easysquare

Eaesysquare Mockup für Banner für Referenzseite

Services

Development

Technology

Android, iOS Support

Client

PROMOS consult Projektmanagement, Organisation und Service GmbH

Year

2015 – 2018

WHAT WAS KARLMAX’S ROLE IN THE PROJECT?

We ported the customer’s existing iOS app to the Android operating system.

Why does the user need the app?

Because with this app you can cover all matters relating to the real estate industry, with efficient, optimised connections – whether to property manager, tenant, prospect or handyman.

What can the app do?

Easysquare is an interface to the SAP system of the relevant housing provider. The app is able to display any form, and thus represent all processes in the housing industry. It is interactive.

The app easyquare not only displays the forms and reads them out, but also provides immediate user feedback, for example by checking the data for plausibility and validity. It works as a housing search. It manages tradesman contracts, key and apartment handovers, has a contact function to the administrator and the ability easily to report any defects. The app’s programming logic automatically provides a digital reading service. Even a chat function is possible as part of a customizable communication theme.

These data and processes are at all times synchronized with the SAP system and grow together with it in the digital customer file. Easysquare is a white label app that can be easily and quickly adapted to the CI of various housing companies.

Screenshot of the Easysquare app

The challenge

Probably the biggest challenge for our team was to develop an app with an interface to an SAP system for the first time. The SAP housing industry has its own peculiarities, especially in regard to error handling and server communication.

Even more significant in this project, however, has been the constant focus on abstraction. The app should be able to read all imaginable forms, without a specific definition of concrete use cases. This meant that even early on, our specification required a high degree of precision: we had to find out what can be captured in a text field in order to define conditions and limits accordingly.

How did we proceed?

In order to create the complex, programmable rule sets, we put great emphasis on automatic unit testing in order to ensure the functioning of the app’s individual components at all times. In addition to a simulated server that we inherited from the iOS project, and a database of existing forms, we invented a variety of forms to give a concrete face to the abstract evaluations and instructions.

Of course, cooperation with the customer was important. We had regular exchanges and reviews with the PROMOS team and built the results into their existing environment.

Screenshot of the Easysquare app

Behind the scenes – or: how a chicken inspired us

In order to serve our own forms for the complex rule sets, we took inspiration from the genre of pen and paper role-playing games. The complexity of the various character traits, combined with learned spells and abilities, seemed to us to be a very good testing ground for abstract logic, and meant we could even meaningfully combine testing with game nights. On one of these evenings, the cute feathered animal in the picture came to us, which, as part of the test server, somehow found its way into the repository.

Profile picture of Karl
Uniseminar graphic