Organize environment applications in Service Studio
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Implemented
Service Studio
Development Environment 10.0.815.0

Add tools to allow the enhanced organization of application icons in the user's environment in Service Studio. Filter, Sort, View mode (List, thumbnails, ..), ...

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As we get more and more applications in our environments that only arrange alphabetically, it is getting harder to find things. We start naming applications similarly so they sort together which is causing problems.

I would like the ability to create folders to arrange applications, even at minimum if it is just saved locally as a preference for myself.

Merged from 'ServiceStudio: Add ability to create folders to arrange Applications.' (idea created on 2015-11-20 14:31:19 by Cassandra Reeder), on 2016-10-25 08:02:59 by Goncalo Borrega
Some platforms have many applications published, it would be good to be able to organise applications via folders.




Merged from '[ServiceStudio] Add the ability to organise applications via Folder Grouping.' (idea created on 2015-05-08 06:41:01 by Robert Chanphakeo), on 2015-11-26 10:00:52 by Goncalo Borrega

Merged from 'ServiceStudio: Add ability to create folders to arrange Applications.' (idea created on 2015-11-20 14:31:19 by Cassandra Reeder), on 2016-10-25 08:02:59 by Goncalo Borrega
Consider an environment with a lot of applications and some of them are related. It would be easier for the user if it was possible to bundle the applications in user-defined folders/layers... in order to relate them, as a file explorer view.

Merged from 'Group the applications in the applications grid view' (idea created on 2014-11-12 11:40:13 by António Pereira), on 2015-11-26 10:01:19 by Goncalo Borrega

Merged from 'ServiceStudio: Add ability to create folders to arrange Applications.' (idea created on 2015-11-20 14:31:19 by Cassandra Reeder), on 2016-10-25 08:02:59 by Goncalo Borrega
2024-01-12 11-11-18
Alfaro
 
MVP

I've created an application that allows you to create Application Groups, and also check dependencies and consumers between Groups:

Hope this helps.

CA

Hello,

I would love to create folders in the application selection. It makes organizing my applications so much easier!


Merged from 'Creating folders in The application selection (Service studio)' (idea created on 2016-03-15 08:04:51 by Niels Favreau), on 2017-07-11 08:53:11 by Carlos Alfaro
2024-01-12 11-11-18
Alfaro
 
MVP
Hi,

One question, in ServiceStudio or in LifeTime?

CA


Merged from 'Creating folders in The application selection (Service studio)' (idea created on 2016-03-15 08:04:51 by Niels Favreau), on 2017-07-11 08:53:11 by Carlos Alfaro
Service studio! 

Merged from 'Creating folders in The application selection (Service studio)' (idea created on 2016-03-15 08:04:51 by Niels Favreau), on 2017-07-11 08:53:11 by Carlos Alfaro
It would also be nice to be able to create a folder structure in the Actions. Currently it's limited to 1 level.

Merged from 'Creating folders in The application selection (Service studio)' (idea created on 2016-03-15 08:04:51 by Niels Favreau), on 2017-07-11 08:53:11 by Carlos Alfaro

Possibility to create folders in Service Studio to group applications for a cleaner view and easier lookup of an application.



Merged from 'Folders in Service Studio start page' (idea created on 2016-11-08 08:46:18 by Martin den Braven), on 2017-07-11 08:53:41 by Carlos Alfaro

I'd say applications are already a way to group functionality, you have so many apps you need to group them as well? Also, just Service Studio wouldn't cover it, you'd need to have this available in LifeTime as well.

As a last comment, the title is a bit misleading, I thought you were talking about folders like Action folders (which has been posed as an idea many times before).



Merged from 'Folders in Service Studio start page' (idea created on 2016-11-08 08:46:18 by Martin den Braven), on 2017-07-11 08:53:41 by Carlos Alfaro

Hi Kilian,


Yes, applications are a ay to group functionality. But we have multiple applications for multiple customers. So a customer folder would be very easy to group them. And also we have multiple shared items such as connectors for different ERP applications and it would clean up my service studio start page very much!

I've changed the title to be less misleading ;)



Merged from 'Folders in Service Studio start page' (idea created on 2016-11-08 08:46:18 by Martin den Braven), on 2017-07-11 08:53:41 by Carlos Alfaro

Ok, I understand. That would indeed be useful. Liked.



