CASE STUDY

KenCharts

A startup at the sphere of platforms for trading at share stocks.

Solution

Mobile Development

Industry

Financial Exchanges & Data

Outcome

The main goal of the project was to create an Android version of the existing application for tracking prices of the shares available on iOS. Computools specialists used optimal solutions to achieve their goals and made several improvements that made the application even more effective for the client.

Several key options we solved:

  • Adopted the platform for tracking prices of the shares for Android devices.
  • Added user-interface improvements.
  • Corrected logic of Price indicators.

+ 54%
Throughput, Users
+75%
Average Order
+67%
Increasing Productivity
+ 84%
Increasing Revenue
- 38%
Reducing Costs
29%
Business Process Automation

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The company-client is a startup at the sphere of platforms for trading at share stocks. The client is concentrated on the management and pioneering of innovative trading research tools along with significant platform solutions for fund management. They already had mobile application for tracking prices of the shares at different market stocks for the iOS platform and required to develop the same version for the Android devices. For this purpose they’ve decided to hire a team of professional developers, who could offer modern and reliable solutions for the main task. The developers worked in strong collaboration with in-house IT-department of the company. The goal has been reached successfully even with UI improvements and correcting logic of Price indicators.

Tight schedule

Lack of time for testing and launching the application

Many additional tasks that had to be solved

Some difficulties with improving libraries for the App development

Availability of the sample of the App on other platforms

Availability of all the necessary tools and data

Close collaboration with in-house client’s developers

Quick decision making on various issues

Digital Transformation Communication Framework

Computools
Business Analyst
Team Lead
Project Manager
Linesale
Team Lead
Project Coordinator
Communication

At the very beginning of the collaboration it is important to build a convenient and reliable communication ecosystem, which will provide quick decision making and discussing any work issues. Based on the features of the project and his own experience, the Computool’s Project Manager offered to use Skype and Email for communicating with the Client’s team.For inner communication Skype, Basecamp and Email were chosen. These ways gave the opportunity to stay in touch with all the participants of the project, set tasks and complete them in time. Thanks to well-established communication, the project was completed on time.

Business Process Mapping

01
CONSULTING

Existing iOS version of the KenCharts application with all it’s screens and functionalities: - Online display of current price of the share - Price movements reflected on the candlestick and bar types of the graphics - Set of price indicators, like RSI, MACD, Bollinger, Stochastic etc.

02
DESIGN

- ReactNative has been selected as the technology for the development of the Android version because: - Had supported all the required graphics libraries for drawing required graphics and indicators - Allows easily to port Android version to iOS support platform if any changes/updates are performed for the Android version

03
ENGINEERING

Our team of engineers has developed a road map for the development of the Android version. The Computools’ Project Manager allocated duties to the project participants, and set tasks in Basecamp. Following the offered step-by-step plan our team moved on to work.

Digital Platform & Technology

To build a state-of-the-art platform, we have carefully chosen a set of technologies with exceptional performance and security characteristics. Our chosen technologies were also highly efficient in terms of total cost of ownership and support.

Computools
Team Lead
Project Manager
Computools’s Engineering Team
Linesale
Team Lead
Project Coordinator
Communication
Redux

Redux allows to write applications that behave consistently, run in different environments (client, server, and native), and are easy to test. Redux was used as state management library. It’s a mainstream library that most developers are familiar with and it provides all required functionality.

React Native

React Native has been selected as the technology for the development of the Android version because: Had supported all the required libraries for drawing required graphics and indicators Allows easily to port Android version to iOS support platform if any changes/updates are performed for the Android version compared with the case when the same change should be done for two different platforms separately. Allowed react js based devs to be involved in React Native app development.

MPAndroidChart

For graphics display, MPAndroidChart library was used. It is a powerful Android chart view/graph view library, supporting line- bar- pie- radar- bubble- and candlestick charts as well as scaling, dragging and animations. It provided a high level of customization out of box. MPAndroidChart was forked by our engineers to add more chart types into the Android version and provide Native sync between multiple charts.

System architecture

Specification

The project had no technical specification, all the architecture had been developed on the fly and based on the researches of existing iOS and it’s reverse engineering. Thanks to the availability of the application on the iOS we had a good opportunity to pay close attention to all important functional and nonfunctional requirements, improve and enhance the application.

GoalCreate an Android application according to all the client’s demands. We’ve succeeded to launch KenCharts application with all its screens and functionalities: SignUp/SignIn via email Password restore Online display of current price of the shares Price movements reflected on the Candlestick and Bar types of the graphics Set of price indicators, like RSI, MACD, Bollinger, Stochastic etc. Details of the share with different trend parameters like prices of last deals, the volume of last deal etc Filters by price range, the stock market A search of certain company shares represented at Stock Market Creation of the own list of shares to be tracked

COMPUTOOLS TEAM

To reach the client’s goals and complete the task in time the Computools formed a strong team of developers and experts in all technologies required for this project. Thorough selection of project participants allowed to perform all the tasks at a high-level quality and on time.

Team Lead
Oleg Svet
React native developer
Vitaliy Kononenko
Quality Assurance Engineer
Mariia Boborova
React native developer
Denis Bogatirov
Business Development Manager
Artem Babura
Project Manager
Artem Karpukhin
Business Analyst
Kate Vodolazkina

BACKSTAGE

A productive collaboration between the project participants is a key to success in any difficult situation. A well-organized communication system allows solving various almost immediately. Each type of meetings, face-to-face brainstorming, video or audio-conferences, helps to achieve the main goal of the project.

Feedback
After finishing a large part of the work we conduct team discussions and arrange feedback sessions. Thanks to exchanging opinions and emerging ideas, our developers find truly innovative solutions, improving their personal efficiency and the efficiency of the entire team.
Team Brainstorming
The brainstorming sessions help our engineers to find a really innovative solution. They stimulate creative activity and each participant has an opportunity to offer as many options as possible, including the most fantastic ones. It helps to hit the necessary ideas and solutions.
Dev Meeting
Well-coordinated collaboration at all stages of the coding and testing process increases the pace of the development. This works especially well when our software engineers cooperate closely with their client counterparts.

Internal Communication Flow

One of the main goal of the Compotools team is to finish the project in time and meet all intermediate deadlines with completed tasks and solved issues. To provide quick decision making and solving any difficulties during work on the project developers used Skype. All the necessary information and transitional data were stored and shared through Google Drive. Project Manager used Basecamp to set tasks to team members and to monitor assignments. Jira was also one of the solutions for the same purposes.

Project Management Methodology

In order to succeed in this project, our team has chosen two of the most popular Agile frameworks: Scrum and Kanban, due to its opportunities and features. Scrum splits out complex tasks into small parts and visualizes them on a workflow. The team commits to ship working software at the end of set intervals, called sprints. It is a perfect methodology when we need to ship value to customers on a regular basis. Kanban mostly fits continuous development and delivery, tackling a small number of tasks fluidly and concurrently. The teams use a visual planning tool—the kanban board—that displays each project on a card and moves cards through columns that represent progressive stages of completion. Mixing scrum and kanban technologies we’ve got the opportunity to work on long-term tasks and solve issues that appeared on the fly. This made the development process faster.

PROJECT TIMELINE

1 week
2 weeks
3 months
1
Background
Defining Scope
  • Gathering the project data
  • Examining the App on iOS
2
Strategy
Planning
  • Establishing communication system
  • Developing a roadmap of the project
Teamwork
  • Setting tasks
  • Building a prototype
Testing
  • First series of tests
3
Implementation
Developing
  • Applying chosen solutions to develop the application
  • Discussing the prototype with the client
Testing before launching
  • Series of tests before launching
  • Working on important issues, enhancing some functions
Implementation
  • Launching the App, placing it on the marketplace

Engineering

For code quality, it was decided to use GitHub Pull Requests (PR) flow. The project had “development” and “master” branches. All approved PRs are being merged into “development” where QA can check the app for any bugs or issues. If completed tasks were approved by QA code from development was pushed to master. On a project, we have a Teach Lead which performs code review for each new coming feature. If PR was not approved dev should continue working on fixes until all works as expected and best practices for code style, architecture was applied. At the end of each weak dev team prepare an APK to build for the client to check and leave feedback.

CODE SAMPLE

Scan QR code to find code sample

Or use link below

https://github.com/computools/ReactNative-Code-Example

Implementation On Client’s Side

01 Launch

Based on Google Play standards the Computools team of developers and client’s in-house IT-department have prepared the application to launch and receiving approvements from the marketplace.

02 Transfer

When the application has been approved by the marketplace, we’ve transferred the application and loaded to prepared directories. The application was also tested after transferring to make sure everything works correctly.

03 Education

Our task was to make an Android version of the already existed iOS application. So we didn’t have to teach the client how to deal with the app. However, we’ve explained how to use new functions that were implemented during the development.

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