Keeping in mind the product’s complexity and delivering the features and dashboards more systematically and faster, a configuration-driven UI built for reusability was the most suitable solution to cover overall use cases and development.

This implementation came with its own set of challenges. One is Reusability. If a component is reusable, it will have multiple use cases across the product, and the built component should fit the bill for all of it. Not just that, there is also a need to have flexibility to the extent that the components can be interdependent and still perform and manage heavy data. Ex – A “Filter component” (Read about reducing load time by 20x using a Framework level feature) and a “Table Component” are interdependent on each other’s functionality.

Few key behavior flags could be configured in the backend, and each configuration would impact its behavior. The solution would cater to multiple data sources and return different data types of various sizes. It would be primarily decoupled with other platform features and driven by explicit configurations. Such a solution would be scalable in the future as the data sizes would vary mainly between different types of clients.

The design ensured that the complex logical data processing was done at the server end and not at the front end, making the front end really snappy, even for large datasets. The front end would become more responsive and performant, positively impacting usability and adoption.

Once a technical solution was found, to build consensus, we took ownership to explain the repercussions of this problem growing in the future in all areas of the product. Multiple teams need to be convinced of such a significant architectural upgrade. As product management teams managed the roadmap, convincing them that the architectural change was worth the effort was also necessary. We needed to enroll these non-tech stakeholders in a future-proof technical proposal, which wasn’t easy.

During implementation, given multiple teams required to coordinate, we proposed a preliminary design and got it reviewed, and took inputs from each one of them. Later, we developed a detailed development rollout plan,  communicated it to all stakeholders, and got it approved by them.