4 avoidable pitfalls of Low Code development?

Low Code Development is all about anybody can do it! But what are the pitfalls of low code development?

Anybody can do low code!

Have you ever been told. Low code development, anybody can do it. Well every body can do low code development but there are quite a few hurdles that you might have to take. When you start with a low code platform expect to fall a few times. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t win at the end.

Pitfall 1 – Need a big app to be developed

When you start with the Power Platform your skills will be very basic or non existing. Your ideas of the first app may be that critical app that you have been waiting for for year, but is that the best app to start with?

Personally, I think that it really helps to create a few small apps ( even if they don’t immediately have a purpose) just to get familiar with the technology.

Pittfall 2 – Need to be an expert in everything

You might have an app in mind, but what if your app needs some flows in Power Automate. Or you want to create a pretty report in Power BI? Learning just one of these three mean often that you also need to understand the others. Or phone a friend who can help you of course.

Pitfall 3 – Understanding your data

Understanding the data used by your app/solution is also very important. Not every beginning developer is immediately a data modelling expert.

Using Dataverse is of course the best option to store your data. But there are alternatives. How often is SharePoint, Excel (Yuck), SQL server used to store data.

And apart from understanding those data sources and the complexities that come with those data sources, it is important to understand how your data should be split across lists/tables. And of course don’t forget securing your data either. You wouldn’t want others to see sensitive data that you’ve just entered, by accident.

Pitfall 4 – Application life cycle management

About 80% of the client that I work with, who started developing their Power Platform solutions have started the wrong way. Microsoft makes it so easy to do the wrong thing first, to ensure that it is easy to get started.

But how about:

• Editing your apps and flows directly in production?
• Default Environments with many apps and flows?
• A Single SharePoint site serving a dev version and production version of an app?
• Hard coded variable elements making a move to better ALM just difficult.
• … in short asking for downtime and a lot of stress.

The Success

If you got this far in my post then you will have chance. Low Code is not just about failing to succeed. Do you remember when you first started with Excel or Word? In the beginning it takes time to get familiar with thing. Then you think that you mastered those until someone else shows you that really useful trick in Excel.

So like I started this post, everybody can low code, you might just need that person to help you get started. Or just take a bit of extra time to play around with the tools and learn as you go along. It can be a real eye opener when you look at your app or flow that you developed a few years ago.