The SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS was released in March and we were very excited to try it out. This toolkit allows companies to let developers build, extend, and run iOS apps based on SAP back-end data. Thus, business’ employees can access live data at any time from their iOS mobile app, and enjoy the standard SAP Fiori design language they are used to.

We booked a one-day hands-on with Noé in our ThinkSpace war room with the objective to have a demo app up and running and plugged to the SAP Cloud Platform (formerly known as SAP Hana). This may sound like an easy goal but honestly, knowing SAP, we thought that it was already ambitious.

Continue reading about 5 lessons learnt about the new SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS

Tags: mobile, ios, apple, app, mobile app, sap

In our digital era where people’s attention is scattered between apps and websites, it’s not easy to know whether you need a mobile application, or if a responsive website (that can be accessed via your web browser) would meet your needs.

I have this discussion every week with new clients, and I thought it was time to share our reasoning here at Liip in order to give you a clear answer if you still hesitate.

Do You Want To Reach Your Users, or Bring Rich Features to Them?

When clients come with a mobile app request, I explain them that most of the time, a web application is more efficient in terms of investment, as well as in term of reach.

The second question I get after this answer is: “When would I need a mobile app, then?”
In my point of view, mobile apps are useful when they are crafted to be rich — vs. the reach that web applications can provide. Rich in terms of features that are only available on mobile devices, and that can’t be achieved via web technologies.

Continue reading about Do I Need a Mobile Application or a Mobile Website?

Tags: mobile, ios, apple, Android, app, mobile app, application, schindler, houston, mobile website

As a Swiss-based Drupal Agency, we have to create a lot of multilingual sites. Since Switzerland has three official languages (German, French, Italian) and even one more national language (Rumantsch), we are used to this requirement and we found our way with Drupal to make this an easy task (usually). We mainly used node translations in Drupal 7 for maximum flexibility. We used to separate languages from each other using the various i18n modules, language specific menus, blocks, URL-patterns, terms and so on.

With Drupal 8, things changed.
I struggled a little doing multilingual sites in Drupal 8 the same way I was used to in Drupal 7 because node translation is not available anymore (which is good) so I had to find another way to achieve the same easy to handle translations system. For us and for our clients. Let me explain, what I have learned.

Continue reading about Drupal 8 – Multilanguage Improvements

Tags: i18n, Drupal 8, drupal-planet, multilanguage, internationalization

After implementing some larger enterprise Drupal 8 websites, I would like to share some insights, how to solve common issues in the deployment workflow with Drupal 8 CMI.

Introduction to Drupal CMI

First of all, you need to understand, how the configuration management in Drupal 8 works. CMI allows you to export all configurations and its dependencies from the database into yml text files. To make sure, you never end up in an inconsistent state, CMI always exports everything. By default, you cannot exclude certain configurations.

Example:

If you change some configuration on the live database, these configurations will be reverted in the next deployment when you use

This is helpful and will make sure, you have the same configuration on all your systems.

How can I have different configurations on local / stage / live environments?

Sometimes, you want to have different configurations on your environments. For example, we have installed a “devel” module only on our local environment but we want to have it disabled on the live environment.

Continue reading about Advanced Drupal 8 Configuration Management (CMI) Workflows

Tags: Drupal 8, drupal-planet, CMI, Config Split, Webforms, Exclude

When we decided to move forward into self-organization, I often heard, that corporate communication and marketing no longer will be needed. Self-organized companies would work much more transparent and open, are purpose driven and therefore, fulfill real market needs. Cool! I love being transparent and never have been one of these marketers building castles in the air. But will my daily work really be obsolete? I decided to find it out.

Different approaches of self-organization

As a parallel to working at Liip, I was doing my master’s degree, I used the question in the title to write my thesis^[1] about. But where to start? I decided to go for Laloux’ Reinventing Organizations as this was the book mostly talked about at Liip.

