Decoding OutSystems Rapid Application Development and Real-Time Use Cases

Posted by Sara Suarez on June 4th, 2024

Many organizations find it difficult to create and deliver digital experiences and fulfill end-user demands. However, by choosing the right rapid app development tech stack, businesses can quickly validate their ideas and create faster, scaled-down versions of apps.

OutSystems is one such RAD (Rapid Application Development) platform that can be used to develop visually appealing and scalable applications quickly. Developers can quickly create, and test app prototypes using this platform and avoid wasting time on impractical concepts. Rapid prototyping also offers flexibility during the design process, since changes can be made quickly and easily based on user requirements. In addition to user-centric designing, businesses can also embed multiple security protections within their applications and overcome common vulnerabilities.

The Architecture of OutSystems RAD Platform & Benefits

OutSystems is a PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) low-code development platform with a shared cloud architecture. This architecture offers a range of visual components, tools, and code-generation modules to create secure and extensible apps. OutSystems’ intuitive modules and drag-and-drop elements help organizations automate complex internal processes instantly and drive digitization. With the OutSystems rapid application development platform, organizations can market their apps faster and gain a first-mover advantage.

Here are some notable benefits of OutSystems:

• OutSystems is optimal for creating enterprise-level web and mobile apps that simplify optimization/improvements and eliminate high maintenance costs.
• Besides the speed of development, OutSystems also eases and accelerates the integration of low-code apps with third-party tools and cloud databases.
• With the help of pre-built AI components in OutSystems, businesses can embrace intelligent test automation to create quality-rich apps. The AI components programmed with smart algorithms enable development teams to spot bugs and vulnerabilities in the newly built apps. The AI components also assist in automating several stages in the CI/CD pipelines.
• The availability of custom application templates in OutSystems enables business users to develop and launch personalized applications with minimal coding requirements. With these custom templates, users can determine the look and feel of their apps, incorporate tailored functionalities, and manage dependencies with ease.
• OutSystems’ extensive architecture enables centralized application lifecycle management. From development, QA, and staging to performance monitoring, business users can organize every stage of the lifecycle with utmost attention and ease.

5 Real-time Use Cases of OutSystems App Development

1. Project Management Apps

Project management involves administering tasks, resources, stakeholders, and timelines to ensure efficient project delivery. By using traditional portals for project management, business users often experience challenges like manual task monitoring, version control issues, communication silos, and lack of real-time project transparency. Moreover, ensuring project alignment with defined objectives and meeting deadlines becomes highly difficult with traditional project management tools.

How OutSystems can help:

By teaming up with an OutSystems services provider, organizations can build personalized project management apps that effectively address internal teams' needs and offset challenges. OutSystems’ support for intuitive integration enables business users to integrate project management apps with existing project tools and data sources,; thereby, simplifying the project data transferal. Also, organizations can make use of automated workflows for project planning, task tracking, reporting, and communication. This helps in improving project transparency, collaboration, and strategic decision-making.

2. Interview Process Apps

The process of interviewing candidates requires HR professionals to undergo time-intensive activities. Some of the activities are interview appointment scheduling, gathering candidate information, conducting assessments, and sharing feedback with different personnel in the organization. As HR teams use disparate tools for organizing these processes, the chances of experiencing scheduling conflicts, communication gaps, and data duplicity are higher. This eventually impacts the productivity of HR processes and results in inefficient talent acquisition.

How OutSystems can help:

Building custom interview processing apps with OutSystems enables organizations to modernize the entire talent acquisition process. These apps act as an efficient alternative to the existing HR systems and offer many self-service capabilities. With these apps, HR professionals can centralize multiple processes like scheduling interviews, candidate monitoring, candidate evaluation, and feedback collection.

3. Patient Management Apps

For modern healthcare providers, disparate management of patient data, appointments, treatment plans, and medical records can be difficult. This introduces challenges like manual data entry and limited access to patient information. Furthermore, the use of traditional EHR (Electronic Health Record) systems results in inaccurate patient data management, non-compliance, and inefficient communication.

How OutSystems can help:

With the help of OutSystems, care providers can build tailored patient management apps for reliable data management and communication. By integrating EHR systems with the patient management app, healthcare firms can ensure synchronized data administration, appointment scheduling, treatment status tracking, and communication. Also, by incorporating role-based access controls and data encryption mechanisms, care providers can improve the data security and compliance levels of patient management apps.

4. Inventory Management Apps

Manufacturers working with traditional supply chain tools and trackers amid the ongoing disruption can be overwhelmed with inventory management. Maintaining a reliable system for monitoring equipment and inventory is important for manufacturing firms, regardless of size and nature. Traditional tools often lack analytical capabilities, hence making it difficult for supply chain managers to get real-time insights into stock levels and movements.

How OutSystems can help:

Manufacturing firms can create advanced inventory management applications using OutSystems. The app’s interoperability with IoT sensors and mobile devices enables supply chain professionals to easily accumulate and manage inventory data without errors. The lot traceability feature in OutSystems enables supply chain managers to assign a digital barcode to each product in the inventory. This helps in real-time monitoring, from the moment materials reach their journey through production and final shipment. With the help of an OutSystems consultant, manufacturers can design and deploy mobile inventory management apps that work across both iOS and Android platforms.

5. IT Service Request Management Apps

For IT teams, managing service requests and ensuring timely resolution of issues is crucial. With the traditional service request management tools, IT teams largely encounter problems like routing inefficiencies, manual request processing, and delays in response/resolution times. Moreover, the traditional IT Service Management (ITSM) approach makes it tedious for support agents to coordinate communication among teams, document service history, and prioritize queries based on urgency.

How OutSystems can help:

OutSystems automation support and greater interoperability with standard ticketing platforms and service inquiry systems make it ideal for IT Service Management (ITSM) app development. By incorporating automated flows with the ITSM apps, IT agents can expedite follow-up communications and keep stakeholders updated on projected resolution time. When an organization grows, organizing IT request management becomes increasingly complex. However, the OutSystems’ cloud architecture enables businesses to easily scale their ITSM apps and adapt to varying requests easily.

Also read - Definitive Guide to the Best Practices for OutSystems Application Development

Summing Up

To date, OutSystems remains the optimal platform that delivers a combined experience of low-code and rapid application development. Many leading organizations have already started using this platform to lay a solid digital foundation. However, for creating custom yet complex applications using OutSystems, businesses should consider partnering with a recognized services provider. With the years of experience and expertise, they can build personalized solutions and modernize business operations.