There’s an App for That?! Get to Know the Autodesk App Store Community

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: OK, welcome to "There's an app for that? Get to know the Autodesk App Store community." My name is Whitney Lawrence, and I am a Marketing manager for Autodesk Platform Services. And we support developer and ecosystems, so anything to do with APIs, add-ins, plug-ins, apps, really anything that augments your software experience, so really to try to automate things, collaboration, visualization, all sorts of things that we can create with our APIs are what we share within the App Store and what my team covers.

And I've got a couple of colleagues with me today, but first order of business is Safe Harbor Statement. We aren't sharing a ton of forward-looking things, but we're happy to if you ask questions. But note that there are some stipulations that-- and we can't guarantee that everything that's forward-looking will be guaranteed. So that's the gist of it. I'm sure you've seen this statement a lot.

And so let's get into some Autodesk introductions. So again, I'm Whitney Lawrence, and with me I've got Vasini. I'll let her introduce herself.

VASINI GOVINDARAJAN: Sure.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: I think you're good.

VASINI GOVINDARAJAN: I'm Vasini. I'm the Product Manager for the App Store with Autodesk.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: And then I have two other colleagues with me as well, Elisa, who is a UI/UX engineer, and she helps to build a number of the prototypes for the App Store and so things that we look to change and innovate within the App Store.

And then we have Viru as well. He is the guru of the support team that can help you publish apps on the Store as well as can assist you and support with any API development and things like that. So that's the team that we have today, so between us all we should be able to answer any questions that you might have and our esteemed panel as well.

And so that's the Autodesk team first. We wanted to then get to know you guys a little bit, and so we're going to have a little bit of an interactive session, hopefully, that everything complies. But essentially, we want to just kind of survey you guys. So tell us who you are. Go to slido.com. Enter the code 3549285 and tell us what you're working on or who you are and what your role is

it'll help us to drive a little bit of the panel discussion. So if we understand that you're working with Revit or maybe you're a BIM manager or you're an architect or something else. Let us know who you are

and I'm going to see if I can't pull up the exact results

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: Oh, yeah, I know. You need the number. I can't drive in two places. So I'll leave the number up, and I'll try to access it on my phone. Yeah, I know internet has been a total issue across the conference, and it's definitely something that we're looking at for future years and also something that, in the platform services booth, we have several hardwired connections, so if you need to actually get into some internet, we have it at the booth.

So right now we're getting a sense of who you guys are. It looks like we have product users, BIM managers, architects, and-- OK. And then let's jump to some of the other questions. These are all in the same code, so you can just follow along. And so do you currently use add-ins or plug-ins? And actually, I'm having a hard time getting my poll results live, so I'm just going to do old school. Raise your hand if you currently use add-ons or plug-ins for any of your software.

Awesome. That's so exciting to see. So you guys have been exploring our app stores and can give us some feedback as to what kind of apps you're looking for. That is exciting.

All right. This is another one, show of hands. Do you build apps for the Autodesk App Store? A couple of publishers in the audience, very cool, very cool. There are a lot of apps in the App Store and a growing developer community that, if you're in the developer session, you noticed that we have over 25,000 developers within our ecosystem here at Autodesk. So there's a lot of people that are working to augment workflows and create apps to make things easier for product users.

And then last but not least-- if you guys are still in Slido, I think I can pull this question-- is, what do you hope to get out of this panel? And some of the goals that were listed on the class which was taught to app developers, which we have several of them for you today, and learning about different apps in the App Store, and learning about building apps in the App Store, and any benefits to help you augment your workflows.

So that's the kind of things that we are focused on in this class, but if you kind of can answer the poll and let us know, that will give us a read of how to best help you and how to best augment this class for future years.

OK, I'll leave it open for just a second longer. And then I want to go to Vasini, who's going to share with you a little bit of stats about the App Store, so some of the things that you might not have known about what's available in the App Store And what we have in it. So Vasini, as our App Store aficionado, please let them know about the [INAUDIBLE].

