Towards Privacy and Security in Private Clouds: A Representative Survey on the Prevalence of Private Hosting and Administrator Characteristics | USENIX
• USENIX Security ’24 | USENIX
• Usable security – Wikipedia
• Usable Security: A Human-Centric Approach | NIST
• Home Assistant
• MagentaCLOUD + T-Systems: Building a 2.2M User Nextcloud – Nextcloud
• Users Are Not the Enemy – Anne Adams and Matina Angela Sasse

The post Lea Gröber: Understanding self-hosting and security through Nextcloud appeared first on Nextcloud.

About the updates

The updates include a number of important and miscellaneous fixes, performance optimization, dependency updates, and other improvements in all supported Nextcloud versions. You can find the full changelog on our website.

Updates are available for:

• Nextcloud Hub 7 (version 28.0.8)
• Nextcloud Hub 8 (version 29.0.4)

Make the most of your platform with Nextcloud Hub 8

Even more automated and optimized all around, Nextcloud Hub 8 is here to give you back control over your time. Upgrade today to unlock multiple new features in your favourite platform:

• Nextcloud Assistant: Chat summaries, Nextcloud Mail reply suggestions, answers based on your data, and more!
• Interactive previews for files, folders, boards and events
• Federated chat and message editing in Talk
• Mini-apps based on Tables
• Public Collectives sharing, previews and QR-codes
• Manage your team resources like a pro with Nextcloud Teams
• Forms: automatically sync with a spreadsheet
• And much more

Get Nextcloud Hub 8

Download and install Nextcloud Hub 8 here!

Get Hub 8

Always keep your server up to date!

Nextcloud’s minor releases primarily focus on addressing security vulnerabilities and functionality bugs, avoiding major system overhauls that could jeopardize user data. Keeping your server up to date is vital, and our approach to testing and validation ensures that upgrading to minor releases is generally smooth and reliable.

For mission-critical Nextcloud systems in enterprise settings, consider switching to Nextcloud Enterprise. The tier provides you with ultimate deployment confidence: direct access to the Nextcloud engineering team, full assistance throughout deployment and integration, and peace of mind for system administrators. If you’re responsible for maintaining Nextcloud in your setting, this option may be the ideal solution for you.

The post July maintenance releases: Nextcloud Hub 7 & 8 appeared first on Nextcloud.

DIE ZEIT, a prominent German outlet, interviewed Nextcloud’s founder Frank Karlitschek for a story on Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour on the European office software market. The article addresses a history of Microsoft’s practices that grant the tech giant a possible illegal advantage over local competition, an ongoing litigation with the EU Commission, and possible legal solutions to restore a level playing field for the providers in Europe.

Your can access the original text in German on ZEIT ONLINE website. Continue reading for a recap of the article and the key takeaways.

Since the original article is in German language, all direct quotes used in this blog are translated.

“Does it always have to be Microsoft?”

This is how the original title sounds like, if translated to English. Starting off with Frank’s monthly video calls with the EU commission, Leon Werner introduces Nextcloud’s struggle with the world’s wealthiest company: by employing a range of tactics and making use of its dominant position, Microsoft gains an unfair advantage over the competition and leaves no room for small providers like Nextcloud.

Since 2017, Microsoft had bundled Teams app with its Office offering, driving providers of videoconferencing and chatting apps out and locking Office customers tighter to the Microsoft ecosystem. After an EU Commussion warning following complaints made not only by Nextcloud, but other companies like Slack, Microsoft made a move to sell Teams separately at a symbolic one or two euro fee, thus slowing down the antitrust case.

If services such as cloud storage or Teams were included free of charge, other providers such as Nextcloud would be deprived of their livelihood.

Quote from the ZEIT ONLINE article

Daniel Zimmer, an antitrust law expert and former chairman of the Monopolies Commission, also claims that the network effect still allows Microsoft to stay dominant in the market. “These prices will not ensure that companies will look for a replacement for Teams,” says Dennis-Kenji Kipker, Professor of IT Security Law at the University of Bremen.

Kipker believes that antitrust proceedings are made once damage has already been done. He calls it a “salami-slicing tactic”, a calculated approach that has a long tradition at Microsoft. For example, an article by Wall Street Journal, published in July 2022, explains how Microsoft employs its army of lawyers and lobbyists to push back on its legal challenges with the EU.

