The Definitive Codeless Guidebook

+17%   Dev hours per app, 2010s vs. 2000s1

~1 million Number of unfilled IT jobs2

33% Developer time spent on tech debt3

Who benefits from codeless

By making development 100% visual and composable, codeless serves everyone with a stake in enterprise application development, including:

• Developers. Free yourself from “cruft” (boring, repetitive, and mundane tasks), and spend more time on more creative, rewarding work
• Tech leaders. Focus more on innovation and less on managing backlogs and tech debt
• The business. Get the modern applications you need to stay competitive 3X faster 

The market is filled solutions that promise to lighten the burden of traditional coding, or even get rid of it all together. But they are not all created alike. 

“No-code” website builders

• Who they’re for: Small businesses needing brochure websites & basic commerce 
• Examples: Wix, Squarespace
• Limitations: For websites only

Niche low-code workflow management tools

• Who they’re for: SMBs needing to solve niche business problems 
• Examples: Airtable, TrackVia, Retool 
• Limitations: Complex & code-based customization. Limited integrations. Updates on vendor schedule.

Low-code/no-code tools 

• Who they’re for: SMBs that want to reduce lower coding burden 
• Examples: Pegasystems, Outsystems, Appian, Mendix 
• Limitations: Proprietary languages. Limited support for advanced logic and business rules. Lack of legacy integrations. No custom styling. 

Codeless platforms

• Who they’re for: Any organization with any business problem, even with complex governance and compliance req.
• Examples: Unqork
• Limitations: Virtually none

Who is Codeless Architecture for?

Codeless isn’t a tool that allows inexperienced developers to "catch up" with seasoned engineers. In fact, developers with years—even decades—of experience regularly use these tools to eliminate “cruft,” so they can focus on the cool stuff. 

Business users 

By making development entirely visual (think Visio), business users can: 

• Actively participate in development, rather than handoff requirements
• Build straight-forward applications and add/change functionality

New developers 

People new to development can begin composing complex, enterprise applications within weeks, because Codeless Architecture:

• Doesn’t require learning a new coding language
• Makes building workflows and apps entirely visual, including integrations and data management

Seasoned engineers

By eliminating large amounts of “cruft,” seasoned developers can focus on high-level functions like:

• Quality control
• Security and governance
• Management of mission-critical legacy systems

Here is a list of some of the costly, time-consuming, repetitive tasks that codeless takes off your place across the application lifecycle. 

Infrastructure planning & management No need to purchase or manage servers No dependencies to install  No DNS to configure or URLs to hook up No manual management of scalability or availability	UI/Application development No need to need to master HTML/Javascript (or any code) No need to connect fields to databases No need to manually implement validations No need to manually build validation displays WATCH: Codeless UX Design & Presentation
Integrations No need to understand how to make requests or find libraries, codes, etc.  No need to create secure store for credentials No need to manually build out logic of multiple authentication type
Database management No need to set up databases or establish connectivity No need to run commands to create or alter tables No queries to write No time or effort to scale or manage availability	Security No manual setup of secure user authentication  No manual setup of secure data storage and encryption  No manual setup for resiliency against cyber attacks
Deployment  One-click deployments and rollbacks No broken builds No time spent on managing builds	Upgrades Only upgrade your business logic No code changes when upgrading applications No need to upgrade underlying tech as it evolves

 

By taking so much cruft off your plate and making application building entirely composable, Codeless Architecture helps you solve three of the most intractable problems tech teams face. 

Challenge #1: A never-ending backlog of requests from the business 

Demand for new apps is exploding. Code-based development is actually slowing. There are not nearly enough experienced developers to keep up. And talented developers spend more than one-third of their time managing existing code. 

Why codeless makes the difference

• No tools to choose. 
• No need to build and manage a platform
• No need to understand the underlying code 
• No new code to write. 
• No new code to maintain 
• Up to 600x reduction in bugs 

Challenge #2: Inability to collaborate effectively with business colleagues

Developers must turn business requirements into code, and something always gets lost in translation. And because of complex dependencies, a seemingly minor change can take days and dozens of hours of precious developer time. 

