Introduction to Architecture Dashboard
Architecture Dashboard (https://architecture.outsystems.com/) is the OutSystems technical debt monitoring tool. It enables IT leaders to visualize complex cross-portfolio architectures and identify problems while also helping developers follow best practices and avoid common pitfalls.
Managing technical debt with Architecture Dashboard
As organizations strive to expedite time-to-market and empower non-professional developers (citizen developers) to create business apps themselves, controlling technical debt naturally becomes a top concern.
With Architecture Dashboard, technical debt can be effectively managed at every stage of the development lifecycle so that when departmental applications evolve to become enterprise-wide solutions, nothing needs to be rewritten.
For architects and development team leaders, it provides an integrated, bird’s eye view of their organization’s technical debt to identify problem areas and prioritize accordingly. Developers can view detailed reports on what best practices are being violated, their impact, and how to fix them.
What Architecture Dashboard analyzes
Architecture Dashboard performs 2 different types of analysis which combine to provide added context and greater relevance in findings: Code Analysis and Runtime Performance Analysis.
Code Analysis
To analyze the produced low-code, Architecture Dashboard runs a set of predefined rules through probes connected with Modules, with the goal of uncovering code patterns in the following categories:
- Performance
- Architecture
- Maintainability
- Security
Check here for the list of patterns currently being analyzed
Architecture auto-classification
Architecture Dashboard is self-sufficient when it comes to analyzing the architecture of the apps in your infrastructure. With the help of an AI engine, Architecture Dashboard analyzes a module's code and its relationships to identify where it fits in the overall architecture.
AI auto-classification allows you to onboard factories into the Architecture Dashboard and classify each module so that it fits into the right architecture layer. Having the right architecture classification is important as it enables all other code analysis.
By default, all new infrastructures added to Architecture Dashboard use AI auto-classification. You also have the option of turning AI auto-classification off, however, this means that for architecture classification, you must have Discovery installed.
Runtime Performance Analysis
Regarding runtime performance analysis, Architecture Dashboard uses the analytics data from LifeTime, which is crossed with the code findings to display the most relevant and urgent cases for improvement, effectively helping address runtime performance issues.
Access to Architecture Dashboard features
The availability or scope of some features of Architecture Dashboard depend on the OutSystems Edition associated with your infrastructure:
- Teams
- The ability to filter the app portfolio and technical debt findings per LifeTime team is available for Standard and Enterprise Editions.
- Debt Time Machine
- The ability to check all the history of technical debt analysis is available for Standard and Enterprise Editions. Basic Editions can access one month of technical debt analysis history.
Infrastructures associated with a Free Edition can't use Architecture Dashboard.
How to access Architecture Dashboard
Before you can start using Architecture Dashboard, your infrastructure and your IT user must be associated with Architecture Dashboard. Learn about the prerequisites and how to set up Architecture Dashboard.
To access Architecture Dashboard, go to https://architecture.outsystems.com/ and login with your OutSystems account.