Gluggy is a Window Cleaning Round Manager app for iOS featuring a Dashboard, Job Manager, Collections Manager, Customer Manager, User preferences, System Reports and on device Backup & Restore Tools. The app is standalone and only requires mobile data for sending text messages or emails, so will run on newer iPods as well as iPhones. All data is stored on the device making it truly portable.
The dashboard automatically updates with a view of Today’s Jobs, Overdue Jobs and Money Owing. Tapping one of these indicators takes you directly to a more detailed view.
Earnings Today provides a graphic representation of today’s work showing a gauge of the jobs completed and jobs skipped with the monetary values for both shown in the centre of the gauge.
The Job Manager provides the ability to create new jobs, edit existing jobs and complete jobs. When a job is completed you can mark it as done, skipped, paid or unpaid with the tap of a button.
The Collections Manager lists all jobs that you haven’t received payment for and enables you to receive a payment or send reminder messages at the tap of a button.
The Customer Manager provides tools for managing customers, their jobs and job history. Individual jobs can be edited, added or deleted as can customer records.
The app makes use of several transitions effects when moving from one screen to another. For example tapping an icon on the bottom navigation bar simply jumps to the required screen. Tapping an entry in a list will slide in the required form from the right etc. Careful attention was paid to how ‘Apple’ apps transition between various screens to make the app look and feel native to iOS.
Along with identifying appropriate transition modes, I spent quite some time researching iOS screen layout to understand Apples approach to App layout and effective screen usage. Hopefully the result is that Gluggy is intuitive to use, easy to navigate, provides a good level of functionality and also ‘feels’ right.
Why the name Gluggy? Well, you need a unique app name when submitting your app to the App Store. Single word app names are, in my opinion, better that long descriptive app names because they are more memorable, and Gluggy is short, easy to remember and spell. However, that’s not why it’s called Gluggy.
Because the app was designed initially for window cleaners I researched the word ‘window’ in several languages and found Gluggi is Icelandic for window. I modified it from Gluggi to Gluggy so that it wouldn’t be misspelled by my English speaking target audience and hey presto a product name was born.
Why did I make an app for Window Cleaners? Well I have several friends who are window cleaners and a few mentioned that there wasn’t a good app available. There are apps out there but the majority are pay monthly. I decided to take the plunge and build an app that did what they wanted how they wanted it. The result is Gluggy.
Alan Green - creator of Gluggy
Gluggy on the Apple App Store
