Modernizing Application with Custom Development

I recently had the pleasure of working with a large university to modernize their existing internal forms. The university needed to upgrade from an internal enterprise platform to a more web-based technology stack, as the current solution was depreciated. Over the course of three months, our team improved the look and feel of the forms and made them more responsive, while working closely with the university’s internal Banner team.  

You might think working with higher education would be drastically different than our corporate clients but in a lot of ways, it demonstrated the same fundamentals we practice with all our clients. 

The Human Element 

My role as a consultant at UDig can focus more on the tech at times, but the human component of what we do as an organization is equally as important. Being able to fully understand our clients’ exact needs and address them requires relationship building and customer service. This is true across all our partnerships and proved to be true with this particular engagement.  

We conducted an initial assessment of the forms and immediately understood how outdated the technology was. This was exciting because we knew our solution would have a direct, meaningful impact on the university. We quickly identified JQuery and PHP as the technology stack we’d use in the modernization effort but needed to understand how each of the forms was used in order to get started.  

We scheduled weekly meetings to discuss the rules, identify the constraints, understand the functionality and determine the security behind each form. These meetings provided valuable information which allowed us to modernize each form, one by one, but also provided an important opportunity to connect with key stakeholders to address any questions or concerns in detail. By meeting regularly, we showed and tracked our progress, provided transparency into our work and forged a relationship with our client.  

Tech Expertise 

This project is representative of the work that we do as an organization in another way; modernizing an existing application – whether for a university or a Fortune 500 company – is right in our wheelhouse.  

We recently worked with a global specialty insurer on a modernization effort somewhat similar in nature. We made a tremendous amount of changes to their existing application while upgrading the framework from Angular JS to Angular 5. Additionally, we added new features and functionality making the application more optimized for its users.  

The company was impressed and extremely satisfied with the extraordinary increase in speed and performance throughout the application.  While the specific technologies may differ from project to project, most modernization efforts require custom development expertise…and the trust of your clients that you understand their objectives and ultimate end goal.