The company [Microsoft] always goes two steps ahead in advance, only to go one step back afterwards.

Dennis-Kenji Kipker, IT law expert.

Could Digital Markets Act restore the fair play?

In the 1990s, Microsoft already bundled Internet Explorer with Windows, leading to antitrust actions in the US. Frank Karlitschek wants similar measures for cloud services under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to limit the power of large digital platforms like Microsoft, Apple, and Google to ensure fair competition.

While the DMA, effective since March, is able to regulate some aspects of gatekeeping like brand positioning and interoperability, the scope of affected services remains too narrow. it hasn’t targeted Microsoft’s cloud services that squeeze out numerous smaller providers from the market — as they don’t meet the current threshold of 10,000 business customers. Notably, the DMA only relies on self-assessment, and no cloud provider has reported meeting the criteria so far.

The hope remains that future actions of the EU Commission will more effectively curb the dominance of large cloud providers. To this day, multiple voices have spoken in support of the cause.

The antitrust initiative lead by Nextcloud

Big Tech is harming EU businesses and consumers alike. Many European companies realize that, and this is how a Coalition for a level playing field emerged. To resist harmful effects of Microsoft’s tech monopoly, the Coalition demands an end to gatekeeping practices and establishment of open standards and interoperability that make an easy migration possible.

Learn more at antitrust.nextcloud.com

The post Nextcloud for DIE ZEIT: Microsoft’s anti-competitive behavior, PR stunts and salami slicing appeared first on Nextcloud.

At Nextcloud, we believe in user-centric design and keep on improving our platform every day to make it even more accessible, intuitive and powerful. If you are a developer or a UX designer and want to contribute to Nextcloud design or improve the design of your own app, we invite you to participate in or weekly design review call. Read on for details.

What is the Nextcloud design review?

Our design review call happens every Tuesday in our Design team public conversation. On the weekly basis, we review the design of Nextcloud apps among fellow teammates and community members.

We invite everybody with UX design experience, including developers and designers, to participate in the reviews to listen and speak, share ideas, exchange feedback and collaborate with us on making Nextcloud apps even more awesome

*We can adjust the meeting date and time for your review if this combination doesn’t fit your day schedule.

Why join the design review?

• Participate in open discussion: Bring your app or feature to the table and engage in an open, constructive dialogue with our design team.
• Exchange feedback: Receive valuable feedback and insights to refine your designs and improve usability.
• Grow and learn together with Nextcloud!

How to participate

To join our weekly design review, become a member of our open conversation and simply drop us a message. Our team will assign you the next available slot in the call schedule.

Looking forward to seeing you there

Meet in person at the Nextcloud Community Conference

Want to meet with the Nextcloud community to share your work, design and develop Nextcloud apps together, and have lots of fun while at it?

Lucky you, because this September the Nextcloud community gathers for the annual Nextcloud Community Conference and Contributor Week in MotionLab.Berlin. Register for free today and start packing — an exciting week of meeting, speaking, coding and learning awaits!

If you develop your own Nextcloud apps, work on a project involving Nextcloud, or just love open-source and privacy, we welcome you to become a speaker! We provide the speakers with travel support which covers up to 80% of your travel costs.

The post Call for contributors: participate in Nextcloud design! appeared first on Nextcloud.

Our data is so essential to our everyday digital lives that it’s easy to argue how World Backup Day should be every day! With this in mind, Nextcloud is an excellent daily companion in helping you automate syncing and backups of your most important data: from business contracts and PDF documents, to photos, videos, contacts, calendars and so much more. A variety of available sync features, easy integrations, and smooth device migration options make it a perfect file sync and backup tool!

While it’s important to employ the 3-2-1 backup principle when designing the “perfect” backup strategy, Nextcloud can certainly play a vital role in your personal, family, and business’ digital lifestyle by providing near-instant syncing of your mobile phones and laptops to your Nextcloud server for safe keeping.

Let us explore a few strategies to help keep your data safely stored in your Nextcloud!

Mobile file sync and backup

As our typically most used device, your mobile contains some of your most important daily data: photos of your loved ones, videos of your cherished memories, digital versions of your travel documents, and much more. These are prime candidates for being backed up into your Nextcloud ecosystem automagically, all syncing conveniently in the background for you.

