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A Newsletter for Unisys EAE and Agile Business Suite Clients | October 2018

Enriching the User Experience with Agile Business Suite

By Thangathen Ponnusamy, Global Product Manager – Enterprise Application Environment and Agile Business Suite, Unisys

User experience and user interface (UI) technologies open new doors for engaging your clients, partners, and employees.

All too often, though, connecting with these groups means balancing two important, yet competing, factors. On one hand, business processes – and the enterprise applications that encompass them – have become increasingly complex as they incorporate new initiatives and growing client demands. At the same time, the simplicity and usability of these applications frequently determines how successful they’ll ultimately be.

Users demand aesthetically pleasing, minimalist design. Form and function must be tightly integrated, with only the most necessary, relevant information provided at all times. The UI should meet all pertinent functional requirements while making it easy for users to be productive – without rigorous, time-consuming training. It must be tailored to end users’ unique knowledge, as well as the context
in which they choose to work. And in most cases, it needs to get to market as fast as possible.

With Agile Business Suite (AB Suite®), you have the freedom to utilize a rich set of tools that generates the UI for you, helping you avoid time constraints, reduce your dependence on specialized skills, and get new capabilities to market faster.

Client Tools

With AB Suite Client Tools, a suite of software that provides a variety of UIs for AB Suite applications, you’re able to generate a wide range of end-user interfaces for desktop, web, and mobile devices, as well as service-based applications.

Because Client Tools creates generated solutions that deliver predictable results – along with tested code, stability, performance, and scalability – you’ll get to market faster. And by providing a rich user experience, Client Tools makes applications simpler to learn, easing training requirements for both EAE and AB Suite end users, while increasing their productivity and promoting greater flexibility.

You can use either the standard generators or develop a custom generator with the help of the software’s Customization Kit. With the Customization Kit, you’ll receive guidance for building a generator yourself, or selecting one provided by a third party. No matter which route you choose, you’ll be able to create a UI that utilizes the definitions in your AB Suite model, reflects your requirements, and is built using the technology you prefer. And because Client Tools is common across EAE and AB Suite, modernizing your EAE interfaces – and, ultimately, making the transition to AB Suite – will become much easier because the UI will be the same.

ClearPath Forward ePortal

You can transform existing AB Suite application interfaces using the point-and-click modernization environment offered in the ClearPath Forward® ePortal. With ePortal Developer, you can generate the complete solution and then stage it for deployment, all while you stay focused on what’s most important: optimally presenting the application to your end users. And because automation is used across the entire solution, you’ll get your modernized application to market faster and more cost efficiently – without the need for specialized skills.

Pair these capabilities with the innovative new Unisys Mobile Hybrid Application Build Service, and you can further enrich your applications by combining them with the native capabilities of smart device services, such as GPS, barcode scanning, and photo and video capture.

Client Framework

With the Agile Business Suite Client Framework, you can develop state-of-the-art UIs using your preferred technology. You’ll get total control over the user experience, making it easier to deliver more satisfying results to the individuals who interact with your applications every day. And you’ll be able to separate UI components from the application’s business logic and database. This way, your UI designers can focus on delivering rich user experiences, while your AB Suite developers work to align business logic and interface definitions with the latest requirements.

As a supported part of the AB Suite Runtime for Microsoft® Windows®, the Client Framework enables
you to use the popular Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) technology to create UIs based on the Data Models you generate. In addition, the Client Framework works with such tools as ASP.Net MVC 5, ASP.Net Web API, HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, and JQuery.

Enrich Your Client Experience

AB Suite offers a number of UI technologies you can easily utilize to enrich the user experience and more effectively engage external and internal clients alike. If you’d like to learn more about the capabilities described in this article, or wish to explore them further in a pilot project, we encourage you to contact us at ABSuite@unisys.com.

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