{"id":30282,"date":"2020-11-17T18:52:40","date_gmt":"2020-11-17T13:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/?p=30282"},"modified":"2020-11-18T13:06:24","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T07:36:24","slug":"application-support-a-necessity-or-a-waste-of-money-or-role-of-an-application-support-service-provider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/business\/application-support-a-necessity-or-a-waste-of-money-or-role-of-an-application-support-service-provider\/","title":{"rendered":"Application support: a necessity or a waste of money? or Role of an Application support Service provider"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Until lately, both customers and developers focused only on application development. Today, the competitive situation dictates different rules.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An application cannot be left unchanged after its release. After the publication of a mobile application, work with it is just starting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let&#8217;s look at three stages of the life cycle of a mobile application:<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Plan. Idea, research of competitors and users, checking the viability of the idea, the first prototypes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Design and development. The most expensive and important part.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Testing and QA. As a rule, software testing is carried out in parallel with the development stage, but some companies may put this stage in a separate task.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Deploy<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Support and maintain. After the release, the life of the product is just beginning.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The product must live and change with the environment, respond to threats, adapt to changes in devices and operating systems, react to user feedback about its convenience and functionality. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a need to add new features during the performance, change existing features, fix bugs and vulnerabilities. That is why developers and business analysts need <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/mobile-apps\/how-mobile-applications-are-helpful-for-enterprises\/\">technical support for the mobile application<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the sphere of mobile technologies, operating systems are updated every year, and new devices appear once in two-three months. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That&#8217;s why there is no need to be afraid to go to the store with an app with minimum functionality. Work on applications should go in a format of continuous improvement by short iterations (no more than a month for updates) and with well-established feedback.<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"seethis_lik\"><span>Also read:<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/finance\/apps-like-quadpay\/\">50+ Trending Alternatives To Quadpay | A List of Apps Similar To Quadpay - No Credit Check\/Bills and Payment<\/a><\/span>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main tasks to be solved after the publication of the application are:<\/span><\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">getting feedback from the end-users and solve their problems;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">improving stability and adding new functionality;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">adaptation of the application for new devices and OS versions;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">tracking the degree of satisfaction of the business needs of the customer company;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">adjusting the product development plan.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, remember &#8211; <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.purchasingpower.com\/support\/warranty-technical-support\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">warranty and technical support<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are different things. The guarantee is set out in the main development contract. Warranty works mean bug fixes or functionality enhancements to the specification.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Support goes beyond the scope of the terms of reference and requires a separate document with prescribed tasks, conditions, response time. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, technical support is an urgent solution to problems that interfere with a digital product&#8217;s quality functioning. Let&#8217;s divide these problems into three categories:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Level 1.<\/strong> These are force majeure situations, which are solved first of all. For example, users can not send an order, register, or login.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Level 2.<\/strong> For example, interface errors that do not critically affect the ability to send an order or other important action. Such problems are usually solved during the working day if there is no emergency.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Level 3.<\/strong> For example, minor bugs in features and screens that do not relate to any critical service functionality.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now let&#8217;s talk about one of the most important points &#8211; testing, especially pre-release testing.\u00a0 Oleh Sadykow (Co-Founder at DeviQA &#8211; leading <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.deviqa.com\/services\/automation-testing-services\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">automation testing company<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) says, &#8220;Before releasing an app, you need to make sure there are no bugs (at least big ones) for certain.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Regression testing must be done first. Ideally, the development process should be designed so that there are only small features left for the test before the release, the bugs of which do not take much time to fix. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is also important to consider that possible fixes cannot affect other parts of the product and its behavior in principle. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After all, there is simply no time to fix everything before the release. After the regression, the tester should check if there are any negative consequences from fixing bugs found with the regression test or not. And also whether the developers even fixed these bugs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The next step is a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/stackoverflow.com\/questions\/652292\/what-is-unit-testing-and-how-do-you-do-it\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">unit test<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. If an application&#8217;s reaction is not the same as planned, the test is considered not successful. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the developers understand what part of the code the bug is in and fix it. This is not the whole benefit of unit tests. They can be very helpful in striving against bugs after updates. The last step is the final testing of an app. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It involves checking all application functions against the specification or backlog that the team has agreed with the customer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/mobile-apps\/the-fundamentals-of-an-android-application-development-platform-for-business\/\">application development<\/a>, problems of this sphere, competitive features are constantly being identified, new ideas and feedback from users appear, which require a prompt response. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The right solution in such a situation is the timely organization of technical support for the professional development team&#8217;s mobile application.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Until lately, both customers and developers focused only on application development. Today, the competitive situation dictates different rules. An application<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":30283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30282"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30343,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30282\/revisions\/30343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/30283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-next-tech.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}