Why codeless makes the difference

• A shared visual language. Because codeless development is entirely visual, business people can often sit side-by-side with developers, follow what they’re doing, and collaborate in real-time to get things right the first time. 
• Iterations on the fly. By speeding or eliminating so many steps in the development process, codeless enables you to build POCs faster, make changes quickly, and deliver an MVP at least 3x faster. 

Challenge #3: Painful integrations and upgrades

Today’s ecosystems are held together by a complex spaghetti of APIs and other connectors. And too often, they are poorly documented. Integrations must be painstakingly maintained, and you have to settle for the lesser of two evils—stuff breaking because you didn’t upgrade, or because you did. 

Why codeless makes the difference

• Modular integrations without a single line code. Create, authenticate, and centralize APIs, gateways, and reusable microservices within an entirely visual tool. Unqork’s codeless platform even generates API documentation automatically.

• Upgrade. Or not. You choose. Keep legacy systems that work well enough, but simply upgrade interactions with both users or other systems via the API engine. Avoid the hassles of forced upgrades if that is the best option. If you do upgrade, there’s no need to refactor code. No matter how you execute it, the logic remains untouched.   
  
  

 

Creating high-quality, quick-to-market software with codeless

 

FOXO Technologies’ Tyler Danielson (CTO) and Taylor Fay (Director of Product Management) discuss a complex re-insurance administration solution built at speed on Unqork’s codeless platform. 

“It's faster, it's cheaper. And even for complicated systems found in insurance or banking, it's everything that you could possibly imagine, but were never able to get before,” says Danielson. 

Unifying business and technology to transform placement and policy servicing

 

Marsh’s Andreas Wetterwald (Global Marsh Deputy Chief Information Officer/CIO Marsh Americas) and Kathleen Kreuzer (Chief Business Officer for Global Operations) discuss how they used codeless to build a digital workspace, so Marsh’s brokers—and their insureds—can quickly and accurately perform key services.

“Within days, we had a working POC. That was impressive,” says Kreuzer.

Remediating EUCs with codeless

 

Brett Krasner, Principal Digital Engineering Consultant at Capco, speaks with Satya Addagarla (Vice President, Lender & Servicer Technology and Enterprise Cloud Migration) and Elton Fernandes (Senior Manager, Lender & Servicer Technology and EUC Cloud Migration) of Fannie Mae discuss how codeless has helped them increase security, lower development time, and digitize and automate manual processes.

“This intuitive interface allows business users to be easily trained on the Unqork platform and build their own applications under proper testing and design guidance,” says Krasner.

Rapidly develop innovative wealth management products

 

Broadridge Financial Solutions’ VP of Wealth Product Innovation Joseph Lo discusses how Unqork’s codeless platform enabled his company to build a secure, robust private market hub from the ground up built at unprecedented speed.

“Unqork allows me to take my ideas and what we are hearing from our clients and bring them to life,” says Lo. 

Academy & Community Hub

With Unqork Academy, Creators can master no-code in no time with robust guided curriculums, certification assessments, courses, and resources. The Unqork Community Hub is an active, self-sustaining community of Creators for continued support, education, and feedback. 

Unqork Marketplace

Using the Unqork Marketplace, users can easily surface and integrate enterprise-grade pre-built snippets, templates, integrations, and accelerators designed by industry experts, Unqork technology partners, and fellow Creators to further expedite your application development.

Implementation Partners

If you need to get up and running right away, assistance is available. Accelerate the delivery of your solutions by partnering with Unqork Digital, Unqork’s own professional services team, or one of our Certified Implementation Partners with deep industry and Unqork expertise. 

Integration Ecosystem

Take advantage of Unqork's expanding partner ecosystem and easily integrate specialized third-party functionality into your applications. Unqork's API functionality empowers Creators to seamlessly add new external services to existing workflows and business processes.

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¹  Long Term Trends from 40 Years of Completed Software Project Data. (2021, November 2). QSM SLIM-Estimate. Link ^[back]

² Liu, J. (2019, November 6). The US has nearly 1 million open IT jobs—here’s how much it can pay off to switch industries into tech. CNBC. Link ^[back]

³ Omeyer, A. (2021, July 28). The Cost of Technical Debt. dzone.com. Link ^[back]