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Table Builder plugin like WPDataTables / WooCommerce Product Table
In order to build Data tables within WordPress, we released a very basic and useful Table Builder plugin for wordpress.
Since this is an initial release, the functionality is very basic but it allows anyone to easily create Post Lists Table in wordpress and then you can display the list on any page or post using shortcodes.
DRAG AND DROP COLUMN SELECTION
These are the list of initial columns available
- ID
- post_author
- post_date
- post_title
- post_category
- post_tag
- post_content
- post_excerpt
- post_modified
- comment_count
From the available list you can drag and drop and create your own list of display columns.
Custom Column Titles
Each column comes with a default title or column name. You can edit the title and provide your own custom titles.
Custom length for Content and Excerpt
If you decide to display the content you can choose how many words to display.
Table Header and Style
Table Builder enables you to define your own CSS for the table heading.
WooCommerce Product Table
Currently the plugin supports post types but soon we will release a new version that will support WooCommerce Products and other post types. Building WooCommerce Products custom table listing would be an awesome way to provide better user experience for your customers.
Why wordpress and a Table builder plugin?
In an effort to increase the distribution channel of InfoCaptor as a downloadable Dashboard Reporting Tool, it makes perfect sense to align with popular CMS platforms. InfoCaptor is PHP and MySQL based BI Dashboard application and so it has lot of things common with WordPress. In order to participate in the wordpress platform, InfoCaptor needs to be available as a plugin and this is a lot of effort to convert the functionality as an extension to WordPress.
We looked at several Table builder plugins and the one particular plugin WPDataTable started out as a plugin script on codecanyon and eventually added lot of charting and graphing capability. Another plugin that is extremely popular is Elementor which is a page building tool for wordpress. Taking them as inspiration, it made sense to start somewhere and this Table Builder plugin is our introduction to WordPress community.
InfoCaptor is more than just an alternative WPDataTables
InfoCaptor is a complete Business Intelligence and Dashboard reporting tool written in PHP and is more than any table creator functionality of WordPress. Creating Tables is part of any Business Intelligence or dashboard application.
Not just static tables.
Create Data Tables, that are fully configured with live data connections against any database.
Assuming there is still market for another Table creator plugin, we would like to introduce InfoCaptor as a complete Data Visualizer, Table Creator and Chart building plugin for WordPress.
Over the past several months, we have been studying various plugins and their marketing strategies. One thing that stands out is plugin developers focus on delivering functionality that is focused on solving one pain point. This makes sense.
Does it mean we will have to dissect and split the entire InfoCaptor App into smaller utilities?
The answer is not simple. Let us consider what we did with WooCommerce Reporting. In this plugin, we designed and developed entire reporting functionality for WooCommerce using our Dashboard Builder. Once the dashboards were built, we packaged individual dashboard report definitions along with all the table and data collection scripts into a plugin.
We did not do a lot of research into the market for WooCommerce Reporting plugins but since this was very logical and aligned with what InfoCaptor provides, we decided to go ahead and build the plugin. Now the market for users seeking sophisticated reporting solution for WooCommerce seems non-existent. Store owners want basic reports and import export functionality. Data Visualisation and flexible dashboards for WooCommerce seems too early or simply not needed for majority of store owners.
The WooCommerce Reporting plugin package makes sense for established and profitable Store owners. In short, we were able to deliver a very useful functionality for WooCommerce in extremely short time period.
Similarly, we will be releasing our Data Visualization tool for WordPress and Reporting for several popular WordPress plugins.
What is possible with InfoCaptor + WordPress?
- Create beautiful data tables (alternative to WPDataTable plugin ) does
- Connect to any data source like MySQL, Oracle, PostGreSQL
- Source from CSV or Excel files to build tables and charts
- Publish individual Tables or Charts directly on pages or posts
- Publish full interactive Dashboards on the WordPress platform
- Drag and Drop Tableau like dashboard building for WordPress
- Use WordPress as DataWarehousing Platform with InfoCaptor as front-end
Table Building is just the beginning, there is more to come… stay tuned