One Login, Three Apps: Why We’re Building the EWD Control Center

We build three apps: Aperture™ for the field, EyeWall™ for floor plans and takeoffs, and Quote Converter Pro™ for pricing. Each one is good at one job on purpose. That raises a question I put off longer than I should have: who decides who gets to use which one?

Specialized apps need one front door

A sales rep needs Aperture™ and EyeWall™, and maybe Quote Converter Pro™. A quoter needs EyeWall™ and Quote Converter Pro™, and maybe Aperture™. Some people do everything. If each app keeps its own user list, the owner ends up managing three lists of the same people, and somebody who left in March still has a login in one of them in June.

So the suite gets one company directory and one sign-in. Being allowed into one app doesn’t mean you’re allowed into the others; the owner switches each one on per person.

Why it’s a separate application

The EWD Control Center is its own protected app, for owners and admins only. One login, three apps. The owner controls who uses what, and sees where work is stuck.

What it is not

It isn’t a CRM, and it doesn’t move jobs through pipeline stages. Aperture™ was built on the rule that field capture never drifts into CRM territory, and that rule holds for the suite. The Control Center decides who can do what and shows the owner where work is stuck. It doesn’t run the sales process.

None of this is shipped yet. I’ll write about each step here as it lands, including the parts that go wrong.