Web Application Development for Bosch.IO Help Connect Service

Business Challenge 

The product area Connected Life at Bosch.IO was looking for a partner with profound expertise in web application development to delegate the implementation of the frontend of their Help Connect service application. Whether eBike, motorcycle, car, or smart home – in an emergency, sensors in products of Bosch.IO partners could automatically detect accidents and emergencies and call for help. Help Connect then organized fast help around the clock in different situations – even when end-users can no longer do it themselves. With Help Connect, end-users could have a professional Bosch emergency call service at their side, which can directly inform the local rescue services.  

The client chose Tietoevry Create Ukraine (formerly Infopulse) among other service providers in a competitive bidding process to develop the application for a number of reasons: 

• We have already successfully completed other projects for Bosch and had many positive references from other Bosch divisions.  
• We demonstrated top technical expertise and high professionalism in effort estimation.  
• In addition, our company demonstrated the ability to ramp up an engineering team in just a week and quickly embark on the project.  

Since the goal was to develop the application from scratch, initially we were to run the Requirements Phase onsite together with the client and fix the scope for the MVP development. However, the start of the project coincided with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced our team to interrupt onsite work on the client’s requirements and the MVP scope and return home sooner than expected. Together with the Connected Life team from Bosch.IO, we adapted our collaboration methods to fit in with the new remote work reality.  

The main business challenge was to develop the solution on a short timeline, collaborating in a large ecosystem of different teams and stakeholders. Despite the tight deadlines, we had to ensure the high quality of the product – a life-critical service that should be free from defects or failures.  

Solution  

The high level of maturity of our client, well-written requirements, and our dedication to the project were instrumental to the successful development and implementation of the client-side of the web application.  

We relied on a hybrid agile methodology to ensure faster software delivery speed, better quality, and the flexibility needed to keep up with possible iterations.  

This approach included the following steps: 

• We worked on business requirements that were aligned with mutual expectations and operational mode 
• Studied the initial business needs, added details and acceptance criteria to the features 
• Validated estimates, assumptions, and risks 
• Came up with the risk mitigation plan 
• Fixed the MVP scope.  

After the requirements phase, we switched to scrum-based project management to ensure timely delivery. 

As a result, we successfully developed the customer area where a user could add personal data, emergency contacts (relatives, spouse, children), medical records (allergies, blood type, etc.), and change miscellaneous app settings. All this data would be crucial for the agent of the Bosch Help Connect service ready to help a user in case of an emergency. 

In addition to the user profile, our team also designed and implemented the subscription page of the app with a view of the pricing plans for the customer. 

Technologies

• React.js – light and easy UI library for building user interfaces, highly maintainable and widely used choice for small-to-middle UI applications  
• Redux – for application state management  
• Redux-Saga – Redux middleware for communicating with APIs (backend, environment)  
• Axios – communication with REST APIs  
• Jest – Unit Testing framework  
• React Testing Library – utilities for Unit Testing  

Business Value 

Thanks to our cooperation, the Connected Life team of Bosch.IO received a reliable partner in web application development and access to best practices and approaches in the development process. Our team successfully met the project requirements in the shortest term and built a modern web app with a responsive and easy-to-use frontend for both desktop and mobile browsers. By selecting open-source frameworks and libraries (React.js, Redux, Jest, Axios), we helped our client to decrease development costs. 

The web application became a single contact point for the end-users, allowing them to manage their profiles and get 24/7 access to the Bosch Help Connect service.  

Upon the successful completion of two project phases, the Connected Life team of Bosch.IO has highly evaluated the results and further engaged our experts in the application backend development and testing automation.