Unpacking The Low-Code Application Platform Acronym: Ten Things You Need To Ask About LCAP For The Field

The tech industry loves acronyms—it has one of the richest abbreviated slang vocabularies of any industry. While this helps insiders to rapidly communicate with each other, it can leave the very people it’s meant to serve baffled. 

With Gartner’s newly coined term, Low-Code Application Platform (LCAP), and the shift towards it, it’s worth examining for those evaluating LCAP solutions for the field.

To breakdown LCAP in more detail:

Low-code means there’s very little coding required when using a low-code development platform—in some instances, none at all.

Application refers to the products or tools that are made to solve problems and streamline workflows. In our personal lives we use applications to plan and book trips, check on the weather, and find the fastest route to our destination. In the workplace, popular applications can include preventative maintenance checklists, safety inspection forms, and step-by-step equipment installation guides.

Platform is the over-arching technology that lets users create and deploy applications. Take Microsoft Office, for example. It’s a platform, while Excel, Word and PowerPoint are applications included in this platform. Similarly, a field-orientated low-code platform lets you create work orders or checklists, how-to documents, or data sheets from inspection & audits, incident & hazards, installation & maintenance, accounting, and supply chain management.