Hi again, everyone.
As promised, here is my follow up with more specific details on our recent efforts with respect to addressing performance issues within our application.
Here is the recap of the goals we set out to achieve with our ad-hoc team:
Finding specific items related to performance and implementing fixes for release in the short-term.
Identifying the architectural (or broad application-level) areas that would benefit the customer performance experience the most when addressed
The outcome of #1 produced several adjustments that have either been released already or will be released with our first major release of 2017 this Wednesday, April 26. These fixes included:
Adjustments to the way we render lists that improve performance of every page rendering a list in the application (the larger the list, the bigger the improvement)
Adjustments to the timeline calculation engine to improve the way data is loaded and managed to improve performance toward the finished calculations
Database optimizations to improve/reduce response times between the database and the application
Fixes to message transport within the application that was shown to create bottlenecks and delays in notifications and at times other application activity.
It is important to note that these and other changes covered specific symptoms that manifested in performance problems with the application that certainly help with performance, but the impact will differ based on how customers use the application.
On the bigger adjustments in #2, we have also identified multiple areas for larger impact. I won’t go into specific detail here on everything, but I do want to mention the primary areas we are going to focus on improving first. The first set of areas are three:
Application performance over time
List rendering performance
Custom Data/Form performance
The first area above is related to improving the way our application performs over long periods of time without intervention. The next two are more self-explanatory. All three of these items are major initiatives that will help address the items listed in the request on the Idea Exchange. We are currently working actively on all three in different phases. The first is our current highest priority as we believe resolving a few fundamental issues here will provide more consistent performance for our customers overall and reduce some of the sporadic performance issues we currently see. We are working on the next two with Product Management to define the scope of what is required to provide the best overall experience for our customers as quickly as possible.
If you have further questions on any of the above, please ask. My intent here is to give you some idea of our current position on these issues and what we’re intending to do to solve them so we can further the conversation and keep you informed on our progress going forward.
Lastly, there is something you can do for us to ensure we’re focusing our efforts in the most beneficial way for all of you. You can help us a lot by being as specific as possible in describing the enhancements you’d like to see. For example, if there is a specific report that performs poorly, which one? If there is an action like drag & drop that doesn’t work as you need, let us know. If the project starts to bog down when you do X or when the number of tasks approaches Y, give us those examples. The point is, the more detailed data we have to look into, the more likely we’ll be to narrow in on the problem quickly and provide you the solutions you’re looking for.
I look forward to your feedback and questions.
Thanks again,
Bryan Pino