Merged from 'Folders in Service Studio start page' (idea created on 2016-11-08 08:46:18 by Martin den Braven), on 2017-07-11 08:53:41 by Carlos Alfaro
2024-01-12 11-11-18
Alfaro
 
MVP

Hi Martin,

I've created an application that allows you to create Application Groups, and also check dependencies and consumers between Groups:

Hope this helps.

CA



Merged from 'Folders in Service Studio start page' (idea created on 2016-11-08 08:46:18 by Martin den Braven), on 2017-07-11 08:53:41 by Carlos Alfaro

It would be cool to be able to group applications based on architecture similar to Discovery app.  Then maybe the circular references could be included automatically on this screen.



Merged from 'Folders in Service Studio start page' (idea created on 2016-11-08 08:46:18 by Martin den Braven), on 2017-07-11 08:53:41 by Carlos Alfaro

I would personally benefit from a structured applications overview in service studio.

At my work we have a lot of applications that are web, mobile, test applications, plugins, modules, demo, generic applications.

Basically I would like to distinguish the different apllications and categorize them in "folders" (or something equal). I would then be able to structure them  into applications that belong to each other or have a generic nature, etc...



Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:04 by Carlos Alfaro

Agreed!  This is a much needed feature.  The ability to organize into folders would help tremendously.



Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:04 by Carlos Alfaro
2024-01-12 11-11-18
Alfaro
 
MVP

This is an often repeated idea, and rightfully so, specially in scenarios where there are dozens of Applications in an infrastructure.

Util there is a platform-level solution, you can try the simple tool Overview that I developed to arrange Applications into Groups, getting a higher-level view of the infrastructure.

CA



Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:04 by Carlos Alfaro

Hi Roeland,

Great feedback! I would really like to understand better the scope of the problem and I hope you can help.

Can you drill down on why you would benefit from having this structure, what is/are the problem(s) you face today that this would help to solve?

Thank you so much!




Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:04 by Carlos Alfaro

Hi Roeland,

Great feedback! I would really like to understand better the scope of the problem and I hope you can help.

Can you drill down on why you would benefit from having this structure, what is/are the problem(s) you face today that this would help to solve?

Thank you so much!




Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:05 by Carlos Alfaro

The concept of application is already a "folder" - a group of modules. You can freely categorize your modules inside applications.

What I really think the problem is, is that applications are also units of dependency management for lifetime. That means that we tend to make each app more granular to minimize inter-app dependencies, instead of organizing the apps in the logical business structure.

For example, if we have a module for logging, that is used in both a CMS and an ERP, we might create an app just for that specific module. But that module alone doesn't constitute an app. In no other technology you would call that an app - it's just a library. 

We are forced to create apps for technical modules that have no business value, increasing the clutter in the apps list.


There's a very good example of this force in the connectors published by OutSystems itself on forge. If you look at their architecture, all of them depend on something called Connector Services, which is just two extensions - BinaryConcat and JSONUtils. Recently, they even decided to split it further into Binary Concat app and (presumably) a JSONUtils app.


There are a couple alternatives, but all of them screw up lifetime dependency management. You could just include the logging module in CMS, but then you would have the ERP app depending on CMS app, which might not make sense. You could also just have the logging module in a global "libraries" app. That would indeed reduce clutter (all libraries would occupy a single app in the apps list), but it would make every app in your factory dependant on this "libraries" app.



Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:05 by Carlos Alfaro

Hi all,

Thanks for the discussion.

I do not want to overcomplicate things if there isn't a straightforward solution (in combination with lifetime) but I am searching for a way to simplify my work as a Outsystems developer.

I do not fully understand what Leonardo is proposing here. I'm an Outsystems developer for 9 months now so I might be lacking knowledge here. It sounds to be a bit of both that share the same end solution.

On the one hand think about how to organize your applications and decide when to choose a single applications with just one module or on the other hand make sure you structure your plugins and other dependencies under a single application.


I'll try to explain my point of view Andre.

As an Outsystems developer I would like to experiment, try out, learn, reuse with solutions from the Forge to come to a implementation of our own to put to production.

At the moment I'm experimenting with Maps and Geofencing for a Mobile app we are developing. Currently it resides in my personal Outsystems cloud (which obviously could also serve as a solution but isn't something I prefer).


Notice that for this experiment it already takes 15 applications where certain plugins  have 2 or 3 dependencies of their own. Not criticizing this because it only helps me.

But the development environment at my work contains several main production applications that also have their own plugins and generic applications. Besides experiments of other developers.

It all together clutters the "applications in Dev" overview where this could be solved with the option to put applications together in folder.


