In January, we recommitted to the future of NI LabVIEW, recognizing that test engineers depend on NI’s continued investments to help them do their jobs better and faster. The strategy is structured around three pillars: Strengthen LabVIEW, Connect LabVIEW+, and Build Community.

In my first article, I detailed how we continue to Strengthen LabVIEW through feature development and detailed five particular initiatives. In my second article about Connect LabVIEW+, I gave examples of how connected tools deliver value across the test professional’s workflow.

Today, I would like to discuss our final pillar, “Build Community,” to explain why we believe it is critically important and how we are investing to support it.

Many familiar with NI will think of “the community” as online forums and user groups—and while these are part of the story, there is so much more. Eli Kerry, NI’s new Community Director, encapsulates it well.

With that in mind, we have built a community program defined by six focus areas: 

There are a lot of open-source tools available today. They benefit from a large development community but gravitate toward generalist use cases and do not move quickly to help a specific audience.

NI recently announced it would open elements of NI LabVIEW’s code base to the community. We started with the icon editor (a well-scoped project with immediate impact) and just released the code for a more advanced architecture: the actor framework.

These first steps will help create a process to bring code from the community into the mainline while preserving the stability and ease of use central to the environment. This thoughtful approach gives us the best of both worlds, accelerating innovation while maintaining directional focus.

NI is committed to being transparent with our software investments. This means building Customer Advisory Boards (CABs) that span all areas of development. The well-established LabVIEW CAB has met regularly for years, providing key directional guidance. As we connect our workflows, we are committed to expanding these formal feedback channels.

To support this, we will conduct in-person roadmap feedback sessions at our largest accounts and as part of distributor-led technology days in all regions. Transparency around software roadmaps allows users to schedule upgrades, plan projects, and onboard effectively.

I was pleased to attend the 2024 North American GDevCon event in Colorado earlier this year. It was nearly a week of technical content presented by users for users. Board member Taylor Jo Oxley shared with me why she considers the event so special:

This value was on display. Attendance was up more than 30 percent from the previous year, with more than 100 LabVIEW users participating.

Events like GDevCon showcase how the engineering community bonds through their shared use of software tools. There are now hundreds of NI user groups worldwide, and we can’t thank the organizers of such events enough for the value they bring to their peers.

In this, we also recognize that we (and our partners) have a part to play in creating content, attending events, teaching, learning, and listening. NI is committed to increased investment and support through 2025 and beyond.

When I joined NI 17 years ago, part of my first job was monitoring and replying to forum posts that provide user support. Back then, I was immensely grateful for the army of experienced users who almost always got to each post first with detailed, helpful responses. I am still immensely grateful! The dedicated “Knights of NI” have contributed to more than 1.25 million posts in the LabVIEW forum that help engineers worldwide every day.

Today, several online communities are run by the community, for the community. The LabVIEW Wiki is an excellent repository for community-hosted content and information, and podcasts such as The LabVIEW Experiment provide in-depth discussion and best practices. NI is committed to supporting and contributing to community forums.

Through COVID, it can be argued that NI’s training and certification program suffered. Much of the in-person infrastructure was lost and insufficiently replaced with online alternatives. Over the last year, NI has been sprinting to rectify this, as we know that a good software education is a huge part of project success.

First, we updated and revamped the online NI Learning Center. Then,  we announced training delivery partnerships with distributors across the world who can host courses with certified instructors. Our data shows that 95 percent of new users who participate in a LabVIEW Core One course are successful, crediting the strong proficiency boost they gain from the training.

When you combine this kind of training with an organization willing to dedicate time and energy to its people, proficiency and company growth follow. To inspire your team in what can be achieved, read how GP Synergia built a program training new grads to become architects in just a few months.

Alongside NI-led initiatives, we also support community-led projects such as the Community Training Initiative, which uses low-cost Linux hardware with a preinstalled image that includes the LabVIEW community edition to lower the barrier to entry for new users.

Many of us had our first exposure to LabVIEW as part of our university education. This experience set us on a course, not just as LabVIEW engineers but also as test engineers.

However, the industry is facing a three-phased challenge right now.

• There is a “Silver Tsunami” of retiring talent.

• The unique skills required in our industry (multidomain, collaborative product experts) are sought after by other roles within companies.

• Fewer graduates are entering the workforce in test and measurement.

During NI Connect, Brittney Outlaw, Academic Advisor within the University of Texas, School of Engineering, stated that,

To counter this, NI is reinvesting in a full-time academic program team to make engineering education engaging and impactful while supporting universities to produce employable graduates. We have created accessible pricing for academic researchers and announced that the NI LabVIEW Community Edition is FREE for students.

NI will continue to support academia with our leading hardware platforms. At the same time, our sub-brand Digilent will add even more value with exciting product announcements coming in 2025, introducing new benefits to teaching labs.

Making our products accessible to academia is a good start, but we can only succeed through a vibrant community. NI is looking to lead with user groups, onsite events, and student programs—but to inspire students, we must all take collective responsibility to enthuse, evangelize, and spend time with the engineers of the future. Stay tuned for more information on how to get involved coming soon.

I hope this software strategy series has helped you understand how and why NI is investing in our software platforms. In the new year, we’ll move from exploring current investments to discussing future visions. By aligning our roadmap features with the pillars of Strengthen Software, Connect Workflows, and Build Community, they shape a vision we call “Intelligent Test.” I’m excited to dive into this discussion, which will explore the responsible use of AI, rich contextual data linkages, and collaborative development.

In the meantime, I encourage you to stay engaged by participating in upcoming on-site events, user group sessions, online webinars, and more, so you can be a part of the conversation.