Rapid App Development
Nolan Ramsey
Outdated Technology: When to Build New vs ...

All IT leaders face challenges of outdated technology. Sometimes it’s time to build or buy a new application. But nowadays, it might make more sense to refresh the new old one. I explore those challenges and provide real client examples where I’ve used low code to help in both cases.

Outdated Technology: When to Build New vs Refresh the Old
Rapid App Development
Nolan Ramsey
Does SAP's acquisition of No-Code Developer ...

I share my thoughts on the recent acquisition of AppGyver by SAP and how that does or doesn’t relate to their SOLEX partner, Mendix.

Does SAP's acquisition of No-Code Developer AppGyver hurt their SOLEX partner Siemens Mendix?
Rapid App Development
Nolan Ramsey
Is Rapid App Development essential in the ...

The world is battling a war on two fronts: our health is threatened by COVID-19 and our economies have slowed and even stopped in certain sectors. As an App Developer, does my work really matter in such times?

Is Rapid App Development essential in the current climate?
Rapid App Development
Nolan Ramsey
What makes a Great Rapid App Developer?

After years of delivering, leading, and coaching leaders in Rapid App Development, I give you my perspective on what skills and profile it takes to be a ‘Great’ RAD Maker.

What makes a Great Rapid App Developer?
Mendix
Nolan Ramsey
Extending SAP: Fiori or Mendix Revisited

It’s been 1 year since I first wrote the post, “Extending SAP: Fiori or Mendix?” and a lot has changed. Because of the changes, this older post has gotten a lot of renewed interest so I thought I would take a look at my opinions from a year ago and see if they differ. If you haven’t already, please refer to the original article to have context for this one.

IT should be an expert “SWAT” team with precise skills to tackle the toughest app challenges, not a bottleneck to solving business problems.

Extending SAP: Fiori or Mendix Revisited

Business Intelligence

,

Reporting with Mendix Document Templates - Alternative to the 'Report Pane'

,
Reporting with Mendix Document Templates - Alternative to the 'Report Pane'

There will come a point during your project where the users will start to ask about getting information back out of this new, slick Mendix application that they are all putting data into. As a BI professional, I’m not talking about OLAP models and prediction modeling. OLTP (On-Line Transactional Processing) applications like the ones you build with Mendix are all about data capture and workflow transformation. But every mature application offers its users some ability to report on the information within it. I’m going to describe one method I use for building these reports in this post, so if that interests you read on!

,

Taking a critical eye to those ‘old’ Microflows

,
Taking a critical eye to those ‘old’ Microflows

This entry started as the first in my next series that I planned about reporting with Mendix, but when capturing my screenshots I realized my example was so poorly designed in a working, production application that I needed to address it. While I don’t have the story prioritized to actually do the work to fix it versus competing higher priority issues, I’m going to explain what I did wrong in one of the first processes I ever wrote in Mendix and how I would design it differently had I followed my BI best practices and understood Mendix as well as I do now. Hopefully this comparison will help others who develop in Mendix when trying to optimize their application and look at each step more critically.

Published in the BI Journal

Published in the BI Journal

This week has been quite eventful. I welcomed my new son into the world and got published in TDWI's BI Journal, a quarterly publication of BI experts sharing knowledge and advice about best Business Intelligence practices. It was a lengthy process but I'm very proud of the accomplishment. 

If you are a premium member of The Data Warehouse Institute, you can check it out here. 

What is the value of being right?

This question appears often in research papers focused on the disciplines of psychology and philosophy. They tend to explore the dissonance of interpersonal relationships that is created when one party ‘digs in’ because of their belief in being “right”. Or the research might seek to philosophize what it means to be “right” in the context of correct, accurate, or self-assured. I want to take a few minutes to setup a different paradigm and confine it to the ideals of empowering decision maker’s by handing them tools for analysis.

,

How to build a better analytic engine in Mendix

,

I was recently asked my thoughts on how I would solve a slow reporting and analytic environment within Mendix. The developer described the following scenario:

I have been working on a project that creates a lot of data (millions of records per year) with no issues but I am not so happy about the analysis and reporting side where dealing with the large number of records means I need to summarise/abstract many views in order to get a reasonable response. What I have works but I wonder whether there is a better solution that will provide even more benefits for the client. With this in mind I was looking to get in contact with the person who blogged with a view to discussing/sharing approaches and how to optimise such large data set BI type applications using Mendix.