There might be other solutions to the problem that I do not know of. I'm open for any suggestion.

But if there isn't then this would be my "idea" to the problem.

Cheers,


Roeland



Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:05 by Carlos Alfaro

Thanks Roeland and Leonardo,

Your comments make a lot of sense and really help to understand the problem.



Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:05 by Carlos Alfaro

This indeed is a good one.

There are more people building in the (4 layer) architecture and by this, like Leonardo said, there a more applications created which doesn't make service studio 'cleaner'.

Folders can help organize the applications, but folders are always very personal (everybody has different folder structures). Besides that, it would also clicking more (folder, application, module) before getting to the module. Catagorize would be an option (OS applications (silkUI, Themes etc), library applications (google maps, sortable etc)

There are also other things to keep in mind, this is a problem for people with a lot of rights (example: I can see all application, but colleagues only see the applications there are working in). Another thing is that I don't click the applications anymore, I just use 'ctr o', search the module. It's so much faster.

Kind regards,
Evert



Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:05 by Carlos Alfaro

Also found another simulair idea:

https://www.outsystems.com/ideas/2722/folders-in-service-studio-start-page



Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:05 by Carlos Alfaro

And another one:

https://www.outsystems.com/ideas/2359/creating-folders-in-the-application-selection-service-studio




Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:05 by Carlos Alfaro

The ability to create folders is a requirement that makes sense.

And to the extent of my knowledge of the system's metadata structure, it us really easy to implement without having to change anything in the entities that already exist, as the folders would be only an abstract layer, that service studio would use to show the applications.

To those that don't want to use this, the root folder would behave as now, with the applications there like they are now.



Merged from 'Add folder structure in the Service Studio Applications tab to categorize applications' (idea created on 2017-06-01 13:13:29 by Roeland Deichsel), on 2017-07-11 08:54:05 by Carlos Alfaro

When we have many applications in service studio the screen gets very confusing.

As a suggestion we could add some kind of grouping so we can separate the applications.



Merged from ' Grouping applications in Service Studio' (idea created on 2017-07-13 14:55:14 by Formiga), on 2017-07-13 20:56:59 by J.
Greatly facilitate the organization of systems!
thats'it!




Merged from 'Ability to create folders on the screen Application in Development' (idea created on 2016-05-13 22:49:25 by gyndaniel), on 2017-09-13 12:18:20 by Kilian Hekhuis

Don't really understand what you are meaning here?

Some more explaining?

Kind regards,
Evert

Merged from 'Ability to create folders on the screen Application in Development' (idea created on 2016-05-13 22:49:25 by gyndaniel), on 2017-09-13 12:18:20 by Kilian Hekhuis

On a given server, there are to much large screen icons for everything and nothing, and there is no way to influence the display of them.

  • Filters between apps, modules, mobile
  • Smaller icons
  • Search bar
  • etc.....


Merged from 'Clean Applications in Development screen' (idea created on 2017-01-20 10:31:42 by Patrick Baanvinger), on 2018-01-17 16:34:35 by Vasco Pessanha

Hi Patrick,

I'll merge this idea with the following:

https://www.outsystems.com/ideas/2691/organize-environment-applications-in-service-studio


This will bump up the number of likes and merge the comments ;)



Merged from 'Clean Applications in Development screen' (idea created on 2017-01-20 10:31:42 by Patrick Baanvinger), on 2018-01-17 16:34:35 by Vasco Pessanha
Our application environment has gotten quite large (128 applications and growing); this gave me an idea for a small UX improvement to Service Studio.

As a user, I would like the same ability to scale the application icons just like Windows Explorer: small icons, large icons, details, etc... so I can navigate through the list easier. In the details view I would like to see: number of modules, last modified, and who last modified it. Also, a way to see what modules are in an application without navigating into it would also be very nice to have (such as a details popover on hover).

Just a thought, Thanks!


Merged from 'Application Explorer' (idea created on 2016-03-17 16:38:29 by Daniel Cuccia), on 2018-02-02 09:44:26 by Vasco Pessanha

Hi Daniel,

Should I merge this idea with this one?

https://www.outsystems.com/ideas/2691/organize-environment-applications-in-service-studio

Cheers,



Merged from 'Application Explorer' (idea created on 2016-03-17 16:38:29 by Daniel Cuccia), on 2018-02-02 09:44:26 by Vasco Pessanha

The environment landing page could use capability to structure applications. Reordering, grouping, folders, ...

Anything to improve flexibility in displaying the applications.



