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WSO2 – A Boosting Platform for Digital Transformation

WSO2 – A Boosting Platform for Digital Transformation

by Frederico Felisberto
2018-12-03
3 min

Nowadays, the Information Technology industry implements and uses models such as ITIL, COBIT, ISO, CMMI and digital platforms from WSO2, Red Hat, Oracle, IBM, TIBCO and others to improve their competitiveness. Different studies in enterprise architecture have shown that aligning internal processes with these digitally-driven strategies is one of the business strategies to be achieved by enterprises as well as being a guarantee of the quality of services delivered to their customers.

With current demand, organisations which deliver technology and are not yet digitally transformed or digitally mastered are in some way forced to adopt new strategies, such as the integration of existing or new services, adoption of new technologies, empowering their employees by investing in leadership and many others. Bearing in mind all these aspects, we intend to demonstrate how WSO2 can be used to accelerate the digitalisation process and in which strategic sectors it can be applied.

What is WSO2?

WSO2 is an open source platform focused on providing services oriented to architecture solutions. The details of WSO2 are not part of the main goal of this work, so let’s refer to some important links that include the main functionalities of the platform as illustrated in the image below.

WSO2

The WSO2 product offering is the following:

Enterprise Integration

WSO2 Enterprise Integrator

API Management

WSO2 API Manager

Identity & Access Management

WSO2 Identity Server

Analytics & Stream Processing

WSO2 Stream Processor

Digital Transformation

We see technology playing an increasingly important role in organisations and through social media. Gadgets and Big Data are among many examples of technologies which are having a very large impact on how organisations work. Currently, organisations cannot just stand by and continue to invest in machines as they once did. It is necessary to change the paradigm.

Nowadays, mobility is an example of disruptive innovation. For instance, a car manufacturer cannot simply wait comfortably for business to prosper just because its new top selling car has a bigger touchscreen, WiFi or access to the internet. Evolution and innovation – the self-driving car, in this example – can create disruption in the sector and steal business from predominantly reactive competition.

So what exactly is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is defined as the inclusion of digital technology into all areas of a business, as well as how it operates and delivers value to its customers.

There are four well-categorised quadrants in digital transformation: beginners, fashionistas, conservatives and digital masters. These quadrants position companies based on two investment dimensions: technology investments and leadership investments. In this way, we can look at technology in terms of opportunity (disruption factor), where startups are well positioned and have a high probability to destroy large enterprises.

WSO2

Therefore, we have:

Beginners – refers to enterprises that do not invest in technology or in leadership;

Fashionistas – these enterprises invest much in leadership and not in technology;

Conservatives – these enterprises want to do the digital transformation without investing much in leadership;

Digital masters – those who invest in both technology and leadership and really adopt a profound digital transformation.

Adopting WSO2 for Digital Transformation

To illustrate how enterprises can take advantage of this, we will use an example from the banking sector that has configured a disruptive and innovative solution in recent years: the digital bank.

Digital Banking

The concept of the digital bank is very broad, but to explain it we’ll need to define another important concept which will help to understand more easily what a digital bank is: open banking. Open banking is a term used to define banks that expose their services by open APIs, i.e. APIs that are available for third parties’ use for the purposes of transparency, business optimisation and auditing/legal requirements.

Like other business sectors, the banking sector is forced to improve service quality and compliance adherence in order to align the business with market trends and keep at the front of the battle. PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2) is a European directive that changes the way customers relate to banks and make payments. The picture below illustrates how the current scenario is shifting to an open banking solution with the introduction of PSD2, by allowing a TPP (Third Party Provider) to access customers’ account information and initiate payment transactions on behalf of and with the consent of the customer.

WSO2

WSO2 and PSD2

The implementation of open banking with WSO2 is one of the solutions that accelerates the digitalisation of services in this sector. Depending on the maturity and innovation levels of the business, the following core capabilities should be implemented:

  • API management;
  • Enterprise integration;
  • Identity & access management;
  • Analytics & stream processing.

The adoption of PSD2 is one of the biggest steps taken by the financial industry in terms of the digitalisation of its services. The following images illustrate how an end-to-end transaction should be processed when a customer wants to checkout an item from an e-commerce website using TPPs.

WSO2
Frederico FelisbertoWSO2 – A Boosting Platform for Digital Transformation
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Context Marketing: what is it?

Context Marketing: what is it?

by Ana Lamelas
2018-11-19
3 min

Marketing has an essential role in the building of a consistent and long-lasting relationship between customers and a business or brand. Every day, we talk about how important Digital Marketing is, but what is Context Marketing?

Focused on the relationship between customers and a business (or brand), Context Marketing is nothing more than delivering the right content to the right individual, at the right moment and through the most appropriate channel, based on previous behaviours (interactions) and needs.

Considering these aspects, we may say that Context Marketing works like an evolution of Content Marketing, since the latter’s mission is to bring that content to the right person, at the right moment.

