Enterprise Training Platform 

Enterprise Training Platform 

NCN designed and developed a sophisticated enterprise application that integrates AI, video conferencing, calendaring and analytics using Kubernetes architecture.

NCN was called upon to design and develop a sales enablement platform that would use AI technology to monitor sales team performance and track business performance metrics. This client understood the importance of a thoughtful and iterative discovery phase which was a critical factor in this project’s success. 

Phase 1 Discovery

This NCN discovery team consisted of a Business Analyst, Product Owner, Project Manager, System Engineer, Software Engineer and UX/UI Designer and, of course, the Business Owner (client). The team met several times during the four week discovery phase to work on storyboarding the applications key features, functionalities and user flows.

The deliverables of this first phase (Business Requirements Document, User Journeys, User Stories, Product Roadmap, Project Schedule, Architecture Diagram, and Test Plan) were all thoroughly vetted and signed off on by the entire team, laying the foundation for the remainder of the project.

Phase 2 Design

Once the team was aligned on the vision for the project, the NCN designers began creating clickable prototype designs for the team to review. Careful planning, and monitoring are essential during the design phase of a project to ensure that the project does not fall off schedule. The design process should be thoughtful and iterative, but when building your MVP it is imperative that you set priorities and timebox this process because it can easily stretch longer than expected, straining the schedule and budget of the project. This does not mean that early ideas for iterative improvement need to be ignored – they simply get added to the Product Backlog to be prioritized later in the Product Roadmap.  Because

NCN strongly believes in the value of agility in software development, our contracts always allow for change control in the event that the client finds value in further iteration of the original designs anytime during the project.

Phase 3 Development & Iterative Release

Because scalability and data privacy and security were a top priority for this enterprise application, our System Architects worked carefully to design a containerized architecture for the application using Kubernetes, an open source platform for managing containerized workloads and services. While our System Architects worked on setting up this infrastructure our team of developers worked on bringing the front end of the system to life.

The application’s front end User Interface (UI) is built using ReactJS while the backend database is built using NodeJS. NCN developers have a wealth of experience using these code languages, which came in clutch for this project. Our developers wrote code to bring the UI to life, while also integrating the application to multiple third part applications including calendaring tools, Zoom video conferencing, and Adobe AI video indexing technology. All of these integrations came together in a clean, professional interface that offered calendar views with one-click zoom scheduling and a high-end dashboard of analytics from the recorded video calls. 

Throughout the development process, NCN developers release iterative pieces of developed functionality to a dedicated Test environment where it is thoroughly tested by our QA testers, according to a documented Test Plan. If bugs are noted, they are sent to the development for fixing before the code is promoted to the next environment; the UAT environment. 

Once a build passes QA testing it is released to a UAT environment where the Product Owner performs acceptance testing to validate that the work meets acceptance criteria of the product requirements and user stories. After acceptance testing, the Product Owner creates a video demo of the functionality and provides the client with acceptance test steps. The client provides feedback and, if needed, tweaks are made until the client is 100% satisfied. Minor changes or enhancements not included in the original requirements are often logged and added to the backlog for post MVP prioritization. Ultimately, the client approves and signs-off on each iterative release.

Stage 4 End to End Testing

Once the MVP development has been completed and each iterative release has been signed off on, it is time for end-to-end testing. This begins with the QA team rigorously testing the applications flow from start to finish in the Test environment. If any issues are noted, they are prioritized and then either sent to the development team for immediate fix or, in the case of minor, edge-case issues, added to the backlog for later. The Product Owner and Client review all of the issues together so that there is full agreement on what is a must-fix and what can be saved for later.

Once the QA team certifies that the product is passing end to end testing in the Test environment, it is time to push the code to the UAT environment so that the Product Owner and Client can complete their final end to end testing. The same process as above is followed, with any issues being vetted by the team for the appropriate course of action. Ultimately, the client will sign off on the MVP and it is time to “Go Live”.

Stage 5 Deployment & Handoff

Final deployment to the Live or Production environment is done only once the product has passed rigorous end to end testing in the Test and UAT environments. Once this deployment has been completed, the QA team will perform what is known as Smoke testing, a less rigorous round of testing that ensures that the product is functioning as expected and no regression issues have appeared during release. The Client will also have the ability to test the live product before final handoff.

As part of final handoff, NCN provides the client with User Manual(s), Technical Product Documentation, Training, and any other deliverables noted in the contract. 

If you are interested in building an enterprise application that is easily managed and provides end users with relative data, calendar management, and push notifications, contact NCN Technology today for a discovery call.