Typical Visual Application Workflow

A visual application is a collection of resources that you use to develop web (and mobile) apps. It includes metadata in JSON files that describe data sources (business objects and services) as well as the HTML and JavaScript files of your web (and mobile) apps.

To develop your application, you define its data sources and design an interface for users to work with. Visual Builder does not impose any specific order for building your application. How you proceed is personal preference and determined by the way you planned your application. If you already know the data sources that you will use, or the structure of objects that you have, you might want to start by defining the service connections and business objects. However you decide to proceed, you always start with a visual application, which is your ticket into the Designer.

This table provides a high-level description of the tasks that you typically perform when building your application:

Task	Description	More Information
Create a new visual application	Use the wizard on the Home page to create a new visual application, import an existing visual application as the basis for a new one, or create a new version of an existing visual application	Create a Visual Application Export and Import Visual Applications Create a New Version of an Application
Create service connections	Create connections to external REST web services and select and configure the endpoints that you want to use in your application.	What Are Service Connections?
Create business objects	Define your own custom REST endpoints for data in your database based on the needs of your applications.	Create a Business Object
Add web (and mobile) apps	Add web (and mobile) apps to your visual application	Add Web (and Mobile) Apps to Your Visual Application
Develop the web (or mobile) app	Use the Designer's tools to lay out pages and develop your web (or mobile) app.	Develop Your Application
Secure the application	Create application roles and configure the permissions for business objects.	Secure the Application
Stage and test the application	Use the Application Options menu to stage the application when you are ready to do more thorough testing. You can share staged application's URL with other people for testing.	Stage a Visual Application
Import real data and check the schema	Use the Data Manager to import data into your databases from a file or from the live database.	Manage Data During the Development Lifecycle
Publish the application	Publish the staged version and either import data or use your live database.	Publish a Visual Application