Basically, Context Marketing is a new approach in Digital Marketing which needs, in order to work 100% effectively, a symbiotic relationship between tools such as a blog, social network or SEO optimization. To be able to build a Context Marketing campaign, a business first needs to know its audience, its customers, its target. To know its audience, their first name is not enough. Data such as the industry and business where they work, their area of interest, their preferred content, their country and even through which channel they enjoy content are essential to be able to deliver highly customised content.

In order to know your audience, there are two actions you may want to:

  1. Insert forms on your website (for example, completing the form gives access to premium content; this way you can get information on the leads to which you will effectively be delivering relevant content);
  2. Develop personas based on existing customers in order to attract prospects.

To be able to build an efficient Context Marketing campaign, you should provide:

Adequate content and workflows

Emails sent have to be highly segmented, and approach interesting subjects that can relate to the right person. Workflows will help deliver all this content, since the decision of which content to send is automated.

Smart forms

It is important to make sure that a person who has already completed a form on your website is not asked to complete it again. This way, the conversion rate is improved, and visitors are not annoyed.

Communication at the right moment

Take advantage of time periods, trends and hottest topics to communicate relevant content at the right moment.

Content optimisation

Choose the most researched keywords at the given moment and incorporate them in your content. An invisible website will never be discovered.

We know that, in marketing, “content is king”. However, the fact is that context is, right now, the jewel in the crown.

Sitecore: the tool for omnichannel marketing

“Real-time is the only time that counts” is a Sitecore statement. According to data from Microsoft Corporation, our max attention span period has fallen from 12 seconds (in 2000) to just 8. This means that, to always be ahead of the competition and for a brand to keep being relevant, it has to deliver the right content, to the right person, at the right moment.

The number of existing devices, the amount of current information and the growing needs of individuals transform today’s customers into extremely demanding people. It is necessary to include a Context Marketing strategy to keep customers interested in the business or brand, by building a relationship based on interactions between the two parties. One interaction builds the next, and so on.

Sitecore is a very comprehensive marketing tool, since it reconciles a Content Management System (CMS) and omnichannel Marketing Automation, allowing businesses to manage all their content on their website and social networks, and to reach customers when and where necessary.

Moreover, Sitecore also has Context Intelligence systems, which allow gathering important data such as behavioural patterns about customers, therefore providing important insights to define future strategies.

Ana LamelasContext Marketing: what is it?
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Web Summit 2018: an overview of the most technological week of the year

Web Summit 2018: an overview of the most technological week of the year

by Ana Lamelas
2018-11-19
3 min

The 10th edition of Web Summit – “The best technology conference”, according to Forbes – has ended and, as promised by the organising committee, it was the biggest edition ever!

Lisbon was, for the third year in a row, the main stage for the exhibition of the most innovative start-ups, most inspiring lecturers and some of the best worldwide companies acting in the fields of technology, sports, fashion or even social media. In total, it was 3 days completely focused on nowadays’ most divisive issues, but also on the hottest trends for the future: this is the overview of the most technological week of the year!

Web Summit in numbers

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Countries

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Lecturers

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Investors

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Visitors

For Xpand IT, participating in Web Summit 2008 was a success not only for the networking with partners and current customers, but also for the doors that have been opened to new projects. Most of the success we achieved was also a result of the presentation of the Sentiment Meter, an app developed by Xpand IT, based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically, Azure Cognitive Services of Microsoft. Its aim is to show the relatively simple way the role an AI can have in everyone’s daily lives. In this case, the gamification component helped achieving this success, since whoever were able to perform the raffled emotion with a facial expression, would win a prize.

More than 800 participants tried their luck at the Sentiment Meter, and, on the course of the three days, there was always a line to try the game! Even the media present showed interest in this Artificial Intelligence solution. We had a visitor from the magazine Visão, and even from Lourenço Medeiros, from Sic! Here are some pictures:

Web Summit

Main topics

One of the main topics that marked  Web Summit 2008 was, without a doubt, Artificial Intelligence (and machine learning). AI was present in talks and in the dynamics presented on stands from various companies. For example, Google brought a solution based on facial recognition, that would match the faces from people in pictures and a painter, or a figure in an old painting. On the other hand, Microsoft, using their cognitive services and also based on pictures, would match our faces with the face of a celebrity.

However, Artificial Intelligence goes way beyond entertainment. According to Brad Smith, President of Microsoft Corporation, it can actually help cure diseases, such as cancer, in the upcoming decade. This thought seems to be shared by Young Sohn, President of Samsung, who states that AI can have a very positive role in society and life, therefore being possible to be applied to fundamental areas such as Biology and Medicine.

Sustainability was also one of the main subjects talked about throughout this week, where the policy on zero plastics was thoroughly followed and accomplished by the organization. Reusable metal bottles were distributed amongst participants – an offer from Mirpuri Foundation – and plastic cups were replaced by paper cups. In various talks, the need to create a better and more sustainable world was supported, even in technology. Apple, for example, promised to cut down on aluminium when manufacturing its products.

