What you need to do to keep your applications alive?
The digital landscape is changing all the time, both because of new technology and because of changing consumer expectations. If you want your business to succeed, you have to make sure that all of your digital products are up-to-date and relevant to your target audience. In this article, we’ll explore what application maintenance and support are, and how they can be helpful for your business.
What is application maintenance and support?
After you develop an application and put it through the software development lifecycle, you have to make sure that it continues to survive. This involves not only fixing bugs but also making periodical tweaks to your product to improve its performance. This means that you have to constantly analyse and re-evaluate what you have created. This is the only way to ensure that your application is functioning to the best of its ability. You can think of the elements of application maintenance as follows:
Correction: The work required to troubleshoot and fix errors.
Adaptation: Working to modify the software and keep it relevant with regard to current trends.
Perfection: The work needed to maintain the system so that you can achieve your long-term goals.
Prevention: Working to make sure that no (or minimal) bugs appear in the future.
Why you need to regularly maintain and service your applications?
To fix bugs
This is a no-brainer, but it is one of the most important functions of application maintenance. In order to make sure your system is running smoothly, you have to get rid of all the glitches. The important thing is to do this without disturbing the rest of the system. Maintenance experts will be able to search the code for errors and fix them with minimal to no downtime.
To remove outdated features
You may be tempted to leave in features that aren’t causing any problems, even if they are out of date. This is most definitely a bad idea because they just take up space and hinder your application’s performance. A simple analogy would be cleaning out your house. This is something that you would probably do regularly, to make sure that you do not have any clutter lying around. The same principle applies to your digital products – perform regular maintenance checks on your application to make sure it is squeaky clean.
To enhance capabilities
One way to enhance capabilities is to remove outdated features. However, from time to time, you also need to make changes to your existing functionality. These changes can be to the software, the hardware, or even to how you work. Sometimes, before you make changes to the application itself, you need to change your workflow to make sure that you are giving your product all the attention it needs.
To improve performance and scale up
Enhancing the capabilities of your application will naturally improve its performance. You also want to make sure that you are up to date with new technology and aware of how you can implement it within your application. Over time, as your application and the data associated with it grows, you will have to scale it up. Regular maintenance can help you take into account what you need to do to ensure that your product is scalable.
To tighten security
This is of the utmost importance, especially if you regularly collect user data. Even a small data breach can be the end of your company – not to mention that it can also put your customers at risk. Timely maintenance of your application ensures that your product will be safe from external threats.
To save money
Everything we have mentioned so far leads up to this – it is far cheaper to fix things on a regular basis than to have your entire system collapse and then have to rebuild it from scratch. With timely maintenance, you can increase the lifespan of your application, which will let you capitalise on your investment. You can think of your product as akin to a human body that needs regular check-ups.
To keep your customers happy
Your customers will always expect your product to improve. If you can’t offer them better features and functionality, they will just go to someone else. Regular application maintenance and support will help you improve steadily, and will also help you provide quality service to your customers. This will ensure not only that your customers will stay with you, but also that they will give you good ratings and reviews.
Here are some tips for successful application maintenance and support:
Partner with someone experienced
You might be able to build an application yourself, but maintaining it is a whole different ball game. It is a good idea to outsource your application maintenance to an expert in the field. Make sure you thoroughly understand the scope of the application maintenance services that are being offered to you before you invest in them.
Document your strategy during the development phase
Proper documentation will ensure that everyone is on the same page, and will help you later on. It will make it much easier for whoever is doing your application maintenance in the future.
Prioritise security
Nothing will sink your application faster than a security breach. At every step of the maintenance process, make sure that your application and all of the data involved are secure.
Be flexible
Don’t get stuck on one idea, and be willing to change your application as necessary – based on the market and on your current organisational structure and finances.
Test with your UX
As you experiment, adding and changing features, make sure you test your application from an end-user perspective. You might find some kinks that you cannot see in the code.
Looking for application maintenance services?
iTrobes is an application maintenance and support company that can help you keep your applications up-to-date and secure. With quick turnaround times and bug fixes, you won’t have to worry about a thing.
Contact us today to get started!
