Western University (SmartAPPetite)

Introduction

How it works

Users of the SmartAPPetite ‘app’ regularly receive food and health-related tips that are personalized to their own dietary goals, schedules, and geographic locations. The tips – which are carefully researched and approved by a team of Registered Dietitians – offer information about seasonal availability, nutrition, safe food handling, and other healthy habits, as well as related recipes and local food vendors. Users can also choose to have location-based messages appear on their smartphone when they come near a local farmers’ market or other pre-approved local vendor. Users control how many tips they receive per day, and what time of day they appear.

Problem

We were hired to migrate their entire ecosystem (app, database, API) to ours and deploy a new version in two weeks. They had an important launch date with a local high school that could not be missed.

Process

Moving an entire ecosystem can be tricky, especially with a short deadline. It is essential to know how to prioritize the the most important tasks in order to move quickly.

You must of course understand how the app works. Although, due to time limits, it is important not to spend too much time navigating through the application. You must be able to familiarize quickly. At StackSoft we have a lot of experience migrating and deploying complicated apps. Therefore, we were able to do the below tasks efficiently within the two week period:

Tasks:

    • Get access to the code repos
    • Get familiar with their front-end code
    • Get familiar with their back-end code
    • Migrate their database
    • Migrate their content
    • Implement requested changes on front-end
    • Implement requested changes on back-end
    • Deploy new version to our servers
    • Deploy iOS version to App Store
    • Deploy Android version to Play Store

Problems:

    • Documentation on the project was spotty, we had to read code and use our experience to navigate
    • Deploying to the iOS store is known to be tricky, we had to deploy a few days early.

Result

Success! The new version was launched on time and the project leaders were very happy.