Common Pitfalls when Building in NoCode

Regardless of your NoCode stack or even if you’re building in an all-in-one you’ve probably felt the common:

• “What if any of this breaks?”

• “How is anyone going to know where to go to fix a problem?”

• “How will anyone know that this is generated by this automation?”

• “Who will be able to fix problems later if our staff changes?”

Home grown NoCode solutions present tribal knowledge situations that can leave you in a bit of a pickle when the person who built it is unavailable. Even when it’s all within a single platform NoCode can still be a web of information.

Map out your workflows/user stories and data models.

Mapping out your process flow by documenting when and where you are running automations will become fundamentally necessary for your company. Whether it’s in Miro, Lucid, diagrams.net or some other white-boarding platform, always be sure to create a high level mapping of how all of your different systems are connected.

Each NoCode platform will have strengths and weaknesses. Some weaknesses will force you to build certain parts of your workflow on different platforms. Include links to the workflows on your whiteboard and create shared passwords with a password manager tool like 1Password or LastPass.

Below is an example workflow I recently made.

And here is the data model that resulted from that workflow.

Automations bring everything together.

In the examples above the software platforms have not yet been decided. Once selected we will organizing the workflow and data model to show their correlated platform along with any interconnectivity between different platforms will become your high level documentation.

When selecting your NoCode Stack consider what automation platforms are compatible with each platform you have selected. Popular platforms you may want to consider are Make, Zapier, & n8n. They become the glue connecting your workflows and data model together within your NoCode Stack.

Complex Formulas and Logic — Black Boxes.

Often times when you adopt NoCode you bring all the complex formulas and logic you currently have from Excel into your new platforms. It is very easy to create a complicated black box where people aren’t sure whether what is going in is coming out correctly on the other side.

Each time you make a formula take the time to explain what the formula is doing and how it is important in the flow of the data. You may find it easiest to document this in-line or in the help-text area that is usually available in NoCode.

Things to avoid in formulas:

• Magic Numbers.

• Calculations that will change over the life of your software/company.

Rather than using magic numbers or formulas that may change over time, store this information in a parent table and give the records in that table start/end dates. Later on when you update this information you can plan how you want to retire certain calculations and move on to new ones.

Bonus: Using this method will also let you run discounts if you are building a quoting system. You can issue temporary pricing with a planned start/end date that make things cheaper when your sales people are entering quotes for their customers.

Recap.

Defeat Tribal Knowledge and resolve issues quickly with documentation.

Top level: How does each platform connect to one another?
Mid level: Data model/schema & Automations.
Low level: Complex Formulas and Logic. How/why it is being done?

Document your workflows and data model before choosing a platform.

Clarity will come when you outline what you want your software do be doing. The right platform is so much more obvious when you start to see what your day-to-day is going to be like.

Plan your formulas according to the lifespan of your software/company.

Building resilient software that will grow with your company can be challenging but it’s always worth it. As your company changes and grows you want your software to empower that growth and change, not stifle or limit it.

What’s new in NoCode?!

This week we discovered a new platform called Frontly! I got to speak with the Founder Patrick Kelly (you can find his LinkedIn here) and was really impressed at how far along their front-end website builder is coming!

While currently the only fully supported backend is Google Sheets, their Supabase integration is currently in beta and moving along quickly!

Patrick is a quick on his feet and listens to his user base to help direct what he should make next focusing on word-of-mouth growth. He also just released a referral program for those who may be interested!

Check out this video here to see the product in action with it’s newest update, a drag-and-drop builder! (The current pricing also wont last long so get in while you still can!)