And if technology is the main focus of this world conference, web safety starts to be a point of honour, transversal to all sectors. Tim Berners-Lee, considered to be the father of the internet and current director of the World Wide Web Foundation – an international association that promotes safety on the web – came up with the idea of creating a Magna Carta for the World Wide Web. This idea fell right into place with Garry Kasparov, ambassador for Avast safety, that said that technology “needs to start being in accordance with Human rights”. This is evidence that the subject on data protection and online privacy is trendy, or the most offered goodies by the companies would not have been webcam covers for laptops.

Long story short, this was definitely one of the most interesting editions of Web Summit so far, not only because of the topics covered, but also because the event is going to be staying in Lisbon for the next 10 years and promises to get bigger and bigger! This is an excellent opportunity to present new ideas and projects, just like it happened with Sentiment Meter. We are looking forward for taking the next steps.

Here are some of the pictures from this week!

Web Summit
Ana LamelasWeb Summit 2018: an overview of the most technological week of the year
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5 reasons to visit Xpand IT’s stand at Web Summit

5 reasons to visit Xpand IT’s stand at Web Summit

by Ana Lamelas
2018-11-02
3 min

Web Summit is back to Lisbon from the 5th and 8th of November! As one of the biggest worldwide summits on technology, the number of participants, lecturers and partners increases every year. In 2018, the organizers are waiting for over 70 thousand participants and they promise this one will be the “biggest and better” edition ever.

For the third year in a row, Xpand IT will be present as an exhibition booth. The goal is to reinforce its position as an IT leading company not only in Portugal, but also in the United Kingdom, highlighting its competences and specializing in Nearshore services. Similar to last year, Xpand IT will be on Pavilion 1, stand E144. However, if you are asking yourself why you should pass by our stand at Web Summit, we give you 5 good reasons to convince you:

1. Xpand IT’s new AI Solutions Center

The subject of Artificial Intelligence is, in fact, the center of our priorities to countless companies and organizations throughout the world. And, for Xpand IT, it could not go any different. Therefore, we launched an Artificial Intelligence center that seeks to work in proximity with the customers, in order to create truly useful solutions for the users. Come meet us, talk to our experts and get to know everything about the new AI Solutions Center and about the solutions that can be implemented in your company. If you got curious, we suggest you jump to point 5.

2. The best job opportunities

In order to deliver the best projects, we need the best experts. If it was already on your plans to take advantage of the networking that Web Summit provides to find new job opportunities, Xpand IT stand is the right place. Here, you can talk to our recruitment team and know which offer better applies to what you are looking for. We are waiting for you!

3. Our Success Cases

If, on the other hand, you are at Web Summit searching for the right partner to begin a project in your organization, you can also visit us. In our booth, you can find the answers and advice you are looking for through networking with one of our experts. Xpand IT has countless examples of success cases from leading companies, national or international, and you can get to know them better by coming to our stand E144.

4. Our team

Besides being highly specialized in all technologies we work with, we are also very nice. Come visit us to talk about possible projects, ask technical questions, clarify any doubt about our business areas or just to say hi and win one of our prizes!

5. Sentiment Meter

Last but certainly not least (quite the contrary)! If you came here directly from no. 1, we assure you that you will not be disappointed. If you got to this point by the natural flow of the article, welcome.

Sentiment Meter will be the main focus on our stand and it is one of the simple examples of how Artificial Intelligence can be implemented in many different solutions.

Sentiment Meter is a game in which an emotion is taken at random and the participants only have to make that same emotion, using facial expressions. According to their effort, each player gets a score and the player wins the correspondent prize.

We do not know how you feel about acting, but the only assurance we can give you is that you will always win!

For more information on Microsoft’s Cognitive Services and on Sentiment Analysis, check out this blog post.

Ana Lamelas5 reasons to visit Xpand IT’s stand at Web Summit
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Microsoft Cognitive Services: the potential of the main APIs

Microsoft Cognitive Services: the potential of the main APIs

by Ana Lamelas
2018-10-22
2 min

Microsoft Cognitive Services is a set of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and SDKs (Software Development Kits) which are available in Azure, and that allow developers to create apps that are more intelligent and dynamic, as well as to perform enriching actions for the user’s experience.

Basically, and according to Microsoft, “they are intelligent algorithms that allow their apps, machines and bots to see, listen, talk, understand and perceive users’ needs with natural communication methods”. These algorithms, which develop and enhance their own potential through Machine Learning, use background data which, in turn, is gathered through the use of mobile apps.

So, is it possible to talk about the democratisation of artificial intelligence? Yes. With Microsoft Cognitive Services, developers can implement facial or voice recognition features with just a few lines of code, without the need to develop algorithms from scratch. Therefore, Cognitive Services enable in depth readings and insights for a personalised understanding of the profile, through services such as:

  • Vision: includes image processing algorithms capable of identifying images in an intelligent manner. They can be used for facial recognition in order to work as a security mechanism with Face API, which gives the probability of an image being of a given person and identifies features such as age or sex.

It can also perceive emotions with Emotion API, detecting facial expressions of happiness, sadness, surprise or fear, for example.

