Client
Profile
The Customer is an ambitious technology startup headquartered in Munich, Germany. The company represents a globally distributed team of experienced tech industry professionals passionate about solving a specific challenge: to make online team communication more productive by increasing its convenience, speed of work and the level of team focus on things that matter the most.
Our mission
Maintain the balance between Communication and Work, Fun, Life, You. Take less time, grasp what really matters most. We are not about Blah Blah Blah, we are about achieving results.
Challenge
The team at Leverice was looking to build a brand-new team messaging platform based around a truly unique and innovative messaging interface concept. They planned to engineer and deploy deeply-threaded topical navigation which would ensure:
- Multi-dimensional structured messaging that would allow resuming any topical discussion within little to no time, anytime.
- Increased team focus and efficiency compared to more popular team messaging solutions, such as Slack, MS Teams, etc.
Leverice came up with a clear vision and idea for the end product. However, they lacked qualified development resources to implement an MVP first and then further convert it into a full-scale product for the global market. So, one of the primary challenges was to find and engage a reliable development partner with a strong background in Java development — the core programming language chosen for the project.
After an extensive initial evaluation, a decision was made to award the project to GP Solutions.
Solutions
The development phase started in early 2019 and is still active as of 2022. Below are the highlights of key solutions and developments made throughout the project implementation period:
Advanced Platform Architecture
Unlike many other messaging tools on the market, Leverice was built as a platform. The key advantage of this approach is the possibility of creating unlimited apps to extend the platform core. The core was designed to be very compact, with most of the messaging functionality built inside the “Default application”. Whenever a new team workspace is created in Leverice, it represents an activated platform microkernel with the default application deployed inside it.
The platform architecture provides unlimited possibilities for external developers to create any custom apps. There is no need for traditional REST API or JSON. There’s tight integration with the small platform core and almost endless customization possibilities. Architecture of this type, in particular, helped to deploy a set of custom applications with specific functionality designed for specific target audiences, including:
- Software development teams;
- E-learning companies;
- Legal teams and practices;
- Marketing teams — and many more…
Tailor-made communication interface
This is the key focal point of the platform and its primary innovation. GP Solutions engineered a unique communication workflow according to the vision and specifications provided by Leverice. Above all, the flow was built to ensure the following:
“Structure-first” communication
Leverice offers multidimensional messaging and collaboration based on topical discussion. It relies on a multi-level channel structure. Each main communication channel can accommodate multiple sub-channels dedicated to specific discussions or topics. Thus, the platform segments team communication into separate, meaningful blocks which do not interfere with one another.
Focused team collaboration
Studies reveal that whenever a person gets distracted from the main topic while messaging, it takes up to 25 minutes to get back to the topic. In order to eliminate distractions as much as possible, our team implemented intuitive routing functionality. It can move any new discussion into a separate channel in just a few clicks. Besides, every channel is provided with access controls to define which users can be allowed in. These features combined brought distractions from the main topic to a minimum and led to much better team productivity.
iOS / Android and PWA apps
One of the key project goals was to offer Leverice messaging platform to the market in various versions for maximum coverage of the target audience.
First, our team developed a client- and a web version that covered the most popular online browsers. The next step was to offer efficient product versions to mobile users. To achieve this, we designed native iOS and Android applications and provided complete tech support to Leverice for successful submission and approval of the apps to the relevant app stores. In addition, we engineered another platform version in the form of a Progressive Web Application — a modern technology for the installation of cross-platform apps on any smartphone.
Additional custom features
Upon the release of the first market-fit platform version, our team continued to extend it with new features and functions. We managed to implement:
- Multiple deep integrations with 3rd-party solutions, including Zoom, TeamCity, Jira, GitHub, etc.;
- “Guest” feature for quick transfer of any external user to a Leverice workspace;
- Pop-up whiteboards for instant real-time collaboration with selected teammates;
- “Relay” feature is designed to assign tasks to teammates and control how they are fulfilled directly via the messaging interface.
Results
The intense effort on the part of GP Solutions combined with all kinds of support from the Leverice team led to the successful market release of the brand-new messaging platform in 2020.
As of 2022 the platform has been successfully applied by businesses of all sorts and sizes, including software development companies, engineering companies, research groups, travel companies, startup innovation hubs, etc.
The cooperation between Leverice and GP Solutions is still underway, with lots of development scheduled for the coming future.