When it comes to the notion of citizen software development, sometimes described as “low-code,” a former division of Intuit, Quick Base, has been a real pioneer.
At its Empower 2017 conference May 23, the company introduced a couple of key new capabilities to its application-building package, a platform that enables line-of-business employees at a company to add, subtract, or modify features inside a business application. They can even create new apps to help the enterprise get its business completed faster and more efficiently.
The new features are:
–Centralized User Management Console to streamline the management of large Quick Base deployments. Administrators ostensibly gain greater transparency into user information from a single interface to make it easier and quicker to govern app ecosystems.
–Super User Administration aims to give IT leaders or administrators greater access, visibility and control, over all Quick Base apps and data across their organization.
However, users and potential users will have to be patient: Quick Base’s new centralized user management console will be released in Q4 of this year, and its super user administrative feature will be available in the first half of 2018.
Nonetheless, Quick Base is establishing itself as a leading proponent of the citizen-development genre—even more so now since it was spun out of Intuit (as QuickBase) about a year ago.
“We’ve been continually pushing the boundaries on making app-building easier and more accessible for everyday business users,“ Quick Base Vice President of Sales and Marketing Karen Devine told eWEEK. “There are already a lot of players in the market trying to make development faster for developers.
“We’re thinking of it very differently, saying ‘How can IT give a platform to the business users?’ They’re coming up with their own solutions, because they’re the people closest to the work.”
IT has been moving toward the layman-style of app building slowly but surely for more than 15 years.
Citizen development is a clear trend, and a specialized new IT business sector is springing up around it, with Quick Base taking its place as a leading vendor. Please note: Nobody is saying the conventional—and, in many ways, unconventional—software development communities of skilled and experienced professionals are going to become irrelevant anytime soon.
However, in the last 15 years or so, a growing number of enterprise and consumer applications intentionally have been designed to be configured for specific use cases by line-of-business professionals who wouldn’t know a line of code from a verse in a Shakespearean play.
But they do know how to follow a wizard, use a drop-down menu and follow directions. A lot has changed from the days of write code, test, debug, test again, debug, beta test, release GA—wash, rinse, repeat.
“The need for highly customizable technology solutions is rapidly increasing. While other vendors focus on the needs of IT professionals, Quick Base helps all employees in the organization create their own solutions to the everyday challenges they face,” CEO Rick Willett said. “With Quick Base as the proven IT-trusted foundation, organizations can confidently scale app deployments and become more agile.
“As a result, our business clients are seeing materially improved revenue growth and efficiency by enabling those closest to the work to quickly and continuously improve their operations.”
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company’s roadmap is aligned to recognize organizations’ needs for strong governance—which is especially critical for larger companies—while simultaneously empowering employees, turning the app creation process from a technical experience to a democratic one, the company said.
The company also unveiled new assets for builders that provide a more simplified experience for non-technical employees to enhance productivity. Quick Base Actions enables builders of all skill levels to automate repetitive tasks, such as adding and editing records, with pre-built actions that create workflows between apps and systems without coding.
ELearning on Quick Base University aims to help app builders create custom applications faster. The free training offering is available on demand.
Quick Base Actions and eLearning courses are available now to all users.
For more information, go here.
