The Leg Work behind the Scenes

13 Sep 2016

Of all the teams here at OpenCRM, it is our development team that most define who we are…and I mean that literally, they are the ones responsible for building, maintaining, and expanding the OpenCRM system.

When a new feature or enhancement request lands on a developer’s desk, they know that there has already been a fair bit of work done on it. The sales and operations teams, with the help of a senior developer, will have already spec’d the work out, made sure that the goals and process behind it have been ironed out and perfected.

You might think that, from the moment it lands on their desk, a developer can start coding. But there’s still prep work to do.

Our developers are required to produce a plan for approval by a senior developer. This makes sure that each feature or enhancement that is going to be added into the system has been well thought out and doesn’t accidentally open up a security back door.

Once the plan has been approved, the coding magic can be begin. I won’t go into all the technical wizardry that the guys and girls of our development team are capable of, but I will say that I never cease to be impressed with the clever (and carefully considered) results they produce.

When the coding is done, our developers are required first to submit their code for review. This just gives us a second chance to make sure that everything is as it should be before it goes into our system.

While their code is being reviewed and approved, the developer needs to both to test their own work and then to co-ordinate the second testing phase with one of our project managers. This ensures that the original goals for the feature or enhancement are achievable, that the result is user friendly, and that there are no lurking bugs.

Then it goes out into the world.

And that’s just our “standard” development team. We’ve also got members of the development team working closely with support on any more complex questions and others who are dedicated to managing our infrastructure.

You may never get the chance to speak to one of our development team, but they are the ones who are really at the front line of OpenCRM.