Dynamic User Interface
In today’s world of ever increasing change, especially where the rate of change as well as its magnitude is also increasing, there is a need for very rapid application development. Rapid Application Development (RAD) where systems are developed very quickly and Joint Application Development (JAD) where systems are developed with end user involvement are nothing new, however Corporate Modelling is taking these approaches to a new level.

By employing advanced modelling and application generation techniques we can provide environments where the business team and business analysts can deliver their own robust, scalable and effective solutions with minimal input from traditional development teams. These applications can then go through testing and technical screening before being deployed and both initial and changes to solutions deployed in days rather than the weeks or months of a traditional approach.

One sticking point in end-user development has usually been that of getting data into and out of the applications, the user interface. Normal approaches to solving this problem include storyboarding the user interface, defining use cases for the user interface or creating mock ups. Corporate Modelling however has taken this one step further by modelling the user interface in our modelling tools and then allowing this to be executed from the definition.

Dynamic Screen Design
User Interfaces come in many shapes and sizes and potentially they should not. Common approaches are custom written screens, where complex interactions and interfaces are all delivered for the end user, web based solutions, which have two flavours a portal based approach where the screen can be defined by the end user and a solution usually designed by a graphic artist or user interface guru.

At Corporate Modelling we believe that the majority of the user interfaces required for processing solutions can be defined using a framework with common properties in conjunction with screens dynamically created either client server or web based and thus we get the best of both worlds. Using a custom framework or user interface control set the business users can get access to third party systems such as Word, Outlook or Business Objects but by using dynamic screens then the data entry and modification can be developed very quickly by business analysts or developers.

What is a dynamic screen?
Dynamic screens are those that are created on the fly not ahead of time. The screen content and functionality is stored in a screen definition such as a database or XML file and these are then interpreted by a run time component which renders the screens and delivers the appropriate behaviours.

Why is the advantageous?
By taking this approach all one has to do to add new or change existing screens is to edit the database and instantly the new features are available to everyone: there are no complex deployment issues to deal with just a simple database change.

When is it not advantageous?
When the business users require some complex features such as real time price feeds then the dynamic user interface is not usually aware of these. There are then two approaches namely to add this functionality into the DUI or to add this functionality into the framework or runtime component used to create the business users desktop. Both of these solutions are available using our approach.

The main business benefits from dynamic user interfaces are those dealing with development time and deployment time. Often in a rapid application environment it is hard for the end users to document what they require in their user interfaces until they have had hands on experience of them. By allowing them to have new screens within minutes and to keep up with the rate of change of the underlying processes and databases within hours then the whole development and change lifecycle shortens considerably, instead of weeks for a change to come through the development process these can be achieved within days or hours.

By deploying a template driven user interface with a known set of functions and navigation controls then the company can save from debates on the user interface topology or control features. All user interfaces will look and behave in a similar manner regardless of the process or country where the solution is deployed.