  • Voice: converts spoken audio into text (with Bing Speech API) and verifies or recognises the speaker in a given app. With Translator Speech API, the user can have a translation in real time, written or spoken.
  • Knowledge: provides monitoring of information and complex data, in order to perform actions such as intelligent recommendations or semantic research (through Recommendation API or Custom Decision Service).
  • Language: processes natural language, through ready-made scripts and assessing emotions, and learns to identify the user’s needs. The ex-libris of language services is Language Understanding Intelligence Service (LUIS) which, by using intelligent voice recognition, allows the user to develop their own language models and bots to understand commands and perform actions according to what is requested.
  • Search: allows actions such as word suggestions, image or video search and actions that can be performed by APIs like Bing Web Search or Bing Custom Search.

How can Cognitive Services be used in different sectors? 

Retail: cognitive services enable the extraction of detailed insights, which will help understand the needs of your existing customers and attract new ones. For example, you will be able to understand what difficulties your customers have when buying online and address these, support your sellers in presenting the right product to the right customer, or simplify the payment process.

Education: you can find the interests of each student and modernise your teaching style with cognitive services and machine learning, or you can manage suggestions on how to improve the classroom experience.

Insurance: you can give your customers a better experience with mobile apps by using cognitive services such as facial or voice recognition. You can also use them to detect possible fraud.

Finance: they help to customise specific campaigns based on customer features or behaviours, leading to increased sales and ROI.

Health: you can develop a more personalised assistance to your clients with a bot. It can help, for example, with selecting a specialist to schedule an appointment. Another huge potential is the assistance cognitive services will be able to provide to doctors, by conducting a more detailed diagnosis.

Watch a real time demonstration of cognitive services at the 2018 Xamarin Experience event here.

Ana LamelasMicrosoft Cognitive Services: the potential of the main APIs
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Full Life Cycle API Management with WSO2

Full Life Cycle API Management with WSO2

by Vitor Darela
2018-10-10
3 min

The growth and constant evolution of the use of computer systems in all areas of human development, together with the need of companies to integrate with each other, besides offering services to their clients through the Internet, results in the multiplication of open systems, which provide services through communication interfaces. Many companies exist only because of this type of integration interface – the so called APIs (Application Program Interface).

Over the years, several network communication protocols have been created to provide standardized data exchange: RPC, CORBA, DCOM, RMI, WebSocket, SOAP (Web Services) and REST. These last three protocols are the most commonly used protocols since they are based on an open HTTP transport protocol, standardizing and popularizing the exchange of data and services, through public or private APIs. The amount of APIs made available by companies, both internally and externally, can grow exponentially in quantity.

Because of these movements there will be a growing need to document and monitor the creation and use of these APIs.

Key features of API Management

Some of the key features of an API management solution include:

  • Performance and Reliability– must support high throughput with reduced overhead;
  • Lifecycle and Governance– should provide workflows for API development and subscription, API versioning and management/monitoring capabilities;
  • Throttling and Monetization– capable of controlling API traffic and charge for API usage;
  • Engagement– easy to onboard new subscribers, providing a good and well documented test environment;
  • Composition and Orchestration– able to implement specific functionality to an API (e.g. call 2 different APIs and return aggregated result).

The WSO2 API lifecycle

WSO2 API Manager overcomes these challenges with a set of features for creating, publishing, lifecycle management, release, monetization, governance, security, etc.

From designing to building and using an API, there is a process that involves engineering, publishing and administration this process is called the API Lifecycle. The life cycle of an API is something crucial and strategic for an organization. Generally, the definition of the life cycle is defined in Planning and Designing the API, Developing the API, Testing the API, Deploying the API, Retiring the API. WSO2 API Manager has more detailed flows for each cycle, where you can create sub flows within each cycle, for example: In the Retiring the API, before doing the removal there is the blocking flow, where when an API is blocked it is possible to deprecate the API or return to the published state. In this way, each company can define its life cycle, and work internally according to its needs. One of the great differentials of WSO2 API Manager is that you have complete freedom to modify all internal flows and customize according to your needs.

By default the WSO2 API Manager defines this cycle between the components below:

Picture 1 – API life cycle and Architecture
  • API Publisher:Is responsible for creating, monitoring, managing, and publishing the APIs. It is the web interface for API Creators and Publishers.
  • API Portal (Developer Portal):Web interface intended for consumers of APIs, developers etc. In this interface it is possible to explore the existing APIs, test, subscribe and monitor all the APIs that were subscribed by the user.
  • API Gateway:The Gateway is the main component of the API Manager, it receives all API calls and forwards to the backend, before forwarding it, it is necessary to pass this request on to Key Manager and Traffic Management to validate all the policies of security before proceeding.
  • Key Manager: responsible for all authentication and security of the API, takes care of all Token Oauth lifecycle management.
  • Traffic Manager: takes care of every part of Throttling’s policy, thus verifying if the calls belong to some user with limitation of request in that API and if the user has not exhausted his limit of requests.
  • Analytics:Analytics is a real-time analytics engine, which in addition to exposing detailed graphs about the APIs, also takes care of the real-time monitoring part generating several types of alerts such as security incident, abnormal calls to a certain API, etc.

