Decisions
Decisions has spent the last decade refining their approach to building applications without code, or with as little code as desired. Vendors in the marketplace have struggled to develop platforms that are easy to use, yet versatile enough to meet a wide range of needs. Super easy to use products in the space frustratingly lock developers out of advanced configurability and thereby are too rigid to meet the needs of many organizations. Decisions allows for highly specific and advanced functionality, but places it on a lower shelf, accessible to a wide range of development skill levels.
Over the years, Decisions has upped its game repeatedly in the development experience. Its approach to flow, rule, form, page, report, integration design and the ability to assemble these entities in virtually unlimited combinations make for highly flexible application capabilities.
A New Way of Thinking Requires a New Way of Managing
Organizations implement Decisions because they recognize the value of developing with a platform approach—this is a new mindset. Having a central source, a global framework, where application logic, data types, and even supporting data lives—changes the game.
However, having all of these elements in a shared platform brings with it a whole new set of challenges. Namely, organizing and segmenting development project artifacts, yet making them accessible for reuse when appropriate can become quite challenging as the number of applications in the environment grows. It is one thing to have 1 or 2 projects on the platform, but what does this central environment look like when you have 30 or 40 applications?
The Problem
In earlier versions, Decisions used a very open philosophy regarding how development artifacts (all of the items that make up projects) are organized. Here is the thing about developers: some are just not all that neat and tidy. Further, developers are typically not thinking about long-term manageability when in the thick of a hot project with a tight deadline. In other words, the freedom and openness granted by Decisions could lead developers to make poor choices.
In previous versions the “Studio,” the creator side of the solution where developers build feature rich applications in a web-delivered console, allowed ad hoc creation of folders in any conceivable arrangement.
Folders and the Designer elements therein would then be associated with Projects. Projects in Decisions represents a grouping of artifacts that compose an application or functionality–it is the main unit that is checked into the Repository and also promoted from lower environments to production.
Since technically any folder or Designer element could be associated with any Project, it was possible for a splattering mixture of Project artifacts to exist across multiple folders. This always turned into a nightmare when trying to promote.
The only way for customers to survive and thrive was to employ a level of rigor when organizing these artifacts. Our firm, ExpressAbility, which strategically assists Decisions customers, has been teaching our clients this disciplined approach for years now. Like Daniel in the Karate Kid being instructed by Mr. Miyagi, our clients sometimes didn’t initially understand why the discipline was necessary. Like Daniel-san, they eventually realized the beauty and efficiency in the order shown to them, and greatly appreciated it.
Enter Decisions Version 9
Decisions has an uncanny way of building development methodologies that fit a million scenarios. Now, in Version 9, Decisions introduces the ability to truly manage all that horsepower for the long-term. Decisions 9 essentially containerizes your application projects into neat little boxes. This eliminates the slippery slope of disorganization that ultimately, as a ripple effect, costs time and money.
The new Project Hub is a ridiculously practical gem. This new mindset for managing Projects brings everything within an arm’s reach, even types of objects that used to be forcibly scattered in the System UI. The developer also now benefits from various Project statistics including developer activity, and Project health.
It is exciting to see the next generation of an already amazing platform. I’ll be writing more on Decisions Version 9 and the migration process.
ExpressAbility is a US-based partner that specializes in helping clients maximize the value of the Decisions platform for their business. Succeeding with no-code/low-code solutions requires strategic thinking and execution. By partnering with ExpressAbility, you gain instant access to a team of experts who will ensure you achieve optimal results with the Decisions platform. Get ready to unlock new levels of success with our guidance!