VASINI GOVINDARAJAN: It takes a village. I'm just going to show you some of the statistics that our team has been working on creating and pulling for the share-out. As you can see, we have 2.7 million users that visit the App Store every year and of which 2.3 million download apps from the App Store. We currently have about 4,000 apps on the App Store. 30% of these apps are free. 40% of them are paid apps, and we have a collection of apps across all of the products that Autodesk currently has.

The top two products that we have apps for are Revit, which is about 1,200 apps, followed by AutoCAD, which has about 960 apps. And the last metric here is very, very interesting to us-- I'm sure it is to you, too-- the potential opportunity of the App Store and the apps on the Store. The subscription could go all the way up to six million, which is the size of the user base of Autodesk subscriptions.

Next, I want to talk to you about the distribution of apps across the different industries. As you can see, we have 10-plus industries currently serviced by the apps in the App Store. And I also want to talk about the publisher community that we have, today, 900-plus publishers, and each year we add about 100 publishers to the App Store.

Publishers are any developers that have an app and you want to share it to the world. You probably have solved a problem and you want to share it with the community of developers that you think might find some use for it. And so we have 900 of the publishers and counting.

We add about eight-- we help add about eight publishers each month to the App Store, and on the right what you can see here is the list of use cases for which these publishers are creating apps today. And that list is also growing. It's just, I would say, a short version or a consolidated version of the list.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: And those are the most popular topics that we have in the App Store, right?

VASINI GOVINDARAJAN: Yeah, yeah. I would say that. 100-plus use cases-- think about that. We had to summarize them into what would fit into the slide, so we took the most popular use cases that are on the App Store today.

So this map here-- there is supposed to be some green on the left-hand side, but I just wanted to point out that the App Store users are spread across the world globally. Of the 50 countries that currently have App Store users, the highest number of users are located in the United States followed by China, Brazil, Russia, Japan, and the remaining 46 countries constitute about 61% of the total download percentage.

On the bottom-right corner, what you're seeing here is the list of apps that are in other languages. English obviously dominates the language pool, however, there are 125 German apps and 116 apps in Japanese. And there are 14 languages that the App Store currently supports. So you can actually create an app in any of these 14 languages, and we would be able to provide localization services. But that's only for the App Store. The translation for the app itself is the responsibility of the developer.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: So was it 14 languages total?

VASINI GOVINDARAJAN: 14 languages, yeah.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: That's impressive.

VASINI GOVINDARAJAN: And we would love to-- these are some of the areas where we would love to connect with the developers. If we have to add a 15th language, that's something that we are open to and would like your feedback on. So this is what I had to share about app statistics to show the breadth of the App Store and what you can find.

Like I said, if you just want to check it out, there are-- 30% of our App Store we have free apps. So if you are currently using any Autodesk product, you will find an app that you can just try out, and, yeah, share with us what you think about it. I know some of you already do, but this whole point of us being here is to learn from our current publishers who are our panelists but also from you all. With that, I would pass the mic back to Whitney.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: Awesome. Well, I think we're about to get to the meat and potatoes of our presentation that we want to talk about, which is our panelists. And so we've got some publishers that have some of the top apps in the App Store here are for you today that have been building and developing in this space for a long time and have been longtime Autodesk partners.

So we're excited for you guys to meet them, and feel free to ask them questions about the apps they have in the App Store, and benefits that they can provide. As well as feel free to share experiences with the apps that you have and things that you want to see in the App Store because we definitely want to hear from you and understand what problems you're trying to solve so that we can help you figure out if there is an app for that.

So let's meet our panelists. So starting, we've got Frank Schuyer from Xinaps. He's a CEO. He's been a longtime partner of Autodesk as well as a Forge Systems Integrator or-- excuse me-- Autodesk Platform Services Certified Partner and has been working with the team and I know developing the Cloud and desktop APIs for some time, so welcome, Frank.

