Case Study
Providing an essential UI update for African Standby Capacity
It’s been a fascinating journey for our developers with African Standby Capacity. The organisation came to us in 2017 for an overhaul of their database system. They needed both a framework and a UI update to help improve their data capturing and vetting processes.
Understanding the client’s needs
African Standby Capacity is a rather incredible organisation. Their mission is to bring together skilled civilians who are willing and able to assist developing regions through times of transition across Africa. They go beyond the initial militant process of disarmament and look to deploy experts in a range of fields who can help to rebuild and reintegrate a region that has been torn apart by conflict.
With such an important mission to assist, the Netgen team set to work understanding exactly what the custom software does and needed to do before embarking on a UI update. Netgen had been involved with the original organisation previously, so we already had a good understanding of the needs and requirements.
The first element of the system is allowing individuals to sign up and register their particular skill set. This can be anything from aviation operations to a webmaster – all skills needed to help develop a region into a stable and modern place for people to thrive.
The members of African Standby Capacity then need to be able to vet all applicants on the system with ease. They do comprehensive screening of an individual’s CV and competency in their professed area of expertise. Interviews and training are also conducted.
The final area of the system is for managing training and actual missions. The region managers need to know who they have available, as well as when and where to send them.
Why the UI update was needed
We inherited an established system from a development house based in Germany in 2017. The system had been in operation for some time and was not keeping up with modern users. Technology is constantly advancing and changing, meaning a UI update is a very necessary part of software maintenance – and this is something that we do well at Netgen.
It’s always a challenge to work on software that we didn’t build from the ground up, but when you work with an organisation that is so passionate about what they do, it’s easy to see exactly how to make the UI update sing. The new framework has been operating since 2021 and continues to help the incredible work that African Standby Capacity does.
Inline with the UI update, the software was also updated to ensure that the latest security patches and technology were used and also to ensure that the system could be upgraded and maintained successfully over the contract period.
