With the release of JTL-Wawi 1.6, our ERP has been enriched with over 40 new functions and features. Other solutions, such as JTL-WMS or JTL-eazyAuction, have also made a big leap with the update. How do our developers feel about their “work”? What are they particularly proud of, what challenges did they have to overcome and what’s next after the release?
In this article, we let our software developers have their say and take a look behind the scenes of our development workshop.
The highlights of our developers
We asked the most difficult question first: What are your top features that you’ve implemented with the release?
I can’t really name a favorite. If I had to choose, the new order details would be the biggest milestone.
Markus Hütz, our specialist for the areas of purchasing, sales, shipping and taxes in JTL-Wawi, sees the greatest progress being made in the core areas of ERP: “The partial invoices or the ability to cancel documents are really useful features.”
Michael Spaltmann, Product Owner for the items area in JTL-Wawi, is particularly pleased with the increased speed of the system: “We have gained an enormous amount of performance with the variation combinations of the items!”
JTL-Wawi is the heart of the JTL product cosmos. With the release, however, teams responsible for other JTL solutions had also set themselves some goals.
"Birth" of JTL Plan&Produce and JTL Workbench
Let’s start with the youngest stars in the JTL product sky: JTL-Plan&Produce and JTL-Workbench. The production software for JTL-Wawi has officially entered the closed beta phase with the release and supports retailers in all production processes. Product Owner Marc Völker is already enthusiastic about the solution:
Version 1.6 marks the birth of JTL Plan&Produce and JTL Workbench. For me, the modules are an enormous innovation in themselves. In the past, manufacturing companies had to look for complex workarounds for such processes .
For many of our developers, the further development of JTL-eazyAuction was one of the most difficult, but most profitable projects for users. With the update, in addition to the interface to the marketplace giants eBay and Amazon, an integration to Kaufland.de is now also available in JTL-Wawi. This is still in beta status, but other marketplaces such as Otto.de are already in the pipeline. “A lot of heart and soul has gone into the expansion of our marketplace interface. The ability to manage a wide variety of marketplaces in JTL-Wawi via a standardized interface is a big step forward,” says developer Sebastian Bertho.
Dominic Nelle, who wears the hat as Product Owner for JTL-eazyAuction, has cracked some tough nuts:
We had to develop a concept that would ensure uniform use, regardless of whether you sell in JTL-Wawi via Kaufland.de, Otto.de or one of the future marketplaces.
JTL-WMS - Teamwork for a top product
The work on JTL-WMS was at least as complex. Product Owner Stephan Handke also found it difficult to choose his top features: “I can’t break it down to one function, but the integration with AutoStore, a fascinating system for the partial automation of warehouses, the new picklist templates and the option to use mobile printers directly with JTL-WMS Mobile are three of my absolute highlights.”
For Stephan, it was clearly teamwork that led to such a strong result: “Even in difficult times, we didn’t lose sight of the release and the success of the product. The small team working on the mobile apps also did a phenomenal job. With the active support of our design experts, we have given JTL-WMS Mobile, for example, a fresh and modern look.”
In the JTL-WMS team, we all pursued the same goal: to deliver a high-quality and stable end product for the customer.
Further details about AutoStore and other highlights of the new version of our warehouse management system can be found in the developer diary for JTL-WMS Part 1 and Part 2.
Fine-tuning the JTL-Fulfillment Network
Georg Jennessen is our guru (also known as Product Owner) for the JTL-Fulfillment Network (JTL-FFN). On the online platform, retailers can find verified fulfillment