FRANK SCHUYER: Thank you for having me.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: And then we have Marko Koljancic. He's the CTO from DiRoots, and DiRoots has some of the most downloaded apps in the App Store and offers a wide variety of tools that can really augment your Revit workflows and kind of really a game changer in their bundle and the types of things that they provide and are able to package. So it'll be exciting to ask them about some of the things that they have in ProSheets and DiRoots 1, so I'll be excited to have you guys hear a little bit more about that.

And Dan Reid, our CTO from UNIFI-- and UNIFI is another longtime Autodesk partner that has been really a game changer in the BIM space, and they offer things that help you with your content, and with the planning, and workflows, and whatnot all within Revit, and it's a very robust suite.

So I think it'll be exciting to hear Dan talk about a little bit more about what are some of the real benefits that most of its customers are getting from his apps today because it is a very robust suite of tools available with-- probably users are using different components of it and mix and matching within it of what they end up using. So it will be exciting to hear.

And then last but not least is Jacob Bielski, Product Manager from SOFiSTiK. SOFiSTiK is, again, another longtime Autodesk partner and has worked with both the platform services-- so formerly Forge APIs-- as well as our desktop APIs and can really do some game-changing workflows within Revit.

And so it'll be exciting to hear again more about these apps and also to just open up the floor to you guys to kind of ask any burning questions you have about apps for the App Store and what problems that you're trying to solve and how we can solve them.

So next up is I am going to, hopefully, successfully share some demos. So we've got some demos from each of the publishers. I'll start with the first one that has me break my workflow, which will be to pause and share. I'm not sure.

OK. This is DiRoot's roots video. If you'd like-- oh, you're not seeing it. Let me see my desktop. I'm a terrible driver. I apologize. Thank you for bearing with me.

And so Marko, if you'd like to speak a little bit-- I'm going to back up this video. And if you'd like to speak a little bit about it and share a little bit about what DiRoots 1 is and the productivity tools that are in it--

MARKO KOLJANCIC: Basically, if I could summarize, like this DiRoots 1 is a big bundle, four and a half years of development related into one tool. And it's a free add-in. The reason it's free is our giveaway to the industry because our core business is a custom software development, and that's kind of, on the surface, what we like to also share, some IP that we have in-house. What you see here is, as I said, eight tools spanning from data management with the sheet link, dealing with sheets, with [INAUDIBLE] and View Manager as an example, model tracking with one filter, which is very robust tool.

I would say also we have a ProSheets there, which is a tool for batch printing almost any kind of file format outside of-- export to Revit, and we have product manager which is really robust who will be dealing with parameters. Basically, these tools are guided by community. We are closely observing what they are saying and what they are asking, and also we have some technical expertise to implement and kind of make a product out of it.

So far there are around 100-- we have around 150,000 active users, 6,000 companies, roughly, globally using. We don't know exact numbers. This is our database here, these numbers. So I guess it's somewhere around that. So you can download them to join.

Basically, just the last point I would say, they're a discipline agnostic. They are designed in a way they don't really target any particular discipline. These are things, and features, and workflows that we support that are more something that everybody needs on a day to day Revit workflows.

And what you see here is a one filter and one of decisively simple tools, actually, I like to say. It's a very robust model tracking tool. And one my favorite is this Visualize tab where you can give the context to data, actually, colorize elements by parameter values. That's something people really love and appreciate outside. I can speak more in detail if you want later, but for now, that's a short summary.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: That's great. And is there any kind of favorite or most popular components of the bundles that are used most that you think?

MARKO KOLJANCIC: ProSheets is by far the number-one. Whenever we release new update for ProSheets, it spikes on our list of downloads. It's really popular, probably because it's a very handy and practical tool. Everybody at some point needs to export data, print drawings, export types, [INAUDIBLE].

