How to Deploy the Joget No-Code Developer Platform – InApps 2022

Low-code and no-code are all the rage. And why not? Both solutions are a great way for startups and businesses to create apps without having to hire developers with extensive software engineer experience. And given the exponential rise in mobile applications and the demand for agile workflow management, it should be no surprise that platforms like Joget have found a brand new audience.

Joget is an open source no-code/low-code app platform that makes Rapid Application Development (RAD) a reality for businesses that might have otherwise not even known it was a possibility. With Joget you have a single platform to build, deliver, monitor, and maintain enterprise-ready applications. All of this with a drag-and-drop, no-code solution.

This might sound like a service you have to sign up for or pay a monthly fee to use. But this is open source, so Joget can be deployed to your on-premises datacenter or a third-party cloud host.

Feature of Joget include:

• Drag-and-drop builder, workflow management, and process automation
• Built-in App Center
• Seamless App installation from the Marketplace
• Material-design inspired UI
• Form elements including grids, spreadsheets, signatures, and more.
• Dashboards, reports, charts, and reporting tool integration
• App generator builds apps in minutes
• Plugin support to extend the feature set
• Integrates with numerous cloud environments
• App performance management
• TensorFlow support
• Progressive Web App compliance
• DevOps and Git integration

At this point, you must be sold on the Joget no-code solution, so let’s get on with the deployment.

How to Deploy Joget

We’re going to go full-in with cloud native and deploy Joget via Docker. Before we do that, we must first install Docker. I’m going to demonstrate on Ubuntu Server 21.04, but you can deploy the platform on any OS that supports Docker.

To install Docker on Ubuntu Server, log into the system and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install docker.io -y

Once the installation completes, start and enable the docker service with:

sudo sytemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

Next, you must add your user to the docker group with:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Log out and log back in for the changes to take effect.

With Docker installed, you can now deploy Joget. There are two ways to do this, either with an embedded MySQL database or using a Linked MySQL database. Use the embedded option to test it out and, once you’re sold, deploy the linked version for more scalability. Remember, however, if you try the embedded version and decide to migrate to the linked deployment, you must stop and delete the embedded instance before deploying the linked instance.

To deploy with the embedded database, issue the command:

docker run -d -p 8080:8080 -v /var/lib/mysql --name joget jogetworkflow/joget-enterprise

To deploy with the linked database, you must first create the Joget data volume with:

docker volume create jogetdata

Next, deploy the MySQL database container, making sure to change pword to s secure, unique password.

docker run -d --name jogetdb -p 3306:3306 -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=jwdb -e MYSQL_USER=joget -e MYSQL_PASSWORD=pword -e MYSQL_DATABASE=jwdb mysql:5.7

Once the database container is up and running, deploy Joget (and connect it to the MysQL container) with:

docker run -d --link jogetdb:jwdb --name joget -p 8080:8080 -e MYSQL_HOST=jwdb -e MYSQL_DATABASE=jwdb -e MYSQL_PORT=3306 -e MYSQL_USER=joget -e MYSQL_PASSWORD=pword --mount source=jogetdata,target=/opt/joget/wflow jogetworkflow/joget-enterprise

Again, make sure to change pword to a secure, unique password.

Build Your App

Give the container a moment to spin up. Open a web browser and point it to http://SERVER:8080/jw (where SERVER is the IP address of the hosting server). You should then be presented with the Joget main window, where you can log in (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Joget has been deployed and is ready for you to log in and start building.

The default login credentials are admin/admin. Once you’ve logged in, you should immediately change the password, by clicking the Admin profile drop-down in the upper right corner and selecting Profile. From the resulting window (Figure 2), you can then change your admin password, as well as your Time Zone.

Figure 2: Changing the Joget admin password and Time Zone.

After changing the password and Time Zone, head back to the main window and then go to the main page and click the pencil icon at the bottom right to reveal the App Apps button. Click that button to reveal a few demo apps (Figure 3) you can view to help you get started with the platform.

Figure 3: The Joget demo apps can help you get up to speed with using Joget to build your own.

Select an app to view and the various components will be listed (Figure 4).

Figure 4: The Expenses Claim app demo is a great place to start.

Click any one of the included objects to see how it was built (Figure 5).

Figure 5: The Expense Approval Entry is shown here.

Every item within an object has been dragged from the left sidebar. So in the Expense Approval Entry, you’ll see five text fields and one text area. Of those text fields, four are hidden, one has a static entry (Admin Admin) and one is a date entry.

At this point, you should continue poking around Joget to get a feel for the tool. When next we visit the platform, we’ll walk through the process of building a simple app. Enjoy this easy-to-deploy low-code solution.

InApps is a wholly owned subsidiary of Insight Partners, an investor in the following companies mentioned in this article: Docker.