Basque Country Water Network

Thierry is the IT Administrator for a wide-reaching water management network in the Basque Country, covering everything from drinking water to wastewater, rainwater, river, and seawater quality. His role spans hardware, software, and network support for critical infrastructure across multiple regions, keeping essential services online and ensuring their IT operations run smoothly.

Until recently, applications developed to support these regions were built the old-fashioned way - from scratch. Having created frontends in HTML and scripting languages, Thierry found himself spending weeks coding each solution. When different regions needed specialized applications, the challenge of creating and maintaining multiple tools was daunting. “Every new tool needs training,” he explained, “and at first, the challenge was simply learning the platform, especially when I was doing everything by hand.”

Today, thanks to Budibase, Thierry builds robust internal apps in a fraction of the time. What started as a search for a more intuitive, self-hosted solution has grown into an ongoing digital transformation that is helping unify data, speed up workflows, and empower not just Thierry, but the entire IT team and workforce in the Basque Country.

The Challenge

Before Budibase, water management processes across Thierry’s organization were often fragmented, with some teams working from spreadsheets, while others still relied on pen-and-paper methods. Thierry explained, “We have multiple regions with different problems, and they would come to me requesting new applications. I had to decide if I could do it or not.”

He was the only dedicated developer at the time, so building even a basic app meant writing HTML and scripts from the ground up. Updates were equally time-consuming. “When a user came back with change requests, it would take a lot of time to implement—even small changes.”

Meanwhile, some employees weren’t comfortable with digital tools at all. “We had people using calculators and Excel spreadsheets,” Thierry noted, “especially in interior regions that weren’t used to more advanced IT solutions.” The burden was twofold: training colleagues to use new software and finding enough development hours to build it.

Discovering Budibase

In search of a low-code solution that could speed development and reduce manual coding, Thierry tested multiple platforms. Some, like Appsmith, felt too event-driven and less intuitive for teams who weren’t full-time developers. Budibase caught his attention because it balanced power with ease of use, and crucially, it supported self-hosting.

“We need the ability to self-host to reach our internal systems,” Thierry recalled. Budibase’s Docker-based setup fit right into his existing environment, eliminating the friction that came with installing new platforms.

“Once you understand Budibase’s logic, it goes very quickly. I can respond to changes so much faster.”

He also found that Budibase allowed non-developers on his team to get involved. “We have a team of eight,” Thierry noted, “and they’re tech-savvy but not coders. I set up separate instances where they can experiment, and if something works, we move it to production.”

Building a Range of Applications

Once Thierry got up and running, he was amazed at the speed at which he could develop applications.

“I can release a first draft of an application in a day—before, it took me weeks.”

That newfound efficiency led to a surge in requests and a wide variety of apps.

One of the first large projects was a maintenance management and purchase order tool. The existing hosted software lacked the ability to handle purchase orders and couldn’t easily track labor costs. Thierry built a Budibase app that pulls in data from multiple databases—one for maintenance records, another for financials—and merges them. “We can see everything in one place now,” he explained.

“We compare working time with orders and receipts. It’s all integrated.”

He next tackled mobile water meter readings in remote areas. Instead of writing numbers in a notebook, field staff now scan barcodes on the meters using a Budibase mobile app, which flags any suspicious data in real time. “It validates consumption so the user knows right away if it’s plausible,” Thierry said.

“We’ve cut down on errors and time wasted double-checking entries.”

Reporting was another time sink he wanted to eliminate. By linking Budibase with ETL processes, Metabase dashboards, and older systems, Thierry centralized huge volumes of environmental data, from water quality to rainfall measurements. “We have regulatory obligations and big data sets,” he said.

“Before, it took a lot of time to compile everything. Now I just press a button.”

Driving Digital Transformation

Beyond saving time, Budibase has helped Thierry foster a data culture even in regions that once relied on paper. “Some teams had never even used a digital tool to solve these problems before,” he acknowledged,

“but Budibase’s intuitive interface made them want to keep using it. They’re very happy.”

Colleagues across the organization have also begun building smaller apps in a sandbox environment. If the apps prove useful, Thierry imports them into the production server. “I don’t have the bandwidth to develop everything myself,” he admitted. “Budibase is helping our whole IT team—and even non-IT staff—take ownership of these projects.”

Meanwhile, user feedback is immediate and integrated into the development loop. “If somebody needs a tweak, I can usually fix it within the hour,” Thierry said. “That’s a huge difference from the days when I was writing scripts from scratch.”

Results and Future Plans

The impact on productivity and satisfaction is hard to overstate. As Thierry put it, “We save so much time on data compilation. Users just click a button and get the report now.” He’s also noticed an uptick in adoption rates—people are using the new apps daily, whether it’s meter readings, purchase orders, or environmental monitoring.

In the near future, Thierry plans to upgrade to Budibase’s Enterprise plan. With access to advanced features and direct training, he hopes to unlock even more of Budibase’s capabilities, particularly around custom triggers and automations.

“The time I spent learning Budibase has been gained back tenfold.”

“and I’m excited to see how far we can go with formal training and even deeper functionality.”

For an organization tasked with safeguarding something as vital as water, the ability to quickly develop and adjust apps is a game-changer. “The Basque Country regions all have unique needs, and Budibase helps us roll out solutions that can scale or be adapted for each one,” Thierry concluded.

“Now that I can build apps so quickly, it’s not just easier for me—it’s better for everyone.”