No code: what is it and how does it work?
Tags: nocode
Published: 2022-08-05 09:50:00

## What is no-code?‍

No-code is a software development approach that requires little to no programming skills to build an application quickly. This allows people that want to create an app but haven’t got the knowledge to do so, in a restricted way. 

People might mix up no-code and low-code, but these two are not the same. Low-code involves a little coding to push your app further whilst no-code doesn’t require coding at all. 

## How is it efficient? ‍

No code requires little to no training at all. It is made to be easy-to-use so the User interfaces are simple -- to build an app you drag and drop, or layer, application components. Users may need some basic training, but nothing that requires coding, thus formation. 

The costs are lowered. Letting non-programmers handle all the work, even if they’re not as efficient as developers, will lower your costs, but on the other side you won’t be able to push your app further than what the no-code interface you’re using is letting you. This saves time, thus money for the company. 

## What is no-code used for? Who is using it? ‍

- Back-office apps, such as invoice processing and KPI monitoring;
- Web applications, such as online shopping and restaurant reservations;
- Mobile applications that let workers access back-office apps from the field;
- Workflow management, such as setting internal service-level agreements so that employees acknowledge completion of a task;
- Business process automation functions, such as document approval from multiple parties;
- Human resources functions, such as self-service aspects of HR management systems

Back-office employees with little to no knowledge of coding are the most likely to use no-code. 

## What are no-code limits? ‍

No-code platforms can only go so far because they are often limited by what creators have designed. Moreover, you might be limited with your app/website customization. This is where low-code is a good intermediate. Low-code allows non-developers to create a scenario, a storyline, that devs can then push it further afterwards.

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## How to do no-code? ‍

There are a lot of no-code platforms that you can use for your projects.The most known are Make and Zapier. On those platforms, you will be able to create your own workflows just by dragging and dropping modules of all your common apps (CRM, IT and dev, BI, Communication, Sales, Marketing, Customer support, etc). With no-code, you can save time and resources by connecting all your favorite apps and discovering new apps such as AI apps.

![Some of the thousands of apps available on no-code platforms | Screenshot from Make
](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/z9qqr30yu6k51sj3am4e.png) 
Some of the thousands of apps available on no-code platforms | Screenshot from Make

## What does it have to do with AI? ‍

No code is used to automate different tasks such as document or email automatic treatment, social network monitoring or CRM / HR tasks, etc.

Between Gmail, Airtable, Hubspot, Facebook, Google Drive, Slack, Salesforce, etc., you could need to perform some tasks to analyze the data. It can be for example:

- using a translation engine to translate ads for social media
- extract information from invoice and receipt from Airtable database (to your ERP SAP)
- extract keywords from your Gmail emails to choose the right automatic answer to program in your CRM HubSpot or Salesforce
- extract text from some specific documents from Google Drive

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/x1iqd08gl3dippd2q0kt.png)
 Make Integromat scenario to classify emails in Salesforce

These are just a few examples of the thousands of possible workflows that can incorporate an AI brick. The main issue was that No-Code platforms such as Make Integromat and Zapier do not provide any AI apps except some AI services from Google Cloud and few others. 

This represents a real pain, because no-code could really facilitate the AI integration to workflows and company's automated workflows need AI services!


Fortunatey, Eden AI is now coming to facilitate and improve no-coders' work! Eden AI provides the easiest and most complete no-code application for the use of AI technologies such as translation, text analysis, document processing (invoices, receipts, resumes, etc.), image processing (face recognition, explicit content detection, etc.), etc. 

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/iwzds4kgj08uyuvkyke8.png)

Make Integromat scenario to extract informations from invoices


Through Eden AI, no-coders will be able to use AI engines from the best providers existing on the market, all centralised on their Eden AI account.

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Want to use AI in your Make project?

You can create an account on Eden AI here to get your API token. Then you can download all the Eden AI Make modules [here](https://www.make.com/en/hq/app-invitation/343c8116173cdc3812beeb02e628b686). 

Eden AI will be available soon on the Make official applications marketplace.

If you have any questions, feel free to [contact us](https://www.edenai.co/contact)!

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