Unlocking the true potential of continuous development
“In the ever-evolving landscape of digital transformation, staying ahead of the curve is imperative to stay competitive“; every leader in the industry should, and probably does, know this to be fact. On a strategic level, this is very visible if you see the new trends of AI or a little further back in the form of blockchain. Whenever we have a big new digital trend, everybody jumps on it and tries to be the one that can find a use for it in their industry that would “disrupt”.
Ironically, we have a different attitude regarding applications we have built in the past. We still have a lot of legacy software in all fields.
Now, we’re seeing OutSystems become so mature that we even have legacy systems built within the OutSystems platform in the form of applications built on the traditional architecture. This kind of application also deserves some attention, mainly because they are the “low-hanging fruits” in digital transformation; why would you only focus on reinventing the wheel when you can drastically improve the wheel you already have for a fraction of the cost?Â
OutSystems Reactive, the next step in creating the best omnichannel experience
Let’s start with what there is to gain when migrating from traditional to reactive; what does this “improvement of the wheel” look like? First of all, the reactive architecture is much more scalable, not only for your customers but also for your development team. Suppose you want to survive in today’s market. In that case, almost all businesses must have some E-Commerce, usually represented by omnichannel experience via web and mobile.Â
Customer side
On the customer side, scalability means being able to handle more people at the same time. The new architecture achieves this by improving communication between the user’s devices and your servers, using the latest front-end technologies to smooth out user experiences and optimizing data traffic between server and client.
Many of these perks depend on the different handling of the front-end and server between these two architectures. Traditional has no “client-side,” so it does not recognize the user’s device as its computer but as a receptacle for your pages.
With reactive, we use the improved capabilities of devices and can do a lot of the work on the device itself rather than doing all the work on your server and then sending the result to the device to display. It translates to faster feedback for the user, less load on your servers, and a more pleasant overall experience.
Developer side
On the developer side, you can create components and elements with reactive to use on mobile and web channels. Your team designs and builds a component once, and then they can use it for both channels without needing a separate set of components for each channel. Not only will this save development time, but it will also remove technical debt and simplify the maintenance of your environment.
Reactive introduces the concepts of ‘asynchronous data fetching’ and ‘events’. This means that developers can use these new capabilities to have much more flexibility when implementing complex data patterns or deciding when to use a so-called hook to determine when they want to trigger part of their code.
Apart from scalability, another essential feature is evolution. In the current online landscape, every user has developed some “universal expectations” regarding their interaction with applications online. If you are not evolving with those rising expectations, people will eventually find your channel ‘clunky’ and choose to move on. This trend is not slowing down but only increasing in speed.
Think about how algorithm use has evolved over the last few years, with personalization being the focus of how we use it today. We want to make a customer journey as personal as possible nowadays when media consumption used to be more of a passive experience. Another change is that we used to want as many features as possible on screen, but now we see a trend in minimalist designs and removing as much clutter as possible.
The takeaway is that customers’ behaviour and needs are ever-changing, and OutSystems recognizes that by keeping their UI/UX toolset up-to-date. Unlike traditional, this means that when you are using reactive, you have access to all the latest features from the toolbox OutSystems provides for your team and, in turn, can easily keep up with the latest trends in widgets and UI patterns. OutSystems keeps evolving to keep up with the latest trends, but to benefit from that effort, your applications must also evolve.
How do you upgrade your traditional application to a reactive application?
Hopefully, you now understand the need to upgrade, but accepting it is only the first step. Now, you need to do the work to upgrade the applications from traditional to reactive. Luckily, both architectures still use the same OutSystems platform, so an upgrade is manageable with the proper planning and preparation.
You must evaluate your existing application portfolio, identify potential candidates for migration, and document dependencies between applications. When the environment’s contents are precise, you can use that as input to strategize timelines, resources, and potential milestones.
When deciding which application to upgrade first, it is advisable to start small; pick an application that is easy to isolate, has its lifecycle, and preferably uses many of your custom widgets if you have those. When you can easily isolate an application, it won’t interfere with your existing applications, allowing you to avoid delays related to dependencies with applications that cannot yet be upgraded.
It allows developers and users to gradually get used to the many changes related to the upgrade, making the process more manageable. Seeing projects succeed, even in small steps, will help improve the acceptance of change.
An extra benefit is finding an application that uses many custom widgets and UI patterns. This will force you to re-design those elements for reactive use. Once that initial work is done, those elements can be used for any other application that will be upgraded afterwards.
After refactoring the code, you must test the application thoroughly. The application uses an entirely different architecture, so you must translate some parts during refactoring. Automated testing frameworks can help streamline this process. However, it does not need to work on a technical level; it needs to retain its “character.” You must test and validate the new application with users to check whether it still feels like the intended one.
The final step is to deploy the upgraded app to production, monitor the performance, identify potential bottlenecks, and be on standby for any potential hiccups. Especially in the first couple of days, your responsiveness to problems and the speed with which you tackle and fix them directly influence users’ acceptance of the new application. Monitoring can help you spot and proactively fix problems before they become an issue.
How LINKIT can help
You might be thinking, “Well, now that I know what I need to do, why do I still need someone else?”. It’s easy to read through this, follow the steps, and muddy your way through, but this only works in the short term. Remember that continuous improvement is not a scoped-off project; it’s a process that continues even after you finish the deliverables.
Even though you now have access to all the latest technologies and tools provided by OutSystems, the most important thing is to put those tools to the best use by developing your employees. When partnering up with LINKIT, you gain access to developers who have been working with reactive for years, understand the new way of thinking and can convey that to your employees, enabling them to make better use of this new architecture themselves in the future.
You can also use our excellent platform engineers, who extensively know how OutSystems works under the hood. They can help you during the final step of the upgrade to facilitate the smooth deployment of the upgraded applications and give your maintenance team the tools they need to be the eyes and ears of your digital landscape. Finally, you have a robust partner to lean on when taking your first steps in this challenging and essential process, bringing your spark back into your IT and the future.
