4 use cases for low-code application development

Many organizations are struggling with a growing demand from the business for new applications that help employees work more efficiently, serve customers better or develop new data-driven services. Due to a shortage of developers and limited resources, IT departments have their hands full maintaining existing applications, leaving little room for innovative projects. To meet this demand and still create room for innovation, more and more organizations are turning to low-code platforms for application development. Interest in these development platforms has grown strongly in recent years, thanks to their advantages in terms of development time, cost, quality and scalability. Almost any mobile app or web application can be built with a low-code platform. However, that does not mean low-code is the best solution for every IT project. Which types of applications are best suited to being developed with low-code? And which low-code platform is the best fit for which application? In this blog, I answer these questions by describing four use cases in which the benefits of low-code development are used to the full.

1. Customer portal
2. Innovative apps
3. Digitizing work processes
4. Modernizing legacy applications

Use case 1: Customer portal

A customer portal lets you make information and functionality available to customers in a web application. The information often comes from various source systems and can be brought together and presented in a clear, personalized way in a portal. A customer portal can be used in several ways to create value for the organization.

• Customer service can be improved by offering 24/7 insight into relevant information about orders, contracts and quotes, for example. This saves you a lot of time while offering your customers a great deal of convenience.
• Revenue can be increased by offering customers specific products or additional services in the portal based on their customer profile.
• Another way to generate revenue is to roll out new business models, for example by selling data-driven services as a subscription through the portal (data-as-a-service).
• The sales process can be simplified and accelerated with a customer portal, for example by letting customers create quotes themselves in the application.

When developing customer-facing applications like these, usability, flexibility, quality and scalability are of great importance. High demands are often placed on the usability and look and feel of the user interface. The application must be developed for use on different devices (laptop, tablet and mobile) with different screen sizes. It must be easy to make changes and improvements after the initial rollout, so that new features can be added quickly and changing customer needs can be rapidly reflected in the functionality. Software quality is also very important, because bugs reflect badly on the organization's image. After the initial rollout, the number of users is usually still limited, but this can change quickly. That is why it is important that the platform running the application is scalable and that resources can easily be scaled up to allow a growing number of users to work with the application.

Benefits of low-code

The requirements above weigh heavily in choosing the technology used to develop a customer portal. The benefits of low-code platforms match these requirements perfectly, for the following reasons:

• The modern UI framework of low-code tools lets you build responsive web pages, so that the page layout automatically adapts to the screen size of the user's device. This saves a lot of time, because there is no need to develop separate user interfaces.
• The colors, fonts and icons in the user interface can be fully customized using themes and custom code (CSS and JavaScript), so that the look and feel of the application matches the organization's corporate identity.
• You develop screens and application logic in a visual environment, selecting components from a toolbox and connecting them with drag-and-drop functionality. As a result, changes can be made relatively easily, not only by developers but even by business users with little or no programming experience.
• The logic in the application is validated automatically while the application is being built, and the code is generated automatically. As a result, an application developed with a low-code platform has far fewer bugs than one that is programmed by hand.
• Low-code platforms make it possible to deploy applications to the cloud. In the cloud, scalability is essentially guaranteed and resources can easily be added to an application.

At E-mergo, we develop applications with Mendix and Power Apps. A customer portal can be developed with either platform. Mendix has been around longer than Power Apps and is therefore the more mature platform. As a result, Mendix offers more options for developing applications with a custom user interface, both for web applications and native mobile apps. In Power Apps, you work with templates to develop a portal and have less freedom in designing the user interface.

Use case 2: Innovative apps

Innovative apps often grow out of ideas for new revenue models or efficiency improvements. The goal of these applications is to help the organization grow by standing out from the competition or by working smarter. Development often makes use of new technologies such as IoT, artificial intelligence and machine learning. The development process for innovative applications is usually characterized by changing requirements during the first development phase and many changes after rollout. A successful rollout requires a flexible project approach and close collaboration between the business and the developers, both during development and after the first delivery. The Scrum method is an approach that fits this very well, because collaboration within a Scrum team is central and working in short sprint cycles leaves plenty of room for changes.

A great example of an innovative app comes from a manufacturer of smart lighting for greenhouse horticulture, which developed an app for its customers. The app helps growers optimize the cultivation process in a greenhouse with data-driven insights. The app generates these insights based on data collected by IoT sensors in the lighting. Algorithms are used to run predictive analyses that turn the data into valuable insights for the customer. With the help of this innovative app, the company has transformed from a pure hardware manufacturer into a digital service provider.

