No-Code/Low-Code Revolution: How Zinier's Studio Z is Changing Field Service Management

A conversation with Andrew Wolf, Chief Product Officer at Zinier

In the rapidly evolving world of field service management, the ability to quickly adapt software to specific business needs has become a crucial competitive advantage. I recently sat down with Andrew Wolf, Chief Product Officer at Zinier, to discuss how our low-code platform, Studio Z, is transforming how companies approach field service automation.

Why is low-code such a game-changer for field service?

"It's really the epitome of our approach to field service which is configurability and extensibility," Andrew explained when I asked why low-code is revolutionizing the industry. "From the very beginning, part of the reason why we took this platform approach is in recognition of the fact that no two field service companies are alike."

This philosophy has guided Zinier's development of Studio Z, which allows customers to tailor solutions to their unique operational requirements. "Especially when it comes to in the field, these different service organizations, they organize their teams differently. They're connecting to different systems. They're capturing a different set of data and going through different workflows in the field. Studio Z allows us to really customize and cater that solution to fit their specific needs."

Andrew emphasized that this flexibility is particularly crucial for enterprises maintaining critical infrastructure. "You have processes that you have in place for a reason. We want to be able to meet the customers where they are with our solution as opposed to having them force a kind of a point solution to change their processes."

Empowering customers through no-code capabilities

While Studio Z offers extensive low-code functionality, Andrew highlighted Zinier's progress in no-code tools as well. "We've only bitten off some pieces of this when it comes to no code. I think probably the best example of that is Task Builder and just a pure drag and drop interface."

He explained that the mobile workflow was a natural starting point for no-code development: "When we were originally working with field service customers, some of the web interface stuff could be the same, but often it was the field workflows that were radically different between companies. So at least putting that in the hands of customers first felt like the right approach."

Beyond customization, Studio Z enables rapid iteration. "Being able to adapt, as new business situations come up, you might have a new division or a new set of work that your field team is starting to manage and being able to layer on different capabilities quickly and even adjust or learn in the field."

This agility allows organizations to "optimize field workflows better to save technicians time to make customers happier...without having to go through an IT department or do some heavy code customization like you would with a point solution."

Could you sum up the difference between configurability and extensibility?

"Configurability is I kind of use configurability and customization somewhat interchangeably," Andrew explained. "Customization can mean anything. You're customizing the solution. Configurability typically implies at least in my mind I can configure something without having a developer involved or without knowing code."

"Extensibility is how can I extend my solution? You're typically thinking about integrations, integrating it with other systems. That's when I say extensibility, that's what I mean. I may not be using that term 100% correctly, but I think that's typically what it means in the software world is how extensible is your solution? How easy is it to integrate with other products and other services?"

How does Studio Z's approach accelerate the deployment of AI capabilities for customers?

When I asked how Studio Z accelerates AI deployment, Andrew pointed to Zinier's architectural advantages. "Our events-based platform enables it. By being event-based and workflow-driven, we can connect and leverage other AI models and other systems."

This foundation has enabled products like Z-Sidekick and their future-looking AI agent builder, "which are tapping into events to be able to trigger workflows that are being guided by agents."

Andrew emphasized that Zinier's open architecture creates nearly unlimited possibilities: "In a workflow I can trigger any API I want. I can leverage any external system that I want technically speaking in a workflow. So if I want to leverage other AI products or machine vision or other things - technically you can do that with Studio Z."

What's the most impressive thing you've seen a customer do with Studio Z without relying on developers?

One powerful example of Studio Z's impact comes from MTS, a heavy equipment and manufacturing customer. Their specialized technicians perform calibrations and maintenance on complex equipment where minimizing downtime is critical.

"They have very specialized technicians that are going out and doing calibrations...on these large pieces of equipment that are used to calibrate cars and tire rotation - very complex pieces of equipment," Andrew shared.

What makes this case particularly interesting is how MTS has adapted Zinier across different countries. "They actually configured Zinier for each country because each country had specific data or different data they had to configure. So they kind of localized it in that way. Localized not just the language but the workflows and the screens that they see."

This level of customization without developer involvement showcases the power of putting configuration tools directly in the hands of business users.

Can you talk about how a traditional request to change something in a piece of software would work at a field service company and how Zinier has transformed that process?

Traditional software change requests can be painfully slow. Andrew contrasted this with Zinier's approach: "If it's a company that doesn't have a platform, for example, you have to go through a full-blown development cycle. It can be months. I mean it kind of depends on the company and how agile they are, but typically if this is IT department within a large enterprise they're very slow because they're also working on many different projects."

