What makes modern low-code platforms and their features worth your while?

Low-code platforms (also referred to as low-to-no-code or low-to-zero-code) are modern, highly functional and standardised software solutions, which enables you to build complete business applications without coding, usually thanks to an intuitive graphical user interface and tools that allow you to quickly and easily automate even very complex business scenarios and processes by dragging and dropping things around. Thanks to this approach, they offer maximum benefits even to users, who do not have specialised programming knowledge and coding skills. Modern solutions of this kind offer extensive features for effective change management – something that every modern company, which wants to grow dynamically, will surely learn to appreciate.

Low-code platforms and their long history

The origins of the no-code concept date back to the 1970s; however, it did not garner much popularity back in the day and had to wait until the second decade of the 21st century to shine.  Low-code platforms are modern information systems, which combine functionalities offered by document management systems, business process management (BPM) and business process automation (BPA) solutions – all without the need for any coding. Before low-code platforms, all of these solutions required the constant involvement of development teams in order to take care of their maintenance and development, as well as to implement the necessary changes.

As a result, companies became more and more dependent on the services of programmers and specific development teams, which increased their operating costs due to considerable IT expenses, and at some point it brought about considerable difficulties due to the lack of highly-skilled specialists on the labour market. Other drawbacks included high investment cost and limited possibilities for introducing changes, which, together with the increasingly rapid pace of changes taking place both within the organisations, as well as in their business and legal environment, started becoming critical for more and more companies. As a result of this, IT systems, which were supposed to facilitate the operations of companies and organisations, helping them to efficiently carry out their tasks and operational activities on a daily basis, started to hinder them and slow down the natural pace of business growth due to the high change dynamics.

Such a turn of events made it necessary to come up with a solution, to make it possible for the companies to take advantage of the opportunities offered by modern technologies in a more effective and efficient manner, without being constantly dependent on the services of specific development teams. Eventually, users also started paying more attention not only to the speed and effectiveness of delivery of enterprise IT solutions, but also to their scalability, flexibility and ease of change, to ensure proper time to business. Eventually, low-code platforms emerged as the best solution, enabling building business applications in a quick and efficient manner, to manage and automate business processes without having to learn how to code. Their popularity is on the rise and they gain more and more users with every year, as they can better support companies in their daily operations and achieving their business objectives.

What is the phenomenon of low-code platforms all about?

 Low-code platforms are innovative solutions, based on a visual approach to building business applications, as well as a single, standardised and centralised environment, where they are built, developed, modified and maintained. Low-code platforms are designed to be easy and intuitive to use, to support relevant global standards and to be easily and quickly integrated with other systems already implemented in a company or organisation. In addition, compared to other competing solutions, low-code platforms, excel thanks to their universal accessibility, easy scalability and broad possibilities for expanding their functionality.

Low-code platforms enables users to build, modify and manage the functionalities business applications using drag&drop or point&click mechanisms, available in the designer layer of the solution – a graphic user interface. As a result, even people with no specialised programming or software development skills can take advantage of the full feature set of such solutions. It is worth noting, however, that low-code platforms allow for the use of code elements where it is technically or economically justified – examples of such scenarios include advanced integrations with other systems or more complicated business scenarios.

Why no code?

Forgoing code enables companies not only to build applications faster, but also achieve centralisation, consistency and standardisation, which significantly facilitates the ongoing maintenance of solutions and change management down the line. A new hire in the IT team responsible for delivering and maintaining business applications will also be easily able to spread their wings and deliver tangible added value to the organisation in less than two weeks, thanks to the low barrier to entry, a staple of high-level low-code platforms.

What if there is a real need for coding? In the case of more complex tasks, low-code platforms (as opposed to no-code / zero-code tools, which are designed for simple, non-critical scenarios, which are not of key importance for the company and which are rarely changed) allow the developers to use T-SQL queries, and the .NET (News - Alert) SDK will allow them to deliver even the most complex application element.

Low-code platforms also offer opportunities to bring about Citizen Assisted Development approach in a company by getting end users directly involved in the development process, since they definitely know best what features they need and expect from the solution. This approach enables a synergistic combination of the work and know-how of the people, who are actually using business applications with the knowledge and specialised skills of IT experts. Together, they can develop even better and more functional business applications.

Modern, future-proof low-code platforms and change management

The ability to build business applications without coding skills effectively supports electronic document management and task workflows, while fostering business process automation and digitalisation. The possibilities offered by modern low-code platforms can bring benefits to all companies, who want to quickly and efficiently automate their business processes and build business applications that are perfectly tailored to their needs and easy to modify, without having to establish costly and often troublesome relationships with development teams. Obtaining the full benefits of their capabilities and features is strictly dependent on the functionality, architecture and flexibility of the chosen solution.

While looking for the best low-code platform that will be able to keep up with the dynamic pace of business growth and effectively support its daily operations, it may be worthwhile to choose a future-proof solution that will allow making the necessary changes and modifications in real time, at every stage of the business application life cycle. This, in turn, will ensure that the selected low-code platform is used not only for  quickly building applications tailored to suit the current requirements and needs of the organisation, but also modifying them in a safe and efficient manner, without endangering any other deployed applications and implemented processes, to make sure that they always stay up-to-date and support the company’s operations.

By following the link below you will find relevant information about modern low-code platforms:
https://webcon.com/low-code-but-better/.