Merged from 'Grouping in landing page' (idea created on 2018-02-01 13:41:52 by joris van regemortel), on 2018-02-02 09:46:07 by Vasco Pessanha

Hi Joris,

There is already an idea around organizing the Application List inside Service Studio.

I'll merge these two ideas so that it will bump up the number of likes ;)

Cheers



Merged from 'Grouping in landing page' (idea created on 2018-02-01 13:41:52 by joris van regemortel), on 2018-02-02 09:46:07 by Vasco Pessanha

In a companies where there are many applications, it is difficult to find what you want.

With the filter it becomes easier to do research.




Merged from 'Filter in application list' (idea created on 2016-12-12 10:30:12 by Luís Teixeira), on 2018-02-02 09:47:08 by Vasco Pessanha

Hi Luís, 

Can you elaborate on what do you mean with this idea?

I was trying to understand it and I can found application search in IDE (2 places) and in Service Center.

Service Center: 

Service Studio 1:

Service Studio 2 (open from environment):

Let me know more on this, please.

Cheers



Merged from 'Filter in application list' (idea created on 2016-12-12 10:30:12 by Luís Teixeira), on 2018-02-02 09:47:08 by Vasco Pessanha

Hi Nuno,

I had not noticed the top search, but the main idea was to make this interface like lifetime.

In lifetime when you deploy apps, you don´t see all  apps, just your.

If in service studio you have by default just our apps with possibility to change to see all, it is more ease to see and manager your apps.

In my companies we have a lot apps It's very complicated to find your all apps.

I did understand?

Thanks

LT

 






Merged from 'Filter in application list' (idea created on 2016-12-12 10:30:12 by Luís Teixeira), on 2018-02-02 09:47:08 by Vasco Pessanha

Hi Luis,

As Nuno said, Service Studio already has some search capabilities to search/filter your apps in the Application List although this could be more visible and easy to use.

There is another community idea that aggregates some improvements like adding search, recent, and different views for the Application List:
https://www.outsystems.com/ideas/2691/organize-environment-applications-in-service-studio

I'll merge this idea with that one (also adding the comments and votes), ok?

Cheers



Merged from 'Filter in application list' (idea created on 2016-12-12 10:30:12 by Luís Teixeira), on 2018-02-02 09:47:08 by Vasco Pessanha

Concerning the 4 layer model one creates more apps for 1 app (Like the core etc). This creates more apps in the application overview. If you could bundle the apps in a folder this could create more overview. 



Merged from 'Create folders in application overview' (idea created on 2018-02-05 09:48:07 by Martijn de Pijper), on 2018-02-07 19:22:41 by J.

It would be great if there was an option to create folders to store apps. This to get a structured overview. Now the apps are on one screen and could be time consuming to find the correct app when this screen is full of apps. 



Merged from 'Folders in Applications Overview - Service Studio' (idea created on 2018-02-07 15:58:12 by Martijn de Pijper), on 2018-02-09 11:44:49 by Vasco Pessanha

Good idea!

Moreover, we should be able to organize our apps and/or folders with apps according to the 4-layer architecture.



Merged from 'Folders in Applications Overview - Service Studio' (idea created on 2018-02-07 15:58:12 by Martijn de Pijper), on 2018-02-09 11:44:49 by Vasco Pessanha

That is totally right!  That is indeed the main reason why there are so many apps on the overview page. 



Merged from 'Folders in Applications Overview - Service Studio' (idea created on 2018-02-07 15:58:12 by Martijn de Pijper), on 2018-02-09 11:44:49 by Vasco Pessanha
Currently all applications are sorted from A-Z, I'd like to prioritize applications in the environment through drag-and-drop functionality. 

Possibly even separate applications downloaded from the Forge versus ones personally created. 


Merged from 'Ability to sort or re-order applications in environment' (idea created on 2016-04-10 03:34:08 by Victoria), on 2018-02-09 11:47:08 by Vasco Pessanha
It would be great if you can also create folders to move them in.

Outsystems should still see those eSpaces as "normal" so you can still update components from the Forge.


Merged from 'Ability to sort or re-order applications in environment' (idea created on 2016-04-10 03:34:08 by Victoria), on 2018-02-09 11:47:08 by Vasco Pessanha

It could be very helpfull if in the development studio, the user could create folders (like the Independent modules "folder") where we could organize our work. 


With the time start to become very crowded with modules!!