Photo and video backups: cheese! And a piece of

Let’s start with your photos and videos.

The Nextcloud Android and iOS clients features an auto-upload function — perfect for backing up these media files to your Nextcloud instance. When enabled, the mobile client’s auto-upload function detects when you’ve captured a new photograph or video, and immediately uploads a copy of it to your Nextcloud.

The auto-upload of photos and videos allows for custom file naming and folder sorting, a wifi-only upload option, HEIC support for iOS devices, and more.

The end result? A near-instant backup of your photos and videos, available on your other devices soon after you’ve captured them. Definite peace-of-mind!

Your personal Louvre: back up and organize your media

A bonus to having your photos and videos backed up to your Nextcloud: take advantage of the rich photo and video viewers integrated into Nextcloud, taking your media library to the next level

Alongside Nextcloud Photos, the Recognize and Memories apps implement smart media tagging and facial recognition using Nextcloud’s on-premises machine learning models. You can also view your media directly on Maps and share them with friends and family by sharing a gallery with Les Pas.

So many options for a rich photo and video experience!

Mobile documents too!

Of course, our phones are handy for far more than just visual memories. Using the same technique as above, the Nextcloud mobile clients can also sync and backup documents you download locally on your phone: Since Nextcloud will automatically detect new files downloaded to your device, you will be prompted each time a new folder is detected that can be synced to your Nextcloud. Once enabled, your downloads folder or other folders of your choice can be synced automatically to your Nextcloud too. Another way Nextcloud helps you keep your important documents safe!

Seamless calendars and contacts

At the center of your contact and calendar syncing strategy, Nextcloud offers a Google alternative that keeps your data under your control. Nextcloud allows you to keep your calendar and contacts synced to multiple devices at once, and backed up in case one of your devices has a bad day.

Syncing is possible across all devices, from iOS and Android on mobile, to laptops and workstations too. Using special applications like DAVx⁵ you can provide an integrated native calendar and contacts experience on Android devices that feels like it was always meant to be.

Device migration made easy

When it comes to migrating between devices — say, you purchased a new phone or laptop — Nextcloud can help back up your app data and personal documents, and provide them directly to the new device. Simply share your app or personal data with your Nextcloud, or add it to your synced folders to produce a convenient backup that can help accelerate device-to-device migration.

Once on the new phone or laptop, simply connect to your Nextcloud and voilà! You’re now ready for an enjoyable device migration with all your data backed up in multiple places, and ready at your finger tips!

A safe place for all your data, no matter what

With file syncing at the center of your Nextcloud experience, the unlikely-yet-inevitable instances of computer and electronics hardware failure become something you’ve planned for, instead of a potential tragedy. When your most important files are managed by Nextcloud, the untimely malfunction of one of your devices means you don’t lose access to your files knowing they’re all backed up to Nextcloud. Phew… now that’s peace of mind!

File sync and backup features businesses love

There are some inherent features that businesses, enterprises, and governments love when trusting their data to Nextcloud. And since Nextcloud is open source, business and home users alike can benefit from these features to keep your data safe.

File versioning, available to all

By keeping your most important data synced with Nextcloud, files you and your team modify are automatically version controlled, creating backups and a history of your files’ changes as you work. This means you have several backups of your files, potentially dating back years, just in case you need to refer to a previous version. Nextcloud Files has you covered!

Files encrypted at rest

File encryption is another privacy feature essential in keeping your data and file backups safe. Nextcloud allows you to keep your files encrypted at-rest on your Nextcloud server, ensuring data essential to your business – intellectual property, confidential contracts, HR dossiers – is kept safe while it’s being stored. If it’s important enough for you to keep, it’s important enough to keep private.

Server backups

In case you’re interested in backing up your Nextcloud server itself, these resources will get you started:

• Nextcloud Server Backup — Nextcloud Administration Manual
• Nextcloud backup app: Backup now. Restore later.

Start your data backups today!

From your phone to your laptop, it’s essential that all of your business and personal data have a backup strategy that will keep them safe. Nextcloud is a great file sync and backup tool to manage these critical data in your life by keeping them safe, versioned, encrypted, and under your control.

The post How to secure your data daily with an open-source file sync and backup tool appeared first on Nextcloud.