Even worse, with point solutions, some changes might not be possible at all. "If it's a company that has a point solution, then they may or may not even do it. If you're a large enough customer, you might be able to convince them to do a change. And that is probably an even longer process because then it has to get prioritized within the road map of their entire organization."

With Zinier's approach, there's virtually no process to navigate. "If you have access to Studio Z, you make the change, you deploy it for testing, you can test it yourself, and then you can deploy it." Changes that might take months in traditional environments can be implemented in hours or days with Studio Z.

The underlying technical architecture plays a key role in this efficiency. "Studio Z, even though if it's a no-code thing that's super fast, low-code stuff even that because it's within the framework of kind of the JSON architecture, that is way faster than building in your core codebase."

As Andrew put it: "It's like the code equivalent of a database record or an Excel file. It's pretty close... JSON reads almost like a recipe."

How does empowering citizen developers change the dynamic between business users and IT teams?

One of the most transformative aspects of low-code platforms is how they change the relationship between business and IT teams through what Andrew calls "citizen developers."

"Citizen developers are capable of using low-code. If you want to do a lot more advanced stuff, then sometimes you might need to get into JavaScript for some advanced logic," Andrew explained. "But I would say just the reason I like the term and I use the term citizen developer there it's more like the low-code aspect of Studio Z—even though coding is still required it's really open to a large population of developers. Like anyone with basic development knowledge can get very advanced in terms of building solutions."

This democratization of development leads to faster implementation cycles and better business outcomes. "That broadens the number of people that can actually build quite advanced solutions. And again, I'm only talking about the stuff that's outside of the scope of the no-code tools. So that's more just around having more resources to be able to build solutions for you and therefore being able to build and change things faster."

What is still left that is currently low code? And what future advancements to the no-code capabilities are on the roadmap?

Andrew explained the current state of no-code versus low-code in Studio Z: "Technically the task builder is no code. I think the stuff that gets more complicated is on the web interface and defining pages. It's sort of a hybrid. There is a webpage builder where it is drag and drop but I don't think that people are using that in a no-code manner because for example just to configure a data grid is a bit more complicated because you have all the filters and columns and all this other stuff."

"I would love for us to eventually get to the web building interface to be a lot easier and no code as well. I think part of the reason that hasn't happened is in our own teams people are so used to just it's actually faster just to take cut and paste a big JSON line of code that represents a full web page that is close to what you wanted and then go in and edit it."

What is the future state of Studio Z?

Looking ahead, Andrew shared several exciting developments on Zinier's roadmap. "I would like the full building experience to eventually be no-code for advanced stuff where maybe you need some really advanced logic. You could still go in and inject some JavaScript when needed, but I would like let's say 95% of the building experience to be completely no-code that anyone can do."

He envisions a repository of visual templates to give users faster starting points, "where you can drag and drop and choose from a whole library of use case templates by page or by module where we might have 10 different types of modules that we've learned about from different field service use cases that you can just drag and drop into the interface and then make some modifications."

One of the most ambitious upcoming features is task orchestration. "If you think of our workflow builder as being kind of the things that are happening in the background to enable actions...just take that idea and turn it into a macro concept. I want to orchestrate my task in a certain way."

This would allow users to visually design complex business processes: "A work order starts here then once it gets scheduled...there might be some steps that a back office user is doing in a work order where I'm adding a site plan as a step in the back office. Maybe I need to get that approved. Maybe someone else needs to add some documents to this task. Then only then does a notification get sent to a group of users."

Could you simplify "managing by exception" for someone who isn't familiar with what you mean?

Perhaps most exciting is Zinier's vision for "touchless" field service operations, where AI agents handle not just routine tasks but even exceptions.

"Another side of the spectrum is a part of our vision—completely touchless automated field service. But even in those scenarios, there will be basically like I shouldn't have to drag and drop to manually schedule something. Unless there's something that comes up that I need to manage, some emergency or something happens that is outside of normal operating where you need a human in the loop."

But even these exceptions might eventually be managed by AI. "I could see a world now that we have agents and a world of agentic AI where even those are minimized...If they can operate as a human does which is you just think about what's the logic I have to do if I have an emergency task that pops up."

Andrew concluded with a vision that seemed to surprise even himself: "We're probably moving a lot faster than I thought towards this whole touchless field service world. But managing by exception is just that—let's automate as much as possible and then only bring a human in the loop to manage exceptions to our normal day-to-day operations, to solve problems where human creativity and problem solving is required."