And the feature for renaming the sheets or views on the fly while we are exporting based on parameter values, combining parameters, that's one of the key features that people actually claim that's time saver for them because they like to keep the clean tree in the Revit names of user sheets, but they like to assemble on the fly. So they keep readable the tree navigation in Revit.

And the other one that people really use heavily is our SheetLink concept. It's basically-- it's stripped-down data from Revit to push to Excel, update information in Excel, and update and import back to update the Revit model. On top of that, that's basic workflow, but we support a lot of other features. So it's basically data management in a nutshell.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: That's great.

MARKO KOLJANCIC: But ProSheets is, by far, the number one.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: Well, it's awesome that you guys have both the bundle and ProSheets so that people can just take advantage of ProSheets or capture the whole bundle if they need it. Thank you for sharing, Marko. I'm going to--

MARKO KOLJANCIC: Thank you, Whitney.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: --attempt to queue up the presentation again.

And the next step is UNIFI, and I apologize that our audio isn't working. Dan, would you mind speaking a little bit to some of the feature functionality that you guys have in UNIFI?

DAN REID: Sure, so UNIFI is-- we think about the problem a little differently. We provide solutions for the full AECO lifecycle. We want to journey with the customers to facilitate the digital assets through that full build lifecycle. So we integrate with Revit as well as AutoCAD, Civil 3D, other tools like Rhino and AutoCAD, and we provide a centralized repository for all of the assets to reside and to enable efficient, findable workflows.

So it's one thing to have a set of content that you're sharing across your organization, but to be able to curate that, to find it, to place it, and to then do analytics on top of it is really our bread and butter.

So what we're seeing right here is an interface where the user can go in inside a web-based product and see their content that's pulled out of the Revit models, visualize all of the parameters, visualize all of the revisions. And one of the things that we do on top of storing the content is we auto-upgrade that. So we figured, based on survey results, that we save about 200 hours a user a year based on being able to efficiently find the content and be able to auto-upgrade it whenever there is a change.

That has huge gains also in quality and, also, when we do analytics, the ability to look at sync times, figure out critical health indicators and potential crashes that are maybe in the offing. So we're showing here some of the interfaces where the user can go in and slice and dice their data.

So it's a database on top of all of those Revit families that pulls out the categories, the parameters, lets you rate them, favorite them, put them into curated libraries, and then secures all of that so that, across a global organization, the BIM managers can curate and standardize. But then all of the users and all of the projects can have the latest and greatest standardized and approved versions.

One of the really cool things we're also doing now is enabling 3D visualizations so that as you look at that content outside of the design process, you can actually auto-generate the 3D model, use that in other workflows, whether that's project management, like I mentioned, that full AECO lifecycle. The owners that want to be able to see the content, want to be able to visualize it but don't actually have a license themselves-- they can actually get in and see that through a browser.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: That's great. Well, I think you guys really offer such a robust offering that really does hit that entire lifecycle and multiple different types of users as well that generally benefits from the types of tools that you have. And really, that approach to data is something that just aligns so closely with the vision that Andrew is speaking about within our platform vision and really making data accessible so that you can do things-- do more with it and really kind of pass just the data you need to the right people at the right point in time. So I think you guys offer a great solution there.

Next up, we have Verifi3D by Xinaps, and, Frank, would you mind speaking to Christina's video, which-- she does a great job explaining herself, but Frank can be Christina for now.

FRANK SCHUYER: I will have a hard time to overrule her, but I will give it a try. We have developed Verifi3D, which is a cloud-based-- completely run from your browser-- design validation solution. So we support the entire workflow from the moment that you start with [INAUDIBLE] coordination until you have this-- you have figured out an issue in your design and you would like to bring that back to the modeler, who needs to fix a specific flaw in a building design.

So what you see here on the screen is the whole process where you bring all your files together at one point. And again, this is completely cloud-based. What we do differently than the colleagues next to me is that we have a full integration with BIM 360 or ACC. So we tie in based on the Forge plugins and Forge APIs to make sure that you can sync real time the information which you have already in your cloud environment.

