A few weeks ago, Appian held its annual conference, Appian World. This is the second year in a row that the conference has been virtual and featured well-known speakers like former astronaut Dr. Mae C. Jemison, Chef José Andrés, and free-solo rock climber Alex Honnold, as well as Appian leadership and key Appian customers. All keynotes and breakout sessions can be viewed online – simply log in to the portal to view.
This year’s Appian World focused on digital transformation and modernization leveraging the Appian platform. Workforce productivity, connected intelligence, automation and process optimization, and low-code development were key themes throughout. Read on to learn about the future of low-code and a few product announcements.
The Future of Low-code is Workflows
Appian’s founder and CTO Michael Beckley says low-code is the new engine of creation – it can help you tackle your most urgent opportunities and issues. Low-code platforms are the fastest and most flexible ways to deliver workflows and case management.
Workflows are important; however, big technological changes (think the car assembly line or the iPhone) can mask the importance of workflows. But your unique workflows are key assets for your enterprise. Those workflows that combine humans, bots, and artificial intelligence (AI) will help you continue to beat out the competition and pave a way for the future of your enterprise.
And thanks to low-code, you’re able to constantly develop and define new workflows, keeping your workflows up-to-date.
Appian Product News
Appian Portals
Appian Portals gives you a simpler, faster way to achieve your digital transformation goals. Portals is a new, secure, and scalable front door for applications, workflows, and hyper-scaled, secure connections to customers. It enables customer self-service, digital process automation (DPA), and more.
Packaged with all the resources you need and deployed automatically, Portals operate as separate microservices that can scale elastically. Key advantages include compatibility with a large number of Appian user interface components, flexible web browser support, and true cloud-native development.
The beta Portals program is open and accepting applications. For more information or to apply, email portalbeta@appian.com
Low-code Automation Platform
The latest version of Appian’s Low-code Automation Platform was unveiled at Appian World. New capabilities include low-code data, a new code-free approach to unifying enterprise data. The latest version also features enhanced AI-driven Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), new design guidance and developer collaboration features, and enhanced DevSecOps capabilities.
The Difference Between No-code and Low-code
If low-code is great is no-code better?
According to Beckley, no-code just means that the tool isn’t designed for professional developers. Code is still involved, but it can’t be seen or changed. Because there’s no way to extend or configure it, it goes from no-code to high-code. However, a no-code team might be able to learn a low-code platform like Appian.
Appian has:
- No-code UI design
- Data integration
- AI services
- DevSecOps
- scaling, security, and optimization
- Application building with Appian Quick Apps
With these features, Appian provides a seat at the table for everyone with the power and flexibility of low-code.
Beckley also says that non-traditional citizen developers will continue to play a role in the future of low-code. This is because year after year, there aren’t enough computer science graduates with the education and technical background necessary to be full-fledged, trained developers. According to Gartner, a citizen developer is a user who creates new business applications for consumption by others using development and runtime environments sanctioned by corporate IT. Using a low-code platform like Appian, citizen developers can build applications at the same speed as traditional developers.
Low-code was designed to make developers 10x faster at their jobs. Low-code has the necessary tools and is flexible enough for developers to customize the code for their development needs.
Perficient + Appian
We help simplify and minimize expensive manual business operations processes through low-code applications built on Appian. Our integration and automation expertise and track record of successful Appian implementations make us the partner of choice to help you digitally transform and stay ahead of the competition.
Register to view all keynote and breakout sessions from this year’s Appian World, or contact us today to start your digital transformation with Appian.
