Today, in the digital transformation era, the demand for modernization and technological innovations is consistently high across virtually all enterprise tech layers and applications. Surprisingly, however, field operations upgrades typically are still a priority for many organizations. 

Because the efficiency of field operations is very important to businesses, many companies choose to modernize them first. As a result, low-code platforms, a key Industry 4.0 enterprise technology, are also gaining traction. 

When it comes to implementing low-code field operations platforms, the actual performance of modernization projects can vary greatly. This is because the success of these projects depends on choosing the right low-code solution provider to work with.

What are some common issues of modernized field operations platforms?

Here are some of the most common issues enterprises report after low-code field operations platform modernization efforts. 

Platform not flexible enough

Field operations platforms require more flexibility than other solutions. While updating their platforms to meet evolving market conditions, many organizations realized their low-code solution wasn’t up to the task. 

Low developer productivity

Another disadvantage of choosing an inflexible low-code solution is its effect on developer productivity. An inflexible solution makes changes difficult and time-consuming for developers to implement.

Lack of talent

For organizations relying on IBM i to power their IT infrastructure, a lack of talent was a serious problem their low code solution could not fix. A Lack of developers with deep knowledge of IBM i and a shrinking RPG programmer base is an objective challenge. Using the right low-code development solution, however, allows organizations to developers with very limited IBM i experience. 

Difficult to integrate

Having difficulty integrating the wrong low-code applications with other IT system components and layers is another commonly reported problem.  IBM i is already difficult enough to integrate with modern field operations platforms. Choosing the wrong low-code tool doesn’t make it any easier.

Modern usage limitations

Finally, many low-code field operations platforms, even those modernized and improved to fit modern-day standards, still have many limitations. They typically lack up-to-date user interfaces and don’t support the latest web technologies and features. 

Why power your field operations platform with Visual LANSA? 

Visual LANSA is a low-code solution able to power a modern field operations platform without all these problems.

Visual LANSA enables accelerated application development. It does this by simplifying the process and minimizing the technical skills required to complete a project. This is because LANSA incorporates a variety of powerful tools. These include instruments that were created exclusively for the IBM i. LANSA makes the modernization of IBM i apps and related systems as easy as possible. 

Here are some of the main benefits of using Visual LANSA to power your field operations platform. 

High scalability

All tools created with Visual LANSA scale easily. LANSA can handle thousands of users, however, it is affordable enough for smaller enterprises. LANSA allows organizations, including IBM i platform users, to create easily scalable portals and applications. Because of this, companies can start with small solutions and scale up instantly as required. As a result, they can react dynamically to changing business environments. 

Outstanding UX

Using Visual LANSA and the latest web technologies, organizations can easily provide simple cross-platform access to their field operations applications. All tools created with the LANSA low-code platform support modern UI standards and provide an outstanding user experience. As a result, users won’t wait for pages to load or actions to complete with a LANSA field operations platform. 

Increased security, reduced risks

Unfortunately, it is common for many low-code field operations platforms to have security issues. Security, however, is a top priority for the LANSA low-code platform.  As a platform provider, LANSA addresses security issues on a much more profound level than most in-house teams. Because of this LANSA customers get highly secure products with multiple security customization options. 

What are the LANSA low-code tools?

Visual LANSA tools are extremely effective as part of a field operations platform. Here are some of them. 

LANSA Integrator 

LANSA Integrator is strategic middleware for transforming and transporting data across systems and applications. It simplifies data exchanges and file transfers between applications and from one business to another. 

The Integrator set of tools and services, developed primarily for IBM i, provides everything developers require to build powerful data integration solutions. Integrator handles data transformation, transport, and infrastructure. LANSA integrator also simplifies integration design by providing tools that receive, extract, transform and send data.

Essentially, your developers need only define the data and transformation rules and choose a data transport. Integrator takes care of the details and ensures your data reaches its destination in the right format.

LANSA Composer

LANSA Composer is a specialized business process integration suite. It handles the integration and process improvement challenges businesses face today. It streamlines how you exchange, process, and monitor data between internal systems, external trading partners, and the cloud. 

LANSA Composer is a simple and cost-effective way to get business transactions in and out of your business systems with less human effort. It also reduces development time by including a set of ready-made activities that companies need for business process integration. You simply assemble the business processes. Assembling a process is much faster than writing code to manage that process.

LANSA composer supports both Windows and IBM i-based IT systems. It also has several custom features that simplify IBM i deployments. These allow activities to interact with legacy 5250 green-screen applications and retrieve and send data with ease. 

aXes

Web-enabling your 5250 IBM i applications is a must in the digital transformation era. Because of this LANSA has aXes, a special tool that turns 5250 green screens into web-enabled apps.

aXes is a tailor-made tool that automates the creation of web-enabled IBM i 5250 applications. It transforms existing 5250 screens into web pages out of the box, without source code changes. 

aXes also includes an API that allows developers to create programs that automatically operate applications written with RPG or COBOL. In addition, applications can use aXes to simulate the actions of a person entering data on screens in a 5250 application. This feature makes it possible to integrate existing 5250 apps with .NET, Java, or other 5250s without changing their source code. aXes caters to a wide range of automation options with versions of the API for .NET for Windows, Java for IBM i and Windows, and RPG for IBM i.

The business side of low-code solutions — saving company resources and reducing development costs. 

Want to learn more about the business side of low-code solutions? In that case, you should watch this webinar by Tony Graham, LANSA Product Marketing Manager. In this webinar, he talks about the benefits and potential pitfalls of low-code platforms and how using low-code can save company resources and reduce app development costs.

Ready to empower your field operations with LANSA and Portalize?

The LANSA platform combines all the right low code trends in modern-day software development and digital transformation. It helps organizations truly leverage the power of automation and digital transformation technologies. LANSA is the solution for organizations that need to implement IBM i modernization and data integration quickly, reliably, and with limited developer resources. 

Portalize is another LANSA tool for IBM i users. It is a scalable, customizable, and full-featured IBM i portal framework. The flexibility of Visual LANSA means Portalize is ready to go as soon as you set it up in Visual LANSA. It can also be easily customized and modified as technology and user demands change. Portalize is the perfect solution when you need an advanced portal but don’t have the time or resources to create one from scratch.

Thinking about investing in LANSA’s low-code solutions, but want to ensure they meet all your business requirements? You can get a free Proof of Concept (POC) implemented by LANSA based on your input data. Just fill in the form on our website.

If you start a project before 3/31/2022 as a result of our POC, we’ll give you 20% off your purchase.

Ready to begin? Get in touch with us to start using Visual LANSA for your app development and modernization needs.