Merged from 'Applications in development folders' (idea created on 2017-12-05 10:10:55 by Alberto Ferreira), on 2018-02-09 11:49:19 by Vasco Pessanha
2017-12-13 08-27-28
Joey Moree
Champion

Wouldn't it be easier to have some sort of solution explorer on the left (or right) side of the screen so you can easily locate and open other eSpaces without having to navigate through the main window?



Merged from 'Applications in development folders' (idea created on 2017-12-05 10:10:55 by Alberto Ferreira), on 2018-02-09 11:49:19 by Vasco Pessanha
2021-07-22 16-16-55
Edgar Ramos
Champion

Hi there,

It would be nice to have our own view of the applications in Service Studio. Also, do folders, bookmarks, etc.

Regards,

Edgar Ramos



Merged from 'Organize Apps in Service Studio' (idea created on 2018-02-16 09:26:53 by Edgar Ramos), on 2018-02-16 10:06:59 by Carlos Alfaro

On Service Studio we should be able to choose a different view of the applications, we should be able to list them and search for the app we are looking for, something like this:

Current layout: 

New layout:

Sometimes is really hard to find an app that's right in front of us, personally, having this list view it would be faster to get to the app I'm looking for.



Merged from 'Applications List on Service Studio' (idea created on 2018-03-09 17:52:48 by João Martins), on 2018-03-12 17:55:51 by Rodrigo Coutinho
2016-09-22 09-45-28
Vasco Mota

Hi João,

How different would it be from this other idea: https://www.outsystems.com/ideas/2691/organize-environment-applications-in-service-studio?

I believe there are many different solutions to address this problem.

Also, do you know you can use the search on the top right corner to find an app by its name?


Cheers

Vasco



Merged from 'Applications List on Service Studio' (idea created on 2018-03-09 17:52:48 by João Martins), on 2018-03-12 17:55:51 by Rodrigo Coutinho

Hello Vasco, 

To be honest, I didn't know that, thank you for pointing it out! :) my life just got a little easier!
On what regards to the idea itself, indeed it should be similar to this idea, I believe the goal is the same.

Cheers,

João

We have a similar issue here. With the growing number of projects and teams, we have also started to use prefixes to "manually organize" the Applications List.

We hope that this will become a built-in feature we can use within Service Studio, or customize the Application List page to a plugin application.

Merged from 'Option to Change Service Studio Dashboard View' (idea created on 2018-03-23 15:17:44 by Doug_inVA), on 2018-03-23 15:21:50 by Vasco Pessanha
Merged from 'Service Studio: Add Folders to Application Listing' (idea created on 2018-04-03 13:59:05 by Craig St. Jean), on 2018-04-03 15:09:23 by Vasco Pessanha
Changed the status to
Implemented
on 07 May 2018

Hi guys,

We have been working on the Application List for the past months and evaluating all your feedback. This idea (and discussion) is actually composed by an infinite number of different feature suggestions: different sortings, quick filtering, app groups, toggle between web and mobile apps, include plugins or not, including system apps or not, list vs grid views, smaller icons, etc..

After gathering more feedback, and interviewing some of you, we noticed that the main reported issue was related to the time it took you to find the application you wanted to edit, especially in large factories.

Because of this, we decided to improve and optimize this use case.

From now on, in your Application List, you can:

  • Quickly filter your apps (you’ll love this performance :D) 

  • Quickly jump to the modules you were recently working on

  • Smaller icons so that you can scan more applications in your real estate

We will mark this idea as implemented and we will iterate based on more feedback.

For the ones that referred that it would be great to adapt this page to fit our 4 Layer Canvas, this will be followed in a different community idea: https://www.outsystems.com/ideas/4741/

Thanks a lot for your feedback and, as usual, a personal thanks in our release notes to Tiago, the idea creator.

This new look & feel and usability of the environment tab is Spot On!

Great work!


Thanks a lot José!

Glad you liked it :)


You still can Caio, just use CTRL+O,  or press "Search modules" on the left hand side of the home screen!

Folders will still be helpful.  We have a lot of applications still and remembering the name isn't always possible.

There's this Idea for another take on this. It seems better organizing is still wanted.

Exactly what I meant in this idea

Yes, unfortunately it's set to "Implemented", but we can always upvote the other one :).

Grouping apps in folders will be so much good for us, currently the apps looks unorganized and it's difficult to have a clear picture of the related apps, please add grouping in folders feature.

Hi Redha,

Please vote for this Idea.

@Kilian Hekhuis , I just voted on the page you sent. I completely agree with this idea! 

Thank you! :)

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