WSO2 API Manager is a very robust and complete API solution, having as a differential its entire graphical implementation interface, which differs a lot from the competitors that have a greater focus on the Gateway, to build a robust gateway and not giving much focus to the other components needed for the API lifecycle such as the Store and the Publisher. WSO2 came out ahead with this product because it was able to meet all aspects of full solution either with a very robust gateway as well as an intuitive interface facilitating deploy and the entire lifecycle. Due to this, in the Gartner quadrant, the WSO2 API Manager is considered as a „Visionary“.

Just to get an idea of the robustness of the product, with a minimum recommended configuration, each node can support up to 3000 TPS (Transactions Per Second).

If you’d like to know more about WSO2 API Manager and its features, go to WSO2 API Manager web site and explore all implementation possibilities.

Vitor DarelaFull Life Cycle API Management with WSO2
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Gamification: Myth vs. Reality

Gamification: Myth vs. Reality

by Nuno Santos
2018-10-10
5 min

First of all, let’s make it clear: no matter what you think Gamification is, it certainly isn’t the silver bullet solution for your problems. If you have a problem in your teams, processes or organisation, you should address it and evaluate the best way to fix it, because applying Gamification to a broken environment won’t solve anything (it will probably make it worse!)

Having said that… what is Gamification then? And how can I better apply it?

This post is not intended to go deep into the definition and concepts of Gamification but rather to provide a better understanding of Gamification by identifying common myths in many people’s visions of it.

The myths

1st myth: Gamification is transforming something into a game

There is a generalised idea that something is gamified when you are playing a game. That is inaccurate. The majority of the time you are playing games, you are not in a gamified environment.

Creating a game is a separate line of study, called Game Design. Game Design focuses on designing a game by creating a plot, the characters, the mechanics, an evolution, game play interaction, etc., and putting those in a confined environment (the game) where the user (player) actively participates, evolves and, hopefully, succeeds. It is more like creating a new challenge a giving the player the tools to face it.

Gamification, even though it shares similar benefits, is addressing real world challenges with what we learn from games. It is the process of applying game elements and game design techniques to non-game contexts, with the objective of engaging and motivating people by making their real world tasks more fun.

At an enterprise level, for example, Gamification can be used to on-board and engage team members, enhance productivity and efficiency, train people, and innovate.

2nd myth: Applying Gamification will make things at least as engaging as they were

Although FUN is one of the simple and clear words that describes the objective of Gamification, it is also a very vague and relative concept. When not applied correctly, game elements and techniques may create the opposite effect of what was intended. That is why sometimes people see far worse results after applying Gamification initiatives to the environment as opposed to not applying any.

Bear in mind that engagement has to do, among other things, with voluntariness and choice. Forcing people to do something negates the effects of a Gamification strategy.

3rd myth: If I understand Game Design, I understand Gamification

If this is your motto, then you’ve been living in a dream world. Although sharing similar elements and techniques, as said earlier, Gamification is far more about the psychology than the actual product. Game Design is more focused on creating the game and all its elements in a way that is appealing and involving to the player, whereas Gamification is especially concerned with affecting human behaviour to achieve a specific outcome. It is intended to provide a long-term and sustainable benefit rather than entertainment per se.

4th myth: Gamification = PBL (points, badges and leaderboards)

If you are not new to Gamification, you probably know that when gamifying, people tend to apply PBL straightforwardly, probably because this is the most common and visible aspect of a gamified environment. Although in many cases PBL are present, the scope of the Gamification initiative goes far beyond these elements. You have to free your mind from vanilla PBL application and start to think about how you can get more out of Gamification.

You should start from the top, by thinking about how you will affect the users with the experience: things like emotions, a narrative, a progression, etc., that support the behaviours that you wish to achieve. Then you can start to consider the mechanics, the processes that drive the user – like challenges, competition/cooperation, feedback, rewards, win states, and many others – so that you create a meaningful experience. And to achieve those, you can use PBL and any other elements (achievements, avatars, collections, levels, virtual goods, etc…) as tools that you have at your disposal to implement your strategy.

5th myth: Gamification doesn’t work

This is a little bit farfetched, but sometimes people don’t believe in Gamification just because of past experiences gone wrong. It’s true that Gamification doesn’t fit all scenarios and, for the ones it does, it should be applied and managed correctly to get the desired outcomes (welcome to the real world!) Always evaluate all possibilities and consider the pros and cons of any Gamification implementation initiative. Don’t be afraid to cast out Gamification when you think it will not benefit your context or it might create significant risks. As discussed at the beginning, this is not a panacea or a certified results procedure. The context must be set up, and the implementation is a journey of adoption and change, so it takes time and care to succeed.

A little bit of the psychology behind Gamification

There is a lot that can be discussed on the psychology and behavioural side of Gamification.

Its core is about understanding people’s behaviour (Behaviorism), by analysing what people do in response to stimulus:

  • By providing feedback, people tend to correct and adjust behaviour accordingly;
  • Creating consequences or giving rewards based on their actions helps to guide them to the intended behaviour;
  • Randomly shooting their dopamine system with something unexpected makes them feel good and more engaged.

