Self-Service Collaborative Applications: Automated Generation and Deployment of Applications Using a Visual Interface and Specification Tool

In an ideal world, every content-rich, information-based decision facing a distributed team is supported by a custom collaborative environment developed specifically for that team to address that problem at that stage of their collaboration process. In today’s world, this is simply not practical given the wide range of collaborative scenarios, and the dependency on trained software developers and the traditional development process to implement and realize such a custom interactive environment. In a previous paper, the authors advanced the idea that a self-service collaborative application development platform would make the ideal scenario realizable. That is, a system can be developed which enables an average user to create and deploy, in a relatively short period of time, a collaborative application of light-to-medium complexity without the need for programming skills or a programming team. The authors introduced a framework within which such a system can be achieved. This paper presents further refinements of the framework, and shows details of the current implementation of a self-service development platform. Additionally, this paper highlights a visual interface and specification tool, which empowers an average user to design a collaborative application without coding or any knowledge of programming. This tool works in conjunction with a server system that facilitates the automated generation and deployment of collaborative web applications. Finally, this paper discusses several case examples that indicate the effectiveness of the current platform.