So we try to avoid that you have files on multiple places, on local machines, on Dropbox, or maybe in different file folders and your BIM 360 environments. So that makes your entire process more smooth and more easy to use.

So we built an environment where you can create your models and your project [INAUDIBLE] but also fewer. So you can fuel the data, and on the left on the screen you see the ability to create filters compared with your database where you can create a query and you would like to search for something, which we do similar but then more on a low-code kind of look and feel.

So we have a strong focus on the UI and the UX to make it as smooth as possible. The whole filters is also the foundation for your rules. So the next step is to create a rule, which just makes you a more advanced and/or solution, or you can do it really the classification of the information which is in your database.

As you can see, we try to color-code everything. You can adjust the colors yourself. It's very easy to adjust templates and to create templates for the whole checking process. Templates are completely based on JSON structure, so if this is also open, you can create it within the application. You can create it outside the application, or you can upload it in our tool to check, for example, information delivery specifications, go with uni class, omni class, et cetera. You can make it as simple but also as complex as well.

Outcomes can be exported to Excel also. We are, of course, not a fan of Excel because we like to have everything in the closed environment, but yeah, if you would like to export things and you would like to share with people, you can export to PDF from Excel. And most of the things are focused on clashing and the validation point.

But the Advanced Rule Engine is, for us, the cherry on the cake. This is, for us, something where we see also the collaboration with Autodesk and with the whole cloud environment where, especially, again, data stays on one place.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: That's great. And you guys are one of the first apps in the App Store that uses some of our cloud-based APIs and tools, and it's exciting to see some of the visualization tools, which-- I think the visualization aspect layered on top kind of that clash detection just helps to zero-in and pinpoint things faster, easier, and hand it off to teams, ensure that things happen appropriately and get tackled by folks that identify it.

FRANK SCHUYER: And in addition to that-- I just missed a few-- a few last things of the-- of the demo. But also, the integration with BIM 360 issues, for example, is also something that makes your workflow, again, smooth and easy to use.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. So lots of handing off between data between tools like Revit, correct, and BIM 360 and really helping to bridge some of the gaps and things within class detection-- that's exciting. Well, thank you for sharing.

And then we have SOFiSTiK and their analytical model generator. Jakub, would you mind speaking a little bit to the model generator?

JAKUB BIELSKI: Yes, of course. So hello, everyone again. Yes, so Analytical Model Generator or-- I will say a few words about SOFiSTiK. So we have-- we are developing this software for the calculation of the structure, so basically, the bridges, buildings, tunnels, and so on. And we want to transfer this knowledge also for the BIM world in the BIM architecture.

And so we are also cooperating with Autodesk for the structural models inside Revit, and our newest application that we have developed, actually, this year is the Analytical Model Generator. So maybe you know or not, in Revit 2023 we have a totally new concept of how Analytical Model is being built and introduced into the model.

And so basically, it's detached from the physical model, and here in hand comes our application where we can automate in an automatic way, create these Analytical Models that-- panels, beams, and so on-- and also automatically fix the small-- tweak the model automatically where it's needed to, basically when you-- two structural panels are not matching together or something like this.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: And who are some of the users that benefit from your application? Like what types of roles, really, take advantage of some of these things?

JAKUB BIELSKI: So in terms of the AEC collection, you are definitely in E.

[CHUCKLES]

So engineers, and also drafters. I mean, this is also a really interesting topic, because then right now, the drafting/designing role is going back to the engineering world as well. I mean, we have to ask ourselves the question, why do I need this calculation in Revit because I want to see the results. I want to know how the preliminary design looks. I want to assume or estimate what is the span of the BIMs.

Is it good? What are the cross-sections? Should I put somewhere another column, or can I get [INAUDIBLE] for some structural panels and so on?