With further investigation, I found other approaches like Heyse & Erpenbeck of Malik. Keeping things short, here’s an overview of these 4 approaches:

Continue reading about Is corporate communication in self-organized companies still needed?

Tags: self-organization, corporate communication

Animations greatly improve overall user experience! This tutorial explains how to export and use an Adobe After Effects animation in your iOS, Android or React Native project, with Bodymovin and Lottie.

Animating your logo with After Effects

The first part is creating the animation with Adobe After Effects. After Effects is a powerful tool that is used to create digital visual effects and motion graphics. Starting with After Effect is fairly easy. Animating a logo for example will take you a few hours. Read my last blog post and go for it: Adobe After Effects: how to get started?

Continue reading about Using an After Effects animation in your iOS, Android or React Native app

Tags: mobile, ios, json, Android, react native, app, application, animations, lottie, adobe after effects, animation, bodymovin, tutorial

Knowledge against fear and suspicion – open data is beneficial

Generally disagreeing about any kind of data sharing, I realized my behavior was mostly based on fear. Fear is a major impediment to anything innovative and to any kind of change. Why did I change my mind about open data? It is about differentiating between public and private data, and about the fact that data made public are first of all edited.

New work – new ideas

In November 2015, I started working at Liip and I had a lot of new projects and inputs. The core of my work is the same, I completely changed field though. I stand now in the middle of a flow of innovative ideas and energy, which is very motivating and helps me be constantly open-minded.
One of my projects, last spring, was the coordination of Liip’s involvement at the annual opendata.ch conference. No, I cannot communicate about anything if I don’t understand it! Otherwise I would write complete bulls**t, people would notice it and Liip would lose all credibility on the subject. In other words, I had to know what I was talking about in order to be able to talk about it.

Continue reading about Why did I change my mind about open data?

Tags: innovation, Open Data, blogging, pully, fear, knowledge, urbanism

Adobe After Effect is an option to build animations. In this blog post, I share some of the tutorials and blogpost I have read in order to get me started with After Effect.

Animation with After Effects

Animations greatly improve the overall user experience of an app. They also bring different benefits to the user. In my last blog post about the SwiftAlps Conference, I wrote about the 12 basic principles of animations in design (see the slides in the blogpost). During the conference, we used CAEmitterLayer from Core Animation to insert a snow background effect.

Adobe After Effect is another option to build animations. After Effects is a powerful tool that is used to create digital visual effects and motion graphics. This tool is mainly used in film and television production although is also popular to create UI/UX animation among designers.

Continue reading about Adobe After Effects: how to get started?

Tags: swift, animations, adobe after effects, animation

This year was the 6th edition of the DrupalDay Italy, the main event to attend for Italian-speaking drupalists.

Previous editions took place in other main Italian cities like Milan, Bologna and Naples.
This time Rome had the privilege to host such a challenging event, ideally located in the Sapienza University Campus.

The non-profit event, was free of charge.

Continue reading about The DrupalDay 2017 in Rome

How can mobile applications support industries to undertake a digital transformation? In supply chain, risk management, or information distribution, mobile applications will make tasks easier for your employees, thus increasing efficiency. Read about 5 industrial challenges that mobile apps can solve.

First of all, it is important to carefully chose between a web and a mobile application. Mobile apps are useful when they use one of the device’s native capabilities (e.g. Bluetooth, GPS, camera, etc.), and when they enhance the experience provided to the user (compared to what a web application could do).

Industrial challenges

The challenges industries face are often very good candidates for mobile apps as they leverage all their potential. Therefore, I have identified five recurring issues that industries are facing nowadays. These pain points can be easily relieved by mobile applications.

Challenge 1: Productivity issues due to technical limitations

Continue reading about 5 industrial challenges mobile applications can solve

Tags: mobile, ios, apple, Android, app, mobile app, IoT, application, digital transformation, industry, production line, supply chain, schindler, houston