Long gone are the days when two or three core applications in a company covered a large part of an organization’s requirements, supplemented perhaps by a few bespoke solutions for custom features. Today, the data flow and communication between various applications is more demanding and complex. And what were small adaptations and customized solutions unfortunately have to be “dragged along” with every update, every innovation.

In the worst case, the entire system environment has to be realigned and modified.

This is why knk has worked so diligently in recent years to establish standards and create standard interfaces that provide for custom modifications.

In 2021, knk is taking the penultimate step in a development program that combines the following goals: the best possible connectivity, flexibility, security and customer-centricity of all applications, while at the same time reducing the effort required for deployment and customization. We want knk’s users to be able to participate in all future technologies and enhancements without the update being too expensive, possibly so expensive that one finds oneself technologically “left behind”.

In order to achieve this goal, knk has made a considerable investment in recent years and built the knkPublishing-Standard for the future

Extensions and Encapsulations

Everyone is familiar with apps and functions on your smartphone, all of which have different release statuses and perform a variety of tasks. It would be very annoying if, after updating a single app, you suddenly could no longer make phone calls or your contacts were no longer available. These kinds of problems are prevented by the fact that the standard smartphone software cannot be modified by any app. The standard remains intact and the additional functionality of the app is made available in an encapsulated form.

The structure of your business applications will be similar in the future. Using Microsoft Business Central, knkPublishing is set up as a so-called extension without modifying the MS Business Central standard. Further individual solutions and extensions can then in turn be added in an encapsulated form without modifying the standard code of knkPublishing.

This approach prevents the domino effect when it comes to updates and new features, and makes the update process secure and cost-effective, thus future-proofing your system environment.

The opportunity for standards

We believe that what our customers really want is to be able to deploy innovations quickly and flexibly, to achieve competitive advantages by the continuous deployment of improvements in technology, and to be confident that their investments is future-proof.

To reach this goal, effort is required: Existing software and individual modifications must be analyzed and reconciled. Decisions about using standard functionality or a redesign of custom functionality must be made and the results of this analysis and planning must be combined in the implementation of the update, supplemented by redesign, testing, training and knk’s support and conversion expertise!

We believe that the return to “standard” is a distinct opportunity, especially where fragmented solutions have become increasingly prevalent over the years and code proliferation has resulted. The ability to keep up with new technology is unquestionably a key success factor in today’s media industry. And in the end, it’s great to know that you are using the most modern technology available in the publishing industry!

(Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash)