‘Traditionally database users had to choose between ease and power. DATAEASE is both powerful and rather easy to use. Com-pared to the industry standard, dBASE II (and even to its much more user-friendly upgrade, dBASE III), DATAEASE provides none of the in-timidation of the "lone dot" on the screen. It is an extensive menu-driven relational database program that can be fashioned into a plethora of specific applications. Those who have not yet availed themselves of a powerful database program will get a delightful shock, enabling them to abandon the view of the computer as a glorified typewriter or an electronic spreadsheet. Those who have only used filing programs or specialized programs for mailing lists or other record-keeping functions will have the pleasure of creating customized programs without learning programming.’

Published 1 April 1986 - Deena Weinstein, DePaul University

I worked for DataEase International for 4years during it’s halcyon days. I was only 26 at the time with no database background experience but had worked for IBM and Comshare, two firms whose software worked on IBM mainframes. DataEase was an amazing tool for one main reason. It enabled business professionals to solve their own business problems using software without having to learn how to program.

My role was to manage the DataEase partners and customers in North East England. What was clear to me was that they used DataEase to solve a myriad of different data management challenges, from Patient Management solutions, Oil Company asset systems, Legal firm document tracking, Sales order management, Manufacturing and Production management and many, many more applications. The list was endless because the business person with the problem was using it to build custom solutions to meet their needs with a very easy to use package. Users loved it!

It wasn’t just a single-PC only solution either. It was fully relational, multi-user, with clever record-locking features for managing many simultaneous users running on, at the time, Novell’s rock solid networking software. Customers had hundreds of users and some huge databases that ran critical business functions e.g. the Dept of Social Security Newcastle UK used it extensively for their needs.

I would organise with my DataEase colleagues many “tips and tricks” events helping users get the best from their software investment. It was for sure the best time I have had in a software company.

Then, windows and GUI’s came along and the Office suite was born and the likes of DataEase, WordPerfect, SuperCalc etc… were resigned to history.

Why am I bleating on about this tool. Well finally after 30+ years I am finally seeing a resurgence of the type of tools that enabled such great productivity for business users and business owners (no offence MS SQL and Access but you were never a DataEase to me). The democratisation of software development is in full swing and there are now a plethora of tools out there that are aimed at helping you build applications without having to program.

DataEase gave me a realisation that I am really passionate about helping people help themselves. Giving companies the ability to create value through supplying their innovative business teams the digital tools they need to make their roles better and improve the ability of the organisation.

I realised that the market was now fully ready to embrace the “DataEase tools of our time” when I saw that the PMI (Project Management Institute) was running their Citizen Developer Programme https://www.pmi.org/citizen-developer.

Citizen Developer really means a person who is creating an app without any formal software development training. The course starts with a useful Foundation to help organisations embrace and manage the opportunity that CD (Citizen Development) can bring to an organisation. This course also provides a very helpful overview canvas of how companies can structure the adoption of CD. You can then take a Practitioner course which is extremely useful for any business person who wants to learn the basics of running a software development project and soon a Business Architect course for managing the scalability and adoption of CD across the organisation.

The new cloud based Low Code/No code (LC/NC) tools – just like DataEase had been doing in the 80’s/90’s - are bringing that special capability back to business user but adding the scalability of the cloud. It gets really interesting in today’s landscape because the LC/NC market caters for Citizen Developers and Pro-Developers and many tools are giving companies the ability if they choose to take it, to be really agile, innovative and transformational in their business.

My thoughts are that if we can raise the capabilities of Citizen Developers we exponentially increase productivity and value. Plus the pro-developers can do things faster whilst mentoring Citizen Developers. This ensures an excellent connection between the business and IT using combined agile teams.

GrayMac Consulting has adopted one of these LC/NC tools called TrackVIA (TV). It is a pioneer in the industry and a Gold Partner with the PMI. It really is like a new re-born DataEase on steroids with Tables, Views, Forms, Dashboards, Charts, Roles, Flows etc..

TV is very easy to use, value can be achieved really quickly. It has a fully mobile iOS and Android native app for offline capability, a huge array of flexible data analysis tools, API capable for interoperability and really well suited to apps that require tracking of data through a process e.g. manufacturing production, in-field horticulture, construction processes, quality control, nursery management, employee management, sales and customer management etc… and many other business operational type solutions. If you need to get more complex it also has a low-code language based on standard Groovy (aka. Java) for developers to use.

There are a number of tools out there and its best to see what is right for you but if I had to position them I would say that tools like Outsystems are really for the pro-developers and larger IT depts, MS PowerApps can be for Citizen Developers to start with but in my experience you quickly need pro-development skills to meet the business solution whereas a TV type tool is definitely aimed at the Citizen Developer and so great for those companies with limited IT capacity who have a number of tactical applications that could drive greater efficiencies and just need to get stuff done quickly! Go check TV out www.trackvia.com and see if its right for your business or contact me for a yarn about this area.

In 1992 when I was 26 and demonstrating DataEase at shows across the UK I didn’t think it would be 30 years before I got really excited about a business tool again, but now tools like TV have finally arrived. I now think the DataEase inventors Arun Gupta and Joseph Busch were real visionaries back in 1981 when it was launched and just pleased to see that vision becoming a new worldwide growing phenomenon today.

Ngā mihi nui
Ian