Best Practices When Designing Configurations

Aptify provides a flexible framework allowing organizations the ability to configure the system to meet their business needs. While configuration changes to the system are common, it is important to stay within certain guidelines to maintain compliance with the software warranty and to prevent any adverse consequences. If the guidelines are not followed, then the product may not perform as designed and the warranty will be null and void.

It is important to understand the difference between a customization and a configuration. Aptify considers a configuration as changing the system in a manner that invokes a process that the system was intended to do, such as adding a wizard to simplify a process. A customization is a change that could potentially hinder an upgrade. An example of a customization is a back-end update to the database that bypasses Aptify's generic entity model for adding, deleting, or modifying database schema. Common system configurations in Aptify include:

• Installing a new plug-in object to an entity or sub-type
• Installing a new report (Crystal Report or Microsoft SQL Server Reporting System (SSRS))
• Adding an index to a field or composite index through the entity tool
• Installing a new pricing object through the Products form
• Creating a new SQL Stored Procedure through the Database Objects Service.

Section 11 of the Aptify Software License, Professional Services and (Optional) Product Maintenance Agreement (Software License Agreement) lists the warranty information with respect to your organization's contract with Aptify and should be referenced for its specific language. This section details the configuration changes that are permitted per the Software License Agreement. Modifications made to components outside the processes detailed in this section will void the software warranty.

The reader of this topic should be familiar with the general and administrative functionality of Aptify as well as the business requirements of their organization. This level of knowledge is required to fully understand the possible impact of any modification with respect to the performance of the product as well as the modification's effect in accomplishing the organization's needs.

This topic includes the following sub-topics:

• Best Practices for Editing Aptify Data
• Best Practices When Modifying Entity Structure
• Best Practices When Configuring Database Objects
• Best Practices When Configuring Object Repository Objects

The flexibility provided by Aptify allows an organization to configure the system to meet its complex business requirements without sacrificing the ability to upgrade to future versions of Aptify. Since such configurations could affect the system performance and functionality, it is important to have guidelines regarding the types of modifications allowed. This topic details allowable configuration changes that can be made to the system while staying in compliance with Aptify's Software Licensing Agreement. Any modification made to components outside the scope of this section voids the software warranty as described in Section 11 of the Software License, Professional Services and (Optional) Product Maintenance Agreement included in the organization's contract with Aptify. If new objects are created, the recommended naming conventions outlined in these sub-topics should be followed to assist in understanding the functionality of the object.

By following the guidelines set forth in this topic, the client should be able to create new objects to meet their business requirements, ensure the ability to easily upgrade to future versions of Aptify without rewriting configurations, and maintain the validity of the software warranty.