So definitely engineers, but I think that if the collaboration in the model is done properly, then definitely also architects, because it's about the BIM. It's also about the conversation. And I saw that there was also a really nice class that's the architects versus an engineer, or something like this. So this is also the topic or the problem that is tackled, like when an engineer is working on the BIM model. So finding the common language.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: I think it's not so much architects versus engineers as it is we're on the same team. We're fighting the same fight.

JAKUB BIELSKI: Exactly. No, I was just mentioning that when I was going across the corridor, then I saw one class with this name. So I thought that it's fun to bring it up again.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: Yeah, it's interesting how much so many of our users wear multiple hats, too, and we see architects. And I remember seeing architects talk about, well, now that I start encoding, what am I? An architect, a developer, and arch developer.

And everyone's just wearing so many different hats. And you don't have to be an engineer, developer, or architect in order to be able to take advantage of these things. And having these tools that inspire the conversation between different roles, and to help give you just the data that you need in order to transfer and to have these conversations without having to worry about sending over entire model sets that might be outdated by the time you send it over, and being able to really just transform the way people work together, I think, is a huge point of connecting workflows with apps and add-ins and plug-ins.

So next up, we're at the panel discussion. And essentially, don't be shy and ask a question. So I'm I have a number of questions that I'm dying to ask the panelists. And I'm happy to kick it off.

And then also, I wouldn't be a marketer if I didn't bring some sweet swag for anyone that wants to ask a question or for anyone upon exiting, because I give gifts to everyone. And so please let us know if you have any questions. I see one in the back.

AUDIENCE: So you're all experienced in app [INAUDIBLE]. But if I wanted to make my own app now, how would I start that?

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: All right, the question is, if I wanted to make my own app, how would I get started? And I've got a couple answers to that since I do work within the Platform Services team, and there are APIs that do lots of different things. But I'm going to toss that question to Frank from XINAPS up since he's a certified systems integrator, or certified partner, that helps people develop apps, especially for teams that don't have it. So you can talk about that journey developing both with a little bit of Desktop and APIs and Desktop and Cloud APIs.

FRANK SCHUYER: Yeah, actually, it was fun to start with that, by the way. It went much easier than I expected in the beginning, although I'm not a developer. But in my team, we sit down together and say, hey, what are the opportunities and what are the alternatives?

And the good thing about the Forge environment is that you have a viewer place. You don't have to build your own viewer. So there is a data structure in place, so you can really focus on what you would like to build yourself and don't care about the rest around it.

And you can always create that later. So we start with the Forge field first, for example. But later on, we saw, OK, there are some limitations. But also, you have some ideas about how to go to market. I think my sound--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

FRANK SCHUYER: So you can start really small and focus on your own tool, while the rest is already in place. And if you start with a simple design and with a simple idea, work it out, and it evolves in a later stage. So don't think too big, think small.

Think big, but start small. That's actually what I would like to say, and focus on what you really would like to build, and the rest is already in place. Don't make it too complex for yourself, and just start with it.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: And one thing I can add is that, to make it easier to develop with Autodesk APIs, we're going to be releasing a new site at developer.autodesk.com. That's our developer hub. And there, you can search by product, industry, functionality, code language, cloud versus desktop. And it'll help you find all the different APIs that Autodesk offers for both desktop and cloud, and then the pathways to get to the documentation for those tools as well. And then depending on the API, for most popular APIs, we have a series of tutorials to help you get started with some of the most basic tasks that the API has enabled, and then like Frank said, to really build on that over time with adding functionality and features and whatnot.

And then I can't talk about building apps without giving a shout-out to Viru and the support team because there is a huge group of 40 developer evangelists out there that can help you build your application. So once you have your use case in mind, and an idea of I want to connect BIM 360 with another tool, or maybe I want to extract data from Revit, maybe I want to automate some redundant processes that are just are time consuming and not creative. And once you have identified your use case, then it'll be easier for you to go to the developer hub and see is there an API for that, which would be the other class that maybe we'll do another time. That's a great question.

FRANK SCHUYER: May I say one more thing about it?

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: Please.

