How Low-Code Development Applications Can Eliminate Gaps in Gov Delivery

There is nothing standard about your community. Its culture, history, and people are unique, which is why it deserves better than off-the-shelf and one-size-fits-all. Yet, in an era where digital engagement is the present and the future of citizen service delivery, and software engineer resources come at a premium cost, how can your administration afford to build the kinds of workflows, automations, data submission mechanisms, and mobile applications it needs to move your government delivery services forward? If only there were a way to build applications and solutions without needing to know how to write code.

Well, now there is.

What is Low-Code Development?

Low-code is a software development approach that allows for faster application development and solution launch with minimal hand-coding. That’s not a typo—faster time-to-market without the need to hire a programmer or outsource complex coding. Low-code development uses visual modeling in a graphical interface to build and configure applications.

While the functionality may seem impossibly simplified, that does not mean that low-code development applications are limited in functionality, integrations, or usefulness. For teams that do have access to an engineering resource, a programmer can take the initial application and further customize and configure the code. In this way, low-code development environments allow for collaboration between non-technical department leaders and programmers to develop solutions that meet business needs, making them ideal for municipalities that are resource-strapped and for which workflows often cross departmental boundaries

A Technical Understanding of Low-Code Development

If you’re reading this, then you’re interested in a deeper understanding of how low-code development works, even if you can’t tell HTML from JavaScript, which means you’re an ideal candidate for leveraging this technology to improve your administrative services. On a more technical level, low-code solutions leverage a family of tools that allow non-technical business leaders to create complete applications visually using drag-and-drop functionality, basic data, and logic. With low-code development, it’s as easy as saying you want your data to enter your hub from point A and move to point B.  Low-code development eliminates the need to write thousands of lines of code and syntax (because who has time for that in a community that moves as fast as yours?)

Low-code development tools often include:

• A Visual Integrated Development Environment (IDE). An IDE is a digital space where you will visually define your user interface (UI), workflows, and data modeling. If you have access to a programmer, he or she can also optionally add hand-written code in this space.
• Application Program Interfaces (API). These connectors send specified data between integrated software systems.
• An Application Lifecycle Manager. Tools for staging, testing, and deploying your final application.

The CivicPlus^® Process Automation and Digital Services Solution

At CivicPlus, we’ve designed our low-code development application to specifically address the needs of local governments with limited time and engineering resources. Built with a simplified user interface, it is easy for non-technical teams to create workflows, forms, and mobile applications, and robust enough to allow for custom coding if desired.

Use CivicPlus Productivity to create custom, purpose-based micro-solutions to your current service delivery models, including:

• License applications and renewals
• Custom reservation or check-out process
• Public service sign-ups
• Inspections and audits
• Collection of submission
• Payments
• Bids
• Purchasing management
• Incident reporting
• Pet adoptions
• Inventory management
• Community outreach activity tracking

Digital transformation efforts are helping local governments to give citizens visibility into their administration and build civic trust. By digitizing and automating workflows, you can 10-X your gov delivery and 100-X citizen satisfaction.

Transform Your Service Delivery Model

• Create custom business solutions and mobile apps for a specific purpose or engagement
• Deploy custom staff and citizen-facing progressive web apps (PWA) with custom branding and design
• Eliminate inefficient paper or PDF forms for your citizens and business owners
• Free-up staff time to work on high-value projects
• Reduce reliance on costly software applications that don’t fit your exact needs
• Bring the application development in-house and reduce dependence upon expensive, hard-to-manage programming vendors

To learn more about our software, click below to watch a 90-second introductory video.