Because the Behaviourist approach is limited, Gamification is also going deeper and understanding what people feel and think (Cognitivism), by trying to determine the motivation behind the action. Motivation can be:

  • Extrinsic, when the action is done for the purpose of the reward (e.g. fame, money, etc.), which can demotivate and is not sustainable;
  • Intrinsic, when doing the thing for its own sake, because it is rewarding and enjoyable by itself, thus creating much more engagement.

Pitfalls of Gamification

There are several pitfalls and dangers associated with bad Gamification use.

One of the dangers concerns abusing or manipulating people into having specific behaviours. Remember that Gamification is about freedom of choice, so any military-like enforcement of behaviour will push people away instead of bringing them in.

An additional pitfall is what in Gamification is known as instant gratification. Instant gratification relies on consistently rewarding someone for a simple achievement – like, for example, submitting a suggestion through a form. This devalues the reward and potentially leads people to disregard what is really important (the suggestion) just for the purpose of getting more rewards (with more clicks).

Another bad use of Gamification is when you expose people or set them “playing” against each other. An example of this might be the implementation of leaderboards in an organisation, showing points and/or rating people in “who is better than whom” and “who are the worst performers” reports. This potentially promotes a bad environment between co-workers and can create entropy and demotivation within teams.

Good Gamification examples

The following is a selection of good examples of the application of Gamification that succeeded in achieving their goals and the desired behavioural pattern:

Gamification Description Achievements Why it worked?
Volkswagen’s speed limit enforcement in Stockholm Induce responsible driving behaviour by implementing a lottery between drivers respecting the city speed limits with the money collected from fines of over-speeding drivers. Resulted in 22% average speed reduction. Probably because people didn’t need to speed in the first place. Creating a reward for doing it within the speed limits raised awareness (feedback) and created a new motivation for people to drive by.
StackOverflow’s contribution mechanism Make Stack Overflow ‘the’ relevant reference for asking help and finding answers on specific technology topics (mainly programming). How many times do you end up on Stack Overflow’s website when searching for a specific technology issue resolution? That explains it all. It promotes a sense of community, by rewarding meaningful contributions and giving voice to the entire user community (feedback and revision system).
Duolingo Website and app that eases the process of learning new languages. Made language learning easier and now has more than 68 languages available and 200 million users worldwide. Received several educational and learning technology prizes. It is easy and simple; it provides constant feedback; it gives freedom for you to choose your own pace; it gives options on which area you want to focus next; it rewards you more when you put more pace or effort into it; it gives you lingots (the Duolingo currency) as rewards for you to unlock other challenges and learn more.

Nuno Santos

Enterprise Solutions Manager, Xpand IT

Nuno SantosGamification: Myth vs. Reality
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Machine Learning: autonomous learning

Machine Learning: autonomous learning

by Sílvia Raposo
2018-09-21
3 min

Machine Learning has been developing further every day, thanks to the digital transformation movement. The original basis was a theory that believed computers could learn to perform specific tasks and to recognise patterns. The challenge was simple: to check if computers could learn from data.

Machine Learning provides systems with the possibility to learn and improve from experience, without needing specific programming for that effect. The focus is on developing programs that use available data and can learn on their own. The mathematical models are built and powered with – potentially – large amounts of data. The algorithms learn to identify patterns and to extract insights that are applied when new information is processed. This term dates back to 1959, when the pioneer Arthur Samuel defined Machine Learning as the ability of a computer to learn without being explicitly programmed to do so.

This learning process starts with data processing and trying to identify patterns. The main goal is to allow computers to learn autonomously without the need for human assistance, using that knowledge to make decisions according to what was “learnt”. Even though machine learning algorithms have been around for a long time, the application of these mathematical calculations to Big Data, with more frequency is a recent development. However, according to industry reports, what is considered to be an exponential growth in this area today is going to be seen as only “baby steps” in 50 years. This AI field is expected to grow extremely fast in the coming years.

Examples of Machine Learning

The continuing interest in this practice stems from a few key factors that have also made data mining and Bayesian analysis extremely popular: growth in the volume and variety of available data; cheaper and more powerful computational processes; and low cost storage.

A few examples of machine learning applications in some companies include self-driving vehicles; recommendations from online platforms such as Amazon and Netflix based on users’ behaviour; voice recognition systems such as SIRI and Cortana; PayPal’s platform, which is based on machine learning algorithms to fight fraud by analysing large quantities of data from the customer and assessing risks; the model from Uber that uses algorithms to determine time of arrival and departure locations; SPAM detecting mechanisms in email accounts; facial recognition that occurs in platforms such as Facebook.

Industries that are choosing Machine Learning

Most industries with large amounts of data have already acknowledged the potential of this technology. The possibility to extract insights allows companies to obtain a competitive advantage and work more efficiently.

Financial Services

Banks and other financial entities are using machine learning with two goals: extracting valuable insights from customer data and preventing fraud. Insights identify investment opportunities according to customers’ profiles, and, concerning fraud, the identification of high-risk customers and suspect transactions is improved.