FRANK SCHUYER: Not sure how familiar you are with microservices, but I really was going to advise you to take a look at a way of architecture of building your application. So that means that you have a microservices-- easy, again, to use a viewer, which is, for example, in this case for Forge. But it makes it also easier if you have already that structure in place to take out components to replace it or to build in, basically, your own requirements.

And if you have that architecture based on microservices, it's much easier to replace and to not entirely reinvent the wheel, build the entire application. Again, if you think, OK, my proof of concept was nice, but now I would like to make it a real commercial available application. So [INAUDIBLE] structure, it can save you a lot of time.

VASINI GOVINDARAJAN: Can I add something to that?

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: Please.

VASINI GOVINDARAJAN: Yeah, I just want to address, OK, now you've built your app. And as the App Store team, what happens after? How do I get this app into the App Store?

So to that, I want to say that there is this dedicated team of operations and support that is eager to hear from you. If you have an app and you want to upload or publish it into the App Store, you can just reach out to us. And once you've built your app-- I mean, that's where your work, I would say, ends and our work starts. We will take that information, we will help you how you can bundle it, what format it needs to be in, what legal validations it needs, and documents that you would have to include.

And then we will handhold you along the way to be able to upload your app into the App Store, and also help you get set up with some basic analytics about your users. And currently, we provide information on where they are located and when the app was downloaded. But we are working on expanding that set of data that we provide back to you, so that you can have a good handle on who your users are and what are they downloading, what are they looking for.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: That's a great thing to add. There's a lot of benefits from the App Store.

AUDIENCE: So I'd also like to add, most of Autodesk software has a visual programming language. Like Revit has Dynamo. That's a really good way to start getting into the API. I always call it, like, a gateway [INAUDIBLE].

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: That's a great point. And we've also looked at low-code, no-code type of environments, things that we haven't necessarily released yet. But it's something that we've kicked the ideas around, drag and drop app creators and things like that can really enable you to create apps without having robust coding experience and background, and knowing JavaScript or RESTful APIs and whatnot. So there's a number of tools that will be coming to make it easier for people that aren't developers first to create apps, and to customize their workflows and their needs. Yes.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] piggybacking on all of that, is there an approval process? Because I don't want to come to you and say, like, here's my app. And you're like, oh, well, we've already got one in the works, or there's already a similar one, you know what I'm saying? So they're like, you have to submit a proposal for one? Or how does [INAUDIBLE]?

VASINI GOVINDARAJAN: That's a great question that has me thinking about that specific aspect you talked about. There is an approval process. So once you're ready with your information, you submit it into the App Store.

And then the App Store review team-- or the operation and support team that I referred to earlier, they go back and take your information. They look through it. They analyze certain aspects of it. They look at how usable it is.

They will download it. They will try testing it. They also look for how relevant it is to our users. They will look for comparable apps that are already existing in the market. They may get back to you and suggest maybe some feature additions, or like how you could differentiate your apps, so that you can differentiate yourself basically.

But yes, to your question, there is an approval process. It is being reviewed. Every aspect of your app will be looked at, and you would get back feedback. But once that feedback is taken in and you respond to those, you will eventually be able to publish into the App Store.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: And actually, I was going to piggyback off of that and ask one of our panelists-- let's see, Jakub, tell me a little bit about the approval process in getting your apps in the App Store, and what your journey was in getting started on the App Store.

JAKUB BIELSKI: OK, so-- I'm not sure if I am the proper panelist for this, because when I joined SOFiSTiK the process was already actually automated, so everything was fixed. And then when we came with the new app and with the new version, with the Revit version service packs and so on, then actually, the only thing that I had to do is to go to the website, find the publisher corner, upload the new installation, make some new tweaks or the descriptions and clips [INAUDIBLE] submit. And then after a day or two-- it depends on, I don't know, the workload probably, I get an email back that your app has been already published, and that's it.

