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For every great mobile app, there are two stories. There are two sides of a business that must come together–seamlessly–to create one beautiful mobile experience.
Quite simply, there is the story of the technology behind the app. And there is the story of the final experience – the UI layer users experience when they open the app. Neither rules the other, but success is dependent on both working together.
This post will go behind the curtain, at the back-end components that are the foundation of your app.
On the surface, these layers are the natural domain of the IT department, guardians of data, security, and logic. But for the truly engaging mobile app to be created successfully, the decisions made in these early stages are also consequences for the kind of information the user will eventually be able to access and work with, defining the breadth (or limits) of the app experience.
First, let’s take a closer look at the four back-end layers that represent the foundation to every successful mobile app.
It all starts with what you want your app to do. That goal defines the kind of data your app is going to need. For instance, to get the app to do what you want, will it need to work with data from your SAP back end, data from the public cloud, or partner data? Or all three? Does that data have to be accessed and processed in real time? Is there a specific kind of data/media that will be provided or consumed by the app? And last, how will you access data beyond the firewall?
Is the data captured and used by the app relevant or useful to anyone other than the app user? Should it be? How can the app leverage the social networks? Is your business moving toward having a social intranet? Figuring this out now helps you understand the ways your app needs to be built so it’s useful to more than just one user at a time.
This layer establishes the rules the app needs to follow to make information available and useable. This means predicting and defining the expected workflow. Will users need to get approvals in the app (or not) and so forth? What business objects will be relevant for the app (budget records, PDFs, Powerpoint Presentations, movies, etc.)? This layer enables the IT dept to understand what business rules the app will need to follow.
Now that you know what data you’ll use, how it will be shared, and the workflow that you’ll need, you can get a clear picture of how sensitive your security needs to be. IT will then be able to answer questions such as:
The upshot: IT should be aware that if security is too stringent, the app may be too onerous to use. However, information needs to be properly protected.
In tomorrow’s post, we’ll take a look at the critical layers that come next: The almighty front-end.
For a more in depth look at these four layers and more, download the free e-book, The Anatomy of a Mobile App, by clicking the button below.