Benefits of low-code

For developing innovative apps, the low-code platform Mendix is in many cases the most suitable, for the following reasons:

• The agile project approach needed for a successful rollout fits perfectly with the way applications are developed in Mendix.
• All members of a Scrum team (business users and developers) have a role in the Mendix platform. The platform supports the entire lifecycle of an application, which covers more than just developing and deploying it.
• In Mendix, business users can capture the requirements for an application in user stories. The user stories are placed on a product backlog and can be ranked by priority.
• The team's progress in executing sprints is visualized in Mendix on a Scrum board.
• The Mendix no-code development environment (Mendix Studio) enables business users to develop prototypes themselves, which more experienced developers can then build out further in the low-code development environment (Mendix Studio Pro). In Mendix Studio Pro, advanced functions and even custom code (Java and JavaScript) can be used to extend the desired application logic.
• Testers can easily give feedback on the functionality via the Feedback button, which is included by default in the user interface of a Mendix application. The feedback automatically appears on the product backlog and is immediately visible to the development team.
• For integration with external IoT systems and intelligent web services (APIs), Mendix offers various standard components and connectors, making these kinds of integrations relatively easy to build.

Use case 3: Digitizing work processes

Low-code platforms are ideally suited to digitizing work processes. Web applications and mobile apps can reduce costs by automating processes and simplifying manual steps. This type of application is usually aimed at replacing spreadsheets and paper forms and can be used both by your own employees and by partners (customers, suppliers). In some cases, such an application is developed out of the need to comply with laws and regulations (compliance). Developing these applications often requires integration with existing systems already in use within the organization.

An example of an application for internal employees is a web application for the purchasing department of a construction company, used to periodically record supplier assessments. The data recorded is forwarded by the application to the data warehouse, so that it can be analyzed with a BI tool.

An example of an application for customers is a mobile web app from a logistics service provider that lets customers track the status of a delivery (track and trace), approve a delivery digitally, and register comments or complaints about delivered goods. A mobile app makes it possible to scan barcodes on an item or attach photos to a complaint about a delivered item.

Benefits of low-code

There are several reasons why these tools can be used for these kinds of projects.

• There is usually no off-the-shelf software for these types of applications. And if a standard solution does exist, it is often too complex or too expensive.
• Modeling workflows is many times faster than with traditional development methods. In a low-code platform, you work with a visual interface and use standard components to model workflows.
• Low-code platforms offer out-of-the-box connectors for linking databases and web services, so integrations with external applications inside and outside the organization can be realized quickly and easily.

Both Mendix and Power Apps are suitable low-code tools for digitizing work processes. Power Apps is tightly integrated with other Microsoft solutions, including Office 365 and Dynamics 365. For that reason, Power Apps is particularly interesting for organizations that already use other Microsoft cloud services and want to digitize work processes with applications.

Use case 4: Modernizing legacy applications

Legacy applications almost always support critical business processes in the organization. Replacing them therefore carries considerable risk. These applications rely on outdated technology, and knowledge of them within the organization is declining. Modifying legacy applications is often difficult, while the need to modernize business processes and IT systems keeps growing due to changing economic conditions and technological developments.

There are several ways to approach the modernization of legacy applications. First, the software can be completely rebuilt with a low-code platform. The lead time of such a project can be limited if it concerns a small application. However, when it comes to replacing a large monolithic application, such as an ERP system, the lead time can easily stretch to more than a year (sometimes even several years). Projects like these carry major risks and deliver no short-term benefit to the organization. An alternative method is to create an API layer on top of a legacy application. This lets you expose data and functionality from the application through modern REST APIs. Adding such an API layer can be done in a short time and opens up new possibilities, for example for integrations with external systems or developing a modern web interface.

Benefits of low-code

Legacy systems can be modernized with Mendix and Power Apps. When it comes to replacing simple applications, such as an Excel file with macros or an application developed in MS Access, both Mendix and Power Apps can do the job. For replacing large, complex applications or developing an API layer on top of a legacy system, Mendix is much better suited. There are several reasons why modernizing legacy systems with Mendix is a good idea:

• Mendix offers standard functionality for exposing data from existing systems through APIs. This means the API components can be delivered quickly, leaving you more time for innovative projects.
• In addition to the cloud, Mendix makes it possible to deploy applications to an on-premise application server. When replacing legacy systems, this is often an important requirement.
• Thanks to the visual way of developing, business users can help build a new application alongside developers. As a result, more people within the organization build up knowledge of the applications and the critical business processes they support. This is important for the continuity and agility of the organization.
• When replacing complex systems, you can opt for a microservices architecture. This means the new application is split into several smaller applications (also known as microservices) that communicate with each other through modern web services. With this application architecture, the microservices can be developed and deployed independently of each other. As a result, parts of the application can be changed and delivered much faster, which has a positive effect on the agility of the organization.

Getting started with low-code

Curious whether low-code can help your organization with a digitization challenge? Do you have a concrete case you would like to solve with low-code, but are you looking for advice on choosing the most suitable development platform? E-mergo can help, for example with an App in a Day session. For more information about the possibilities of low-code, get in touch with one of our account managers.