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Ruby-based Fire Inspection SaaS

Upgrading the back end and implementing new functionality for the fire inspection SaaS platform

ABOUT
the project

Client:

Fire Inspection Company

Location:

Country flag

USA

|

New Jersey

Company Size:

50+ Employees

Industry:

Fire Protection

A scalable SaaS platform for safety inspections and reporting. This solution enables customers to efficiently request and manage fire inspections. The project focused on two key areas: enhancing the backend with new reporting-focused functionality and developing additional features like a payment portal and an admin panel. In this case study, we explore the Ruby-based app back-end improvements.

Quotation marks Quotation marks

We helped the customer run a complete redesign of their fire inspection platform. With our Ruby expertise, we optimized the app’s back end to conform to the customer’s needs and modern industry standards. We also expanded the app’s functionality to help them reach new markets. Overall, we took the solution to the next level, providing the client with a modern, stable, and maintainable app ready for continuous upgrades.

Taras Shotik

Project Manager at Leobit

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Customer

The customer is a notable company with a long history of presence in the U.S. market. For many decades, our clients have been providing different enterprises and private entities with fire protection and safety services. The customer relies on modern technologies to streamline their operations and provide better quality services to the clients. They approached Leobit with a request to upgrade their existing solution by optimizing its back end and enhancing some basic app functionality.

Business Challenge

The customer required specialists skilled in Ruby on Rails to develop and optimize different parts of their SaaS platform. Speaking of the Ruby-based part, one of the main challenges was the lack of critical documentation required for optimizing the product. Our team had to explore different parts and connections within the solution’s Ruby-based back end at a limited time. Our primary task was enhancing the performance of the solution’s back end. Before the Leobit team stepped in, the processing of long-running tasks on the platform had been associated with performance issues. In particular, the report generation feature, one of the most important attributes of SaaS, could lead to website hangs.

Why Leobit

The customer wanted to get two separate teams skilled in Ruby and .NET to cover different parts of the project. Leobit is a leading .NET development company with expertise encompassing a wide array of other software development technologies, including Ruby. We provided the customer with teams of specialists skilled in Ruby and .NET, respectively. Leobit’s vision of the system’s upgrade is also perfectly aligned with the client’s vision. As a result, the customer found a technology partner with a clear vision and understanding of their needs, as well as readiness to cover both primary directions of their project.

Project in detail section

Project
in detail

Our team of Ruby specialists had little time to explore the customer’s existing cloud-based back-end architecture. We had to jump into the project on the fly.

At first, the customer augmented their in-house development resources with Leobit’s Ruby team. Before expanding the system’s functionality, our experts significantly redesigned the current code architecture to achieve the necessary scalability for upcoming features. By eliminating hidden defects and vulnerabilities of the SaaS, we ensured that added enhancements wouldn’t cause unnecessary complexity in the future.

Upon running some basic codebase and system optimization tasks, our team started optimizing the system’s back end. Our Ruby team considerably improved the app’s Heroku-based back end shared with the mobile application. We optimized service workflows and managed to boost the efficiency of essential back-end processes. We also improved the multi-tenant database infrastructure to enhance the system’s efficiency, and integrated the app with New Relic to ensure consistent performance across all the solution’s versions.

During this stage of the project, our team significantly expanded the solution’s functionality. In particular, our team added several new types of inspections that would meet the national standards of different countries. Our team enabled auto-generation compliant to publish standards and specifications depending on the country where the field inspection took place. We also enhanced the existing reports by providing more insights and reporting features to the customer.

Upon completing the solution’s basic functionality, we continued expanding the system’s set of features on demand. In particular, we updated the system’s calendar and maps functionality in order to allow the customer to easily track, manage, and drag and drop all their visits. We also implemented an intelligent event-driven channel for communication between customer companies and their subcontractors, ensuring that all the involved stakeholders are promptly informed of any changes in any updates on safety inspections. We also implemented a new type of report and improved the UX design of the customer’s mobile app for iOS.

Our cooperation with the customer continues as our team covers the client’s maintenance tasks and updates the system on demand, whether it goes about the system’s optimization or adding new features. Our maintenance and technical support to the SaaS helps the client sustain product success and ensure a high return on investment. We also assured an extensive coverage of the project with unit tests to create a more reliable and maintainable engineering environment.

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project-in-detail

Optimized app back-end

By improving the solution's back end, we ensured higher performance, scalability, and maintainability of the SaaS system. In particular, software architecture redesign allowed us to exclude the probability of costly errors later in the development process. The integration with New Relic allowed our team to ensure software quality and rate application performance across the environment in a unified manner.

We also optimized the system's scalability in order to guarantee that a slight change in the environment wouldn't affect the robustness of the SaaS. The Leobit team also improved the solution's multi-tenant database architecture in order to optimize the use of database resources. This allowed us to set up configurations without changing the underlying codebase. The primary benefits of such an enhancement are reduced infrastructure costs and boosted provisioning of new tenants.

project-in-detail

Enhanced reporting functionality

Our team enhanced the system's report generation functionality by implementing mechanics for an instant generation of branded reports with contact information and the logo of the company performing inspections. This enhancement eliminates paperwork and saves technicians' time. We also updated existing reports to include a visual representation of data with various filters and flexible reporting filters.

Over time, we also added a new type of report formatted specifically according to the requirements of the healthcare industry. All the reports are kept in a secure storage with excellent search functionality. Users can access the collection of legally valid electronic signatures and reports after completed inspections and deficiency identifications within minutes.

project-in-detail

Features for communication and process tracking

Apart from the app's rich reporting functionality, we developed a convenient interface and real-time tracking feature for the inspection business so users can optimize the human resource allocation process and never miss important updates or upcoming inspections. To ensure greater efficiency of the processes, we implemented channels for communication between the field, office, and technicians with flawlessly synced time and name-stamped messages.

Later on, we also added a communication channel for seamless linking between prime companies and their subcontractors. This intelligent, event-driven approach to in-app communication ensures that all stakeholders are promptly informed of any inspection updates or changes.

Technology Solutions

  • Multi-tenant app back end powered with Ruby on Rails and enhanced with New Relic to ensure consistent app performance across different platforms.
  • 95% coverage of the project with unit tests to create a reliable engineering environment, thus saving development time in the future.
  • Optimized database architecture aimed at optimizing the use of database resources and setting up configurations without changing the underlying codebase, which reduces infrastructure costs and speeds up the provisioning of new tenants.
  • Code and infrastructure redesign significantly enhancing the solution’s scalability.

Value Delivered

  • Ability to expand the solution globally and to new industries, such as healthcare, achieved through the implementation of new reporting features and new report types.
  • Automation features that enhance the app’s reporting capabilities and make the solution more user-centric.
  • Stable, scalable, and modernized SaaS solution prepared for upcoming upgrades.
  • The solution became much more convenient in maintenance due to the integration of unit testing features and best practices.