I mean, I cannot tell you how it's going to start. But I think that the process is quite straightforward. I mean, if you really like take, like-- I don't know, say, [INAUDIBLE] that you are really following the certain steps, and you get to the point where you simply have to click on one button and that's it. So of course, this is already the process when you have the working installation, so I don't think that publishing is really the big issue out of the whole process.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: That's really great to hear, and especially to highlight on some of the updating features to kind of maintain and ensure that our apps stay up to date on the App Store, and making that process easy for publishers in the App Store. And who will I pick on next? I'm going to pick on Marko. Marko, tell us a little bit about your journey getting started in the App Store, and getting some of your bundles and things like that approved?

MARKO KOLJANCIC: Thank you. Initially, we kept all of our [INAUDIBLE] on our website. That's how we started, and then of John proposed to kind of go to the App Store. Its an official place [INAUDIBLE] command, why not? And now all of our [INAUDIBLE] are actually on the App Store, and that's the official place where download.

As Jakub said, the workflow is pretty simple. I believe, because we released so many updates, that we are well-known on the other side. So the process for us is really straightforward. The bare minimum of information required is mostly what you actually see on your page-- if you want to embed some video, provide some images, tag description. Changelog is an example.

What we like to do, for example, in our tools, we embed our own proprietary update system. So even sometimes, while we are waiting for approval on the App Store, somebody who can download the previous version can now immediately get the update window. So we like to keep people constantly notified that there is a new update, fresh new release, and so on, because we have a dedicated support team, and we support only the latest version of our tools.

So for us, App Store works very nicely. And the nice thing is people can add the stars, write comments. So you see the count. You see the community actually responding.

Actually, the most common question that we get are people asking for support directly on the App Store for our tools, and we are always redirecting. OK, we have supported diroots.com dedicated team. So we provide [INAUDIBLE]. But for us, absolute [INAUDIBLE].

FRANK SCHUYER: It's also a good test for your product because they really turn your product inside out.

[CHUCKLES]

And you get a lot of information, a lot of questions back from the team. So it's quite thorough, how do they do it. And again, it's a good stamp of approval for your product. So it's good for your marketing as well.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: That's great. And I wanted to ask Dan, since I know the UniFi suite really offers so many layers, I'm curious if your experience getting started on the App Store, was it similarly as smooth, even with such a detailed and layered offering?

DAN REID: Well, like with Jakub, we've been on the App Store for so long, I haven't had to go through it.

[LAUGHTER]

What is nice is the update process is very streamlined and easy. It is a great forum to have the comments and the feedback and the ratings from customers. And it's a target audience. We know that the people that go there are going to see the value.

So for us, it's a great channel. But it's a no-brainer. We don't have to spend any time worrying about it. Anyone that's built apps for some of the other stores, iOS and Google, it's very painful. This is not.

WHITNEY LAWRENCE: That is really great to hear. I've been on the side of trying to create iOS apps, and the publishing timeline you have to leave for that kind of publishing just can be months. And trying to plan a launch around it is just a challenge.

Especially if you've got something that you want to get in the hands of customers soon, you want to make sure that you've got a partner that you can both move with speed with, but also, Autodesk does take the time to do robust code reviews. And if they find bugs, issues, things like that, they're going to come back to you and provide you that feedback, so that you can just make your app better. And you get the benefit of the expertise of the developer support teams that we have in place.

So there's a lot of support available for you if you are looking to publish an app on the App Store, or have an idea for an app and want to get it in front of just a lot more users, because there's a lot of different ways that we promote the App Store, and just want to be funneling all the different great apps that are on the App Store to product users so that they know what's available. Especially with all these new publishers coming to the App Store month over month, quarter over quarter, how are you going to find out what's the latest app? What's the latest thing that's been updated, what's supported, what version are you on? There's all this information available in the App Store, and we try to make it really easy for a pathway for you to get there and become a publisher yourself. Do I have any other questions, or am I going to have to start giving out swag and bribing people?