Claims Management

Client and Business Goals

Working for 27 years in the industry, the client is the market-leading drainage and water mains specialist, serving the public across the UK. Committed to quality and safety first, they specialize in handling, investigation, validation, and repair to emergencies of drainage, water mains, and off-mains claims working on behalf of insurance companies. With pioneering technology and more investment planned in the future, they have a great combination of skill-sets and experience to provide the highest quality of service to both, their partners and customers. In 2017, they were recognized as a finalist in the BIA awards for Claims Innovation of the year. In addition, they received an award for the Best Business Project Dependent on Mobile Technology and were a finalist for the Insurance Times awards for Excellence in Claims Technology.

Call for updates

The client’s Claim Management software was already in place but was using older technologies which resulted in various performance issues. Technically, the codebase of the software was mismanaged and scattered making difficulties in upgrades and changes. This was degrading the efficiency, increasing the complexity and cost, wasting time due to manual tasks, and raising the risk of project failure, thereby the software was failing to engage with the partners and target audience. The entire software needs to be modernized to use cloud APIs and in turn deliver superior time to value, thus, lowering operating costs.

Solution

Csharptek worked on all the challenges of Claims Management Software and delivered an innovative and ideal product. We used the following technology for modernizing the software on time:

Applied Technologies

• The entire backend of the application was converted to serverless architecture to reduce costs and improve performance
• .NET Core 5 framework for writing Web APIs
• Migrating software to Azure cloud and incorporating Azure App Modernization to bring legacy features, infrastructure, and code to better align

Focusing on Getting Fast Updates

Earlier the software was using ASP .NET MVC architecture which was causing several disadvantages such as complexity in the flow of the application, difficulty to deploy, high cost, and updating the software that might not work in the next release. So, to solve these issues .NET Core 5 framework has been used to write new Web APIs for the Claims Management Software. According to Stack Overflow Survey Results 2019, the .Net Core framework is the most popular in the category of other frameworks, libraries, and tools. This is because the framework is cross-platform, open-source, and can be used to build high-performance and scalable applications over the cloud as well as on the device. .NET Core will get new APIs and language features over time that .NET Framework cannot. We used .NET Core 5 for allowing flexible deployment and updates over installed machines or Docker containers for their software.

Automating Software’s Lifecycle

The software was deployed on the Azure cloud as it has a variety of features. Azure App Modernization is the best practice of updating older software for newer computing technologies, including newer languages, frameworks, and infrastructure platforms. It is a magical thing called “Digital Transformation” to make the software more agile and faster. Another feature of Azure known as Azure Active Directory enables a cloud-based identity and access management service which helps authenticated users to sign in and access resources. Azure Functions continually provides updated infrastructure and resources needed to run the software. They provide serverless functionalities, are highly scalable and, are cheap. While most cloud services will send a monthly invoice based on how many resources you’ve provisioned, Azure Functions only bill you for the resources you actively consume. Cost is based on memory usage and execution time for each function. By incorporating functions in the codebase, allows the code to be well-structured and reduces complexity. Cloud Adoptions and DevOps always go hand-in-hand. Different DevOps tools such as Dockers, containers, etc. were incorporated throughout the software’s lifecycle.

Increasing Web API Performance

To optimize resources, backend programming and language were chosen after careful examination to address the needs of every domain. The development of the backend was fulfilled by the .NET Core and web API web development platforms. API Management is a great service for abstracting back-end services and presenting a set of APIs via a single HTTPS endpoint. Web API performance tuning has been done to ensure faster data access and improvised error handling. Usage of Azure API Management for the software helps in optimizing the API traffic flow, protect their resources, and accelerate their business.

Conclusion

Azure App Modernization and DevOps agility has transformed the ability to engage with customers in a more agile way and has optimized their operational processes, thus, increasing the overall performance of the software significantly. Having an effective and efficient claims management system in place is vital for the success and seamless running of our client’s software. Post delivering the refurbished software, the client was able to give updates and improve the performance. Moving the software to .NET has enabled cross-platform and easier Azure cloud-based Web application development support. The biggest achievement obtained after migrating the software over the Azure cloud (Azure App Modernization) was that the Azure took care of availability, security, scalability, and infrastructure management. Azure Migration has a tailored service for .NET web apps to provide an end-to-end fully managed platform. Not only migration helps in improving scalability, but it is also about improving client’s financial resilience by shifting from a traditional upfront expenditure to a more flexible pay-as-you-go model. Overall, the software’s codebase was improved, the cost was reduced and tasks were automated. The journey towards fulfilling the client’s requirements was not smooth. It had many obstacles in the path but with the help of dedicated team members, we could deliver the client’s requirements successfully and timely.

With a Microsoft Silver Cloud Platform Competency, Csharptek aims to turn barriers into miracles for the clients and focuses on building a tailor-made enterprise platform to fulfill their technological needs today, tomorrow, and beyond. Csharptek is an end-to-end IT solution provider company that can improve the performance of your already built software, create a new product, and automate your software’s lifecycle through Azure App Modernization. We provide a variety of Azure services, custom software solutions, SaaS Solutions, and many more. So, if you are seeking any kind of Azure Services or some kind of custom software from Microsoft’s Silver Competency, get in touch with our front desk supporting team at info@csharptek.com or call on 18008902630