Custom Web Application Development

Who builds internal tools and web apps for operations teams

If your operations team is running on spreadsheets, shared inboxes and a SaaS tool that almost fits, you need a partner who can build a web application around your actual workflow. Tepia has built these systems for thirteen years: dispatcher portals, order management screens, approval queues, inventory dashboards and the admin panels behind consumer mobile apps.

Tepia is US led, with project management, design leadership and engineering leadership in the United States and hand picked engineers working in US overlapping hours. A project manager is assigned to every web engagement, and the same team stays on for support after launch. Examples are on the Tepia portfolio.

Tepia applies the same retention thinking to internal tools as to consumer apps. An operations tool that staff avoid is a failed project, so Tepia interviews the people who will use it and designs for the ten tasks they do fifty times a day.

Types of web applications Tepia builds

Web applications fall into a few recognizable shapes, and knowing which one you need helps with scoping. Tepia uses the table below during the first conversation.

Most of these pair naturally with a mobile surface. The Maximum Controls project, for example, combined an admin portal with iOS and Android apps, all sharing one backend that Tepia built. For a deeper comparison of low code tools versus custom for internal tools, see custom internal tools for operations teams.

React, Node.js and .NET: the Tepia web stack

Tepia builds web frontends in React with TypeScript, which gives you a large hiring pool if you ever bring development in house and lets Tepia share components with React Native mobile apps. Backends are Node.js for most products, .NET when your organization already runs on Microsoft infrastructure and Azure, and Python for data heavy or AI related services.

• Database: PostgreSQL by default, with Firebase for MVPs that need to ship fast.
• APIs: REST or GraphQL, documented so your other vendors can integrate. See API development and integration.
• Hosting: AWS, Azure or GCP in an account you own, with infrastructure as code so it can be rebuilt.
• Auth: SSO through Microsoft Entra, Google Workspace or Okta for staff tools; email, phone and social login for customer portals.
• Integrations: QuickBooks, Salesforce, HubSpot, ServiceTitan, Shopify, Stripe and Square, built directly or through Zapier and Make for low volume connections.
• AI: OpenAI and Anthropic model APIs with retrieval augmented generation for search, summarization and drafting inside the tool.

Tepia ships every web app with automated tests, monitoring, backups and a staging environment, and meets WCAG 2.1 AA so the tool works with screen readers and keyboard navigation.

How Tepia approaches custom web application development

Web applications follow Tepia’s six phase process. For operations tools the Discovery and Training phases carry the most weight, because adoption is the real deliverable.

1. Discovery (typically 1 to 3 months). System investigation of the spreadsheets and tools you use today, user interviews with the staff who will live in the new application, and a third party integration review. Deliverables: Investigation Summary, Interview Summary and User Stories organized by role.
2. Design. Design questionnaire, moodboards and a style guide, then detailed wireframes for each screen and role, and sample designs you sign off before development.
3. Development and Testing. Alpha and Beta schedules. Test plans cover functional, user acceptance and non functional testing, including load tests at several times your expected concurrency and permission tests for every role.
4. Training. In person and remote, hands on sessions using user story scenarios, usually run per department.
5. Launch. Data migration from spreadsheets or the legacy system, a transition plan with parallel running where needed, and Tepia support reps on rollout.

Web apps that pair with mobile apps

Nearly every mobile product needs a web counterpart: a place for your team to manage users, publish content, review orders, dispatch jobs or look at analytics. Tepia builds the web admin and the mobile app on the same backend and the same User Stories, so a change to an order status in the portal appears on the driver’s phone in real time.

This is also how Tepia handles legacy replacements. The web app often goes first for office staff, followed by a mobile app for field or customer use, with the old system retired once both are stable. The legacy system modernization page explains that sequence.

Participant Media’s Director of IT said of Tepia, “If I could build an in-house team, it would be exactly like them.” If you want that kind of team on your web application, browse Tepia services or get in touch.

Frequently asked questions