The easy way to build many business products is to put everything in one application. We have a core platform, plus separate products beside it. Here’s how the two fit together, and why.
What lives in the core
The core platform holds what every product needs: who people are, which organizations they belong to, what they’re allowed to do, and the shared business data. Most of our apps, such as Finance, CRM and Dispatch, live inside it.
What lives beside it
Booking, Payroll, Bookkeeping and Meridian Media Hub are separate services, each with its own database. They ask the core who someone is and what they may do, and they keep only their own data. A hotel’s rates or a pay run’s calculations don’t need to sit next to everyone else’s tables.
Moving between them without signing in again
When you open Payroll from the platform, you don’t sign in a second time. The core creates a code that works once and expires within a minute. The two servers redeem it directly with each other, so it isn’t something that can usefully be copied around.
Why split them at all
- Different rules. Payroll has its own calculations and approval requirements, and should change on its own schedule.
- Smaller risk. A problem in one product’s data or code stays in that product.
- Sold on their own. A separate product can have its own sign-up and its own screens.
What it costs
- Each product is another thing to deploy and run, with another database to look after.
- Anything crossing a boundary needs an agreed contract, and those can fail. For example, room revenue doesn’t pass automatically from Booking to Finance yet.
- Testing all of it together takes more work than testing one application.
When we’d choose this again, and when not
For most custom software, we’d start with one application and split a part out only when there’s a real reason, such as different rules or a separate customer. Splitting early mostly buys you the costs above.