Information Technology - Application Development
Application Development are theoretically based on industry best practices, and their makers intend that organizations deploy them as is.Vendors do offer customers configuration options that let organizations incorporate their own business rules, but often feature gaps remain even after configuration is complete.
Customers have several options to reconcile feature gaps, each with their own pros/cons. Technical solutions include rewriting part of the delivered software, writing a homegrown module to work within the system, or interfacing to an external system. These three options constitute varying degrees of system customization—with the first being the most invasive and costly to maintain.
Alternatively, there are non-technical options such as changing business practices or organizational policies to better match the delivered application feature set.
Customization is always optional, whereas the software must always be configured before use (e.g., setting up cost/profit center structures, organizational trees, purchase approval rules, etc.).
The software is designed to handle various configurations, and behaves predictably in any allowed configuration.
The effect of configuration changes on system behavior and performance is predictable and is the responsibility of the vendor. The effect of customization is less predictable. It is the customer's responsibility, and increases testing activities.
Configuration changes survive upgrades to new software versions. Some customizations (e.g., code that uses predefined "hooks" that are called before/after displaying data screens) survive upgrades, though they require retesting. Other customizations (e.g., those involving changes to fundamental data structures) are overwritten during upgrades and must be reimplemented.
Customization advantages include that it:
Improves user acceptance.
Offers the potential to obtain competitive advantage vis-ΰ-vis companies using only standard features
Customization disadvantages include that it.
Increases time and resources required to implement and maintain.
Inhibits seamless communication between suppliers and customers who use the same system uncustomized.
Can create over reliance on customization, undermining the principles of Application Development as a standardizing software platform.
Application Development can be extended with thirdparty software. Vendors typically provide access to data and features through published interfaces. Extensions offer features such as:
Archiving, reporting, and republishing.
Capturing transactional data, e.g., using scanners, tills or RFID.
Access to specialized data and capabilities, such as syndicated marketing data and associated trend analytic.s
Advanced planning and scheduling (APS).
Managing resources, facilities, and transmission in real-time.
Data migration
Data migration is the process of moving, copying, and restructuring data from an existing system to the new system. Migration is critical to implementation success and requires significant planning. Unfortunately, since migration is one of the final activities before the production phase, it often receives insufficient attention. The following steps can structure migration planning:
Identify data to migrate.
Determine migration timing.
Generate data templates.
Freeze the toolset.
Decide on migration-related setups.
Define data archiving policies and procedure.