Greetings, dear HOQU Community members as we bring you our HOQU Summer Digest that will include some of the main achievements that the project managed to reach over the past summer.
In this article, we will tell you about the changes that have occurred in our team, about the changes that we made after the Beta testing for affiliates, as well as about the technical aspects of administering our servers and how we are managing the platform development tasks that we are facing.
Changes in the team
We would like to start with the news that in April Dmitry Balakov, Senior Front-end Developer left our team of developers. However, we have already found a new employee who will take his place and continue working on the platform. More detailed information about the matter will be published in the following digests.
Currently, the front-end development team is fully staffed with high-quality specialists.
We want to wish Dmitry success in his new place of work and sincerely thank him for the work he has done. We are very grateful to him for being a part of the HOQU team.
Development
Front-end
Mid-August was marked by the launch of Beta version of the application for affiliates. At the moment, about 500 people have been able to participate in the testing. And, if you have not done it yet, then you can join right now by following the link:
Pic. 1. An application for merchants
Currently, our team has made every effort to develop an application for merchants. Its release, according to the Roadmap, is scheduled for the end of September. As part of the work to create this application, the architecture was refactored and optimized, as several inefficient processes affecting application performance were eliminated, the use of old libraries was revised, some were replaced with the latest ones. After the cleaning of the application from unused libraries and code, the weight of the application was noticeably reduced, which has positively affected download speeds, especially on mobile devices.
Changes in the affiliate Beta
Despite the active work being done on the application for merchants, we are continuing to pay attention to developing an application for affiliates.
One of the changes that we implemented at the request of users is the ability to add wallets to a private key, as well as the ability to create new wallets.
All these actions can be performed in the “Wallets” section:
When authorizing a private key, we apply the same authentication algorithms for the owner of the wallet as in Metamask.
Another change is the integration of the statuses of offers into the application. It will allow users to display only active offers in the list of offers. And, if for some reason, the offer stops, then all affiliate campaigns for it will also be suspended.
We also understand that affiliate networks may have their own internal limitations on providing access to offers. That is why every user on the platform has a rating and a TIER level. The affiliate network in turn may impose restrictions on the work with the network. At the moment, restrictions can be either on the rating or on the level of TIER. The network can allow work with the affiliates with a certain rating and tier level.
This changes will be implemented in the next release.
Blockchain
The core of the HOQU platform is the smart HQX contract working on the Ethereum network, as well as the API for interaction with it and with the blockchain.
Not all the nuances were taken into account when we were creating the smart contract. In the process of working on the application, we encountered some difficulties in implementing data storage in the blockchain. In the autumn, we plan to prepare a release of changes on a smart contract, in which a new version of the API will be announced.
In addition, in connection with the high cost of conducting transactions in the Ethereum network, our team is exploring alternative blockchains, for example EOS. The details of our research will be described in the following articles.
Server Administration
We are pleased to announce that all server administration, deployment, docker container configuration, server monitoring, and application operations have been transferred to a team of professional server administrators who monitor applications 24/7. And, in case of failure in any module in the system (API, blockchain API, applications) at any time of the day will be able to troubleshoot and stabilize the application.
Next month, we will tell you more about the server architecture of the HOQU platform.
Project Management
Last, but not least, we would like to pay attention to the methodology of managing the development of the platform.
Since August, the development front-end team has completely switched to scrum methodology in its classic form with two-week sprints. We also implemented the Scrum pocker scheduling technology, which, in our case, helped make task evaluations more accurate.
At the very beginning of product development, we used trello as a task tracker. As the team grew and switched to the scrum methodology, we realized that trello’s functionality was insufficient. And, since September, the team has switched to the use of the task tracker JIRA, which is successfully used by progressive teams all over the world, such as Pepsico, Nokia, Electronic Arts and others.
Pic. 2. JIRA interface
We also want to sum up all summer results below:
HOQU TECH DIGEST #1
HOQU TECH DIGEST #2
Beta version of HOQU Affiliate App is available now!
HOQU Founders at the Affiliate World Conference in Barcelona
HOQU Founders Extend Their Token Freeze Period
HOQU Development update. Part 3: HOQU ecosystem update.
HOQU Development update. Part 2: Q&A with developers.
HOQU Development Update. Part 1: The Team
The HOQU platform is developing and is sure to offer its users and community the product they deserve as per the roadmap. Stay tuned to our news and updates.