With the release of Nextcloud Hub 8, you can build apps without code to expand your Nextcloud Hub environment with many custom features. Think automating any paperwork process for employees, coordinating teams with tasks and requests organized in one place, or handling event registrations — with Nextcloud Tables app, there’s more to your Nextcloud than you know!

In this article, we explain how to organize data and collaborate using Nextcloud Tables, and how to create your own applications for any purpose.

Simplifying data processing with Nextcloud Tables

Nextcloud Tables is a no-code platform that lets you design and share tables to streamline data processing and workflow management in your team. You can create tables with individual column presets, adjust table views, and share your tables and views with other users and groups.

Available column types are quite versatile, letting you design tables for a multitude of purposes:

• Text line or rich text
• Link to URLs or other Nextcloud resources
• Numbers
• Progress bar
• Star rating
• Yes/No tick
• Date and/or time
• (Multi) selection

Create a custom table from scratch or use one of the templates for popular use cases such as checklist, team member management, customer management, and more.

You can access all your tables from the Nextcloud Tables app, filter them and add to favorites to make navigation much easier when you have a lot of data.

Want to migrate data from your spreadsheets to the Nextcloud Tables app? You can import tables from CSV and spreadsheet files, automatically detecting data format like dates, percentage, currency, and more. Just use the file upload feature or choose an option in the file menu in Nextcloud Files.

How to build apps with Nextcloud Tables

Using Nextcloud Tables, you can build apps without code and make them accessible to select user groups from your top toolbar in Nextcloud Hub. This feature allows you to combine several tables and table views in one, creating a single point of access for all the data.

Let’s assume we run a non-profit organization that needs to organize volunteer teams for our ongoing activities. Using Nextcloud Tables, we can streamline this process by creating a a dedicated Volunteer Management Application.

1. Create or select tables to combine

First, let’s create a Volunteer Registrations table to record personal and contact information of the volunteers, and the Travel Expenses table to track volunteer travel costs at the events and manage reimbursements.

To create a table, click a icon next to the table list. Give your table a name and description, then design and populate it with the data you need.

2. Create additional table views

Let’s add ‘Pending Approval’ and ‘Pending Reimbursement’ views for the Travel Expenses table to make it easier to track approvals and reimbursements for the volunteers.

To create a new view for the table, click on the table menu and click ‘Create view’. A new window will open where you add view settings. Choose columns you want to include in the view, and apply rules to filter contents, for example, only to show rows containing a certain item. You can also add custom sorting presets for items in the view.

For example, approval of the reimbursements for our volunteers is mandatory when their expenses include flights. That’s why in the ‘Pending Approval’ view we added a rule that filters out volunteers whose expense types include ‘Flight’.

3. Combine views and tables into a new app

Now, we can create our new application by combining the Volunteer Registrations table and the Travel Expenses table. We will also add the ‘Pending Approval’ and ‘Pending Reimbursement’ views from the table, giving instant access to most important filter presets.

To create an application, click a icon next to Applications. In the application menu, add a name and a description, and select one of multiple app icon designs. In Resources section, search tables and views you want to add to the app. Finally, select users and groups to share your new app and click ‘Create application’.

With the new Volunteer Management Application, we can have a more streamlined and integrated approach to managing our volunteer workforce. This application offers a one-stop solution for us to access, update, and manage all aspects of volunteer engagement and related expenditures. And importantly, everybody can build this app without code!

Other improvements in Nextcloud Tables

Besides app creation feature, with Nextcloud Hub 8 Nextcloud Tables received many other improvements, including:

• Favorites and table archiving
• Transfer table ownership in the UI
• Data import improvements

Regain control over your time with Nextcloud Hub 8

Interactive widgets are only one of the exiting new features in Nextcloud Hub 8. From new AI tools in Nextcloud Assistant to new apps and serious performance improvements throughout the platform, there are many reasons to upgrade to the latest Nextcloud Hub.

New to Nextcloud? There’s no better time to try it out! Get control over your data today with the most secure open-source collaboration platform.

Get Nextcloud Hub 8

Download and install Nextcloud Hub 8 here!

Get Hub 8

More articles about Nextcloud Hub 8 features

The post How to build your own apps with Nextcloud Tables appeared first on Nextcloud.