Furthermore, this technology can also influence customer satisfaction. By analysing a user’s activity, smart machines can predict, for example, a possible account closure before it happens and prompt mitigating actions.

Health

Health entities can capitalise on the integration between IoT and data analysis to develop better solutions for patients. The emergence of wearables allows acquiring data related to the patients’ health, which, in turn, allows health professionals to detect relevant patterns including risk patterns. Therefore, this technology offers the potential for better diagnosis and treatment.

Retail

Nowadays, the impact of smart machines in users’ retail experience is quite obvious. The result is a highly personalised service that includes recommendations based on purchase history or online activity; improvements in customer service and delivery systems, where machines decipher the meaning of users’ emails and delivery notes, in order to prioritise tasks and ensure customer satisfaction; and dynamic price management by identifying patterns in price fluctuations and allowing to prices to be determined according to the demand. The ability to gather, analyse and use data to personalise, for example, a purchase experience (or implement a marketing campaign) is the future of retail.

Transportation

Analysing data to identify patterns and trends is key to the transportation industry, since profit growth means more efficient routes and the projection of potential problems. Data analysis and the modelling aspects of machine learning are important tools for delivery companies and public transportation, allowing them to improve their income.

Machine learning apps allow companies to automate the analysis and interpretation of business interactions, extracting valuable insights that make personalising products and services, possible.

Xpand IT has a complete service portfolio in Machine Learning. If you want to know how to use Machine Learning in your business and obtain real added value, we can help. Do you want to know how we can help your business? Contacts us here and get the best out of this technology!

Sílvia RaposoMachine Learning: autonomous learning
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Apache Superset Open Source BI: almost the alternative to Tableau

Apache Superset Open Source BI: almost the alternative to Tableau

by Susana Santos
2018-09-17
4 min

What is Apache Superset?

Superset is a modern BI app with a simple interface, feature-rich when it comes to views, that allows the user to create and share dashboards.

This app is simple and doesn’t require programming, and allows the user to explore, filter and organise data. The best part is… it’s Open Source!

What does Apache Superset provide?

What is truly appealing about Apache Superset is the fact that you can explore each dashboard in a complex way. Superset allows you to focus on each graph/metric and easily filter and organise.

Another attractive feature in this app is the SQL/IDE editor with interactive querying.

Concerning security, Superset allows you to define a list of users and a list of default functionalities (associated with the groups of users) and allows you to view user statistics, providing you total control. You can establish baseline permissions, as well as granting access to certain views or menus. The app also provides an action log.

Visually, Superset has a minimalist and well-organised interface. Even though it is not as easy to use as Tableau, Superset can be an alternative to creating dashboards or people with some knowledge of SQL.

Database support

Superset supports most SQL databases by using Python ORM (SQL Alchemy), which allows you to access MySQL, Postgres, Oracle, MS SQL Server, MariaDB, Sybase, Redshift and others (more information here).

Superset also works with Druid (for example, Airbnb uses Superset with Druid 0.8x), but it does not have all the advanced features available.

SQL-LAB

This feature is definitely a plus. SQL-Lab allows you to select a database, schema and table (previously uploaded) and do an interactive query, preview the data and also save the query history (as shown below).

SQL Lab

A semantic layer allows you to define fields and metrics (for example, ratios or anything expressed by SQL):

SQL Lab

Query history:

Query history
Query history

You also have Python modules available (some available macros), inside SQL, via Jinja.

The least positive side of this is the fact that you cannot add or query multiple tables at the same time. The solution is making a view, which works as a logical layer and abstracts the query from SQL, therefore acting as a virtual table. The only negative aspect of this is that there will always be a query running against another view query, thereby potentially resulting in performance issues.

How to create a dashboard

To create a dashboard, Superset works as follows: there are sources, where you can find databases and tables; slices which are sheets with graphs; and, lastly, dashboards which are composed of groups of slices. Each slice is associated with one or more dashboards, and each dashboard has various associated slices.

Apache Superset dashboard

Views have different types of graphs available such as histograms, box plots, heatmaps or line charts.

Apache Superset dashboard

It is simple to edit graphs: the available features for each view are on the left-hand side, and you just have to change them and press “Run Query”.

Although flexible in most areas, Superset imposes some standardisation, which happens with the colour schemas.

Apache Superset dashboard

Each view allows you to filter views through wildcards.

Apache Superset dashboard

Superset also allows you to share the view, export data to .json and .csv, and see the exact query performed behind each view.

Apache Superset dashboard

Security

Superset integrates with the main authentication backends (database, OpenID, LDAP, OAuth, REMOTE_USE, …).

Concerning privileges, as stated above, this app provides default roles such as Admin (full access), Alpha Gamma, Sql_lab and Public.

It is possible to establish permissions for each user, restricting access to a subset of data sources, menus, views, specific metrics and other criteria. Hence, it is relatively easy to define which type of permission and/or access to data is granted to each person.

