A masterclass in taking over legacy code

As with any project, there’s always a starting point. In the case of Vendigital, the starting point was messy and complicated. Besides huge amounts of legacy code, Frontkom was taking over the project from someone else which made it that much harder. Not only that, the two people who have worked on this project the longest (for 6 or more years) were leaving the company as well. We needed to take over the project as soon as possible, simply because our main sources of inside information were going to be gone soon. The number one priority was to get things moving and start on cleaning up the code base. Be side s that, there were 3 key objective s for our Frontkom team:

Objective #1: Turning The Infrastructure Into Enterprise-Worthy Code

The previous teams that worked on this project have started the process of turning the AWS-based infrastructure into clean, optimised code. However, they were not able to complete the task with success. Our Frontkom DevOps experts were asked to step in and finish the job.

Objective #2: Implementing WriteBackExtreme For Tableau

The next key objective was to turn Tableau, a tool which Vendigital experts use to analyse and identify areas for improvement in their clients’ supply chain, from a view-only tool to a view and write one. This would enable the Vendigital team to actively work with their clients’ data, making it much easier to deliver insights. The important requirement here was that users would sign into WriteBackExtreme via Vendigital’s own SSOP (Single Sign-On Portal) and not via Tableau itself.

Objective #3: Developing A System For Managing Changing Statuses Of Clients’ Businesses And Processes

And the last key objective for Frontkom and Vendigital was to come up with a solution that would enable them to track and manage a variety of client change requests. A solution like this would automate a lot of the work and make it easier to manage different requests at multiple ownership levels.

Usually, there’s a fair bit of time before the development team gets down to work on the project – planning, workshops, design. In this case our team dove in head first into the project as fast as possible. As soon as we knew what Vendigital needed – we started working on delivering. During the last 3 years of us working together we have accomplished all of our goals and managed to create some order in a system burdened with technical debt. And here’s what we did to accomplish that:

The first major thing for us to tackle was the legacy code base. We started with planning sessions that included the entire Vendigital team to better understand how their business operates, what their needs and goals are. We were looking for areas that could be improved and optimised. Initially, the idea was to rewrite the entire code base from scratch but considering the amount of code and different databases, this option just wasn’t viable. So instead we opted for cleaning up the existing code and bringing it up to industry standards.

Some of the biggest changes we’ve made include:

• Rolling general system updates for improved performance and security
• Implementing a bug reporting system and streamlining the overall QA process
• Decommissioning legacy assets to clean up the code base, sort out many of the dependencies, and improve performance of the entire infrastructure
• Implementing security auditing tools and using the insights to improve security across the entire ecosystem

While all of the work is still ongoing, those changes have significantly improved the security and performance of Vendigital’s suite of applications, making them ready for future development and introducing new features.

As we’ve already mentioned, making Tableau not just a view-only integration was one of the key objectives for Vendigital. Our team used the WriteBackExtreme extension to turn Tableau into a workable tool for the Vendigital team, that their clients could use to make changes to the data, improving the communication flow. While the integration itself may seem straightforward, Vendigital needed users to sign into WriteBackExtreme via Vendigital’s own SSOP (Single Sign-On Portal) and not via Tableau itself. Our team used the SAML protocol to achieve this without compromising the system’s security.

Vendigital works with large companies that have complicated and unique processes regarding their supply chain and items. This means that it’s hard to have a complete overview of all the current change requests and their status . Previously, the process largely depended on emails and direct communication with specific stakeholders but, considering how complex those business processes are, this was just not a viable, long-term solution. We implemented features that minimised the need for emails by creating and managing change requests in the system that could be reviewed by the relevant parties inside the application. Not only does it save time but it also makes the process of managing the client data more clear and streamlined.

Vendigital’s business has always needed technology to deliver useful tools and solutions. And Frontkom was able to improve their infrastructure and create new features that support their operations and make their processes more efficient. Ultimately, this is what we’re aiming to do with every project. And if you feel like technology has been holding you back – contact us and let’s work together to make technology work for you.