Low-Code System Features - What Makes Them Great For Enterprise Businesses

Programmers are always looking for an efficient way to reduce input/output friction. In the beginning, there were punch cards. But they were pretty inefficient, so then came assembly language. That was still inefficient, so they brought in languages like FORTRAN and COBOL. When that wasn’t good enough, they developed easier languages like C and C++, and so on.

Languages kept getting easier to use, but the world of programming was still limited to only a few who chose to immerse themselves in a particular specialty. Even someone who knew one language very well might need to put in a lot of effort to learn a new one.

One beauty of coding is that there are generally some lines of code that get reused a lot. So often that it can be packed up as a simple widget. This was the genesis of low-code technology.

With low-code systems, you don’t need talented developers with years of experience in a particular language to build an application. People who only know the basics of a certain technology platform can build their own programs without any coding experience.

But are low-code development tools really a replacement for traditional hand coding? In short, they can be.

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Features of Low-Code Platform

Before you start looking for a low-code platform, there are a few essentials you need to keep in mind. These are the things the best low-code platforms should have. If they don’t, it isn’t worth your time.

1. Visual modeling tools

Low-code systems, equipped with visual modeling features, use built-in modules to reflect the details in a way everyone may understand – from non-technical enterprise users to advanced developers.

2. Drag-and-Drop Interfaces

Drag-and-drop should be at the top of your list when it comes to requirements in low-code platform. This isn’t just a convenience, it’s a necessity. Citizen developers need this to create their applications, and it makes the life-experienced developers easy as well.

3. Model-Based Development

It’s always faster to create apps using visual methods and models. This makes it even easier for business users, as they know and understand the logic of what they want to create. Good low-code tools will enable them, not hinder them.

4. Pre-built templates

A big part of low-code development platforms is that most major functionalities are already pre-built into modules that can just be dragged and dropped wherever required. That’s a big part of reusability. Having an internal “app store” where assets, modules, and even entire applications can be reused is important, if not downright essential.

5. Cross-Platform Accessibility

If you’re building an app using one of the many low-code platform on the market, this is a great feature to have. Building an app with multi-channel compatibility, which lets your staff access it from anywhere in the world, makes things easy.

6. Security

No one is going to use your app if it isn’t secure, regardless of how functional or aesthetic it may be. If you find low-code tools that don’t offer proper security for both the platform and the apps that you build, drop them. There’s no point in continuing further.

7. Scalability

Low-code systems should allow scaling, for both usage in the environment and your app. Building an app for twenty users is great. But what if that user number suddenly hikes up? What if that becomes one hundred? What if your entire organization of a thousand employees find what they want in the new app that you created? Low-code systems must be scalable.

What Do Low-Code Systems Offer?

Low-code systems help developers speed up the software development process. Through visual syntaxes and models, it becomes easier to develop an app when compared to hand coding it the traditional way.

This aims to solve a big problem in how many businesses work. For software implementations, everyone is reliant on the IT department, but the IT department doesn’t have time to implement it for everyone.

But with low-code application development, this problem is mitigated, since faster development means that developers no longer need to spend weeks, or even months, working on a single app. It’s done in a matter of hours to days. With that, they’re free to work on other projects as well.

Another problem this fixes is Shadow IT. Business users no longer have to look outside the organization to get their software needs fulfilled. This isn’t just a relief for the business users, but also IT and auditing.

Conclusion

The number of low-code systems is only increasing. While a lot of low-code tools offer most of these features, they don’t offer them all. Finding low-code systems that do everything, and do them well, is very difficult. But that’s also why we’re here to help.

Kissflow is a low-code software development platform that has all the features that you are looking for when it comes to developing automated applications for your organization. If you want to take a closer look, sign up for a free trial and see if it suits your requirements.