People using Superset

According to GitHub, Superset is currently being used by Airbnb, Twitter, GfK Data Lab, Yahoo!, Udemy and others.

It is important to note that “Superset was tested in large environments with hundreds of users. The production environment of Airbnb runs with Kubernetes and more than 600 active users who see more than 100 thousand graphs per day”.

Superset Vs Tableau

Tableau

Superset

  • Able to join between tables within the same or different DBs.
  • Unable to query/join multiple tables. Only possible view by view, which means having multiple queries, thereby affecting performance.
  • Detailed customisation of dashboards, with legends, filters, tags, etc.
  • Limited customisation by type of view (however, creation of CSS templates is available).
  • Easy beginner learning and doesn’t require users to know SQL. Since the platform allows more complex and flexible tasks, there is a second learning curve for users who want to make the best use of Tableau.
  • Easy and smooth learning, but requires SQL knowledge from users.
  • Paid
  • Free and Open Source

Superset’s main advantages

Besides all the advantages already stated, one of the main features of Superset is… it’s Open Source Business Intelligence!

Other advantages:

  • Provides BI without needing code (easy to use for those who are not programmers: you only need to know basic SQL);
  • Easy and quick setup;
  • Provides “SQL-Lab” that allows interactive querying;
  • A semantic layer that broadens the dashboard with ratios and other metrics (based on SQL);
  • Easy and attractive interactive view, that allows data exploration;
  • Satisfies the needs of most companies to allow simple data analysis.

Superset’s disadvantages

  • The app still doesn’t support NoSQL databases;
  • Even though the number of users is growing, it still has little or no support;
  • Sometimes, SQL-Lab freezes in queries for large amounts of data;
  • Has a considerable number of other unsolved issues.

Susana Santos

Data Scientist, Xpand IT

Susana SantosApache Superset Open Source BI: almost the alternative to Tableau
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Pledge 1%: Supporting Associação Crescerbem with Jira Software

Pledge 1%: Supporting Associação Crescerbem with Jira Software

by Ana Paneiro
2018-09-10
3 min

Associação Crescerbem is a Private Social Solidarity Institution, founded in 2011, and its main goal is to help families of hospitalised children in economic deprivation. The association started in Dona Estefânia Hospital in Lisbon, where the headquarters still remain nearby. Meanwhile, the support has been extended to Santa Maria Hospital and Beatriz Ângelo Hospital.

The mission of Crescerbem is, specifically, to provide for families in a personalised manner, according to the specific needs of each case and helping them become more independent and autonomous. This way, follow-up does not happen only when a child is hospitalised, but also in the period after the medical discharge.

The association started offering home support and, through that, other needs started to be identified besides medical follow-up; from that point on, countless parallel projects came to life, such as the solidarity pantry (food baskets provided to families), the laundry service, and the solidarity pharmacy (which provides the necessary medication).

Despite the number of families helped and the number of existing cases, all the information was still offline. This means that it was impossible to access the necessary information without physically being in the association’s headquarters. Volunteers spent hours searching for case files and updating them, which resulted in a huge lack of visibility on the current state of each support case. Therefore, computerising all this information was critical. However, there was a problem: the lack of financial means to spend on technological solutions that could put an end to this problem.

It was at this stage that Donate IT – a community of volunteers who work with information technology – came into action through Sofia Neto, community volunteer and Collaboration & Development Solutions Lead from Xpand IT. Sofia managed to unite her work at Donate IT to the movement Pledge 1% – a movement which Xpand IT joined in 2017, thereby committing to annually donate 1% of profit and 1% of products to social solidarity institutions. Completely pro bono, Xpand IT made Jira Software available to Crescerbem (including implementation and support), thereby accomplishing Donate IT’s vision  – helping to help others  – and Pledge 1%’s vision.

Besides being extremely important to the computerisation of all documents of Crescerbem, this project proves that Jira Software has a lot more uses than software management. In practice, it can be adapted to any reality.

Inside the association, each family corresponds to an ‘issue’ in Jira. When support to a new family starts, a new issue is created and the type family is chosen. Each issue has the complete information that characterises each family: information including when the support started, how many children, which country the family is from and the contact details of the parents.

Everything is organised in different tabs in order to make viewing and editing of the information on each family easier, and all initiatives are considered subtasks: e.g. home support or medication provided. Therefore, a new registry of everything that happens has become an integral part of the process, and everyone with access permission can access that information anywhere.

Xpand IT is already working on the new release and it will have two goals: the first one is to introduce Confluence to further facilitate the sharing of information about tasks to be undertaken or families with open cases; the second one is to include Xporter, so that the association can easily export a report, for example, and to always be able to present it with the best formatting.

With this software, we have the ability to computerise all social processes and this means that access to all information related to the families is only a click away. What is the importance of this change? We will have more time. Time to begin expanding to other hospitals; time to help more families; and time to move forward with the idea of a social business, which will make Crescerbem self-sustaining.

Isabel Ramos - Co-founder, Crescerbem
Ana PaneiroPledge 1%: Supporting Associação Crescerbem with Jira Software
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