I’ve been complaining about the speed issue over and over, yet
the improvement is still a little far from satisfaction even though TimeTec
Cloud development team has poured vigorous efforts in tackling the problem.
And, I suddenly saw the light when I tried out one of TimeTec
Cloud newly launched features. I immediately called the head of development
team to discuss my idea and the existing blind spot.
“Yes, it’s achievable, but don’t you think the real-time
function is more important as a cloud application?” R&D Head replied.
“But user profile or configuration won’t be updated too regularly.”
I said.
“If they do?” Ha! What a typical response from an R&D
team!
“Then that’s something extraordinary, our priority should
set on the majority first.”
At the end, we came into a conclusion that only the present
day’s attendance records require real time, and the system should automatically
perform data retrieval from the server every time upon request; but for the
rest, once downloaded, the information should be kept on the cache memory on
local CPU for recurring use until the user logs out.
Technical problem solving does not only depend on how
advanced one possesses the technology know-how, but it’s rather more often resort
to rational thought based on the user experience. Like in our case, speed
versus real-time, we asked the same question for all the features, and we were
surprised to reverse our initial priority for most of the answers.
Sometimes, you may not have to be a technician to solve a technical
issue. The same goes to R&D; a non-programmer with the logical dissection
can unravel some entangled codes. Problem solving always requires different mix
of professionals. Especially when we aim to develop a system that can meet world-class
standard; besides technology, we have to be more holistic. One way to achieve
this goal is to channel more expertise from different fields into the same
development. Therefore, we have people from different departments getting involved
in research and development ‘assisting’
software engineers.
And, this mix is not an ad-hoc task in FingerTec; we have adopted
it as part of the routine duty in our business operations.
Hence our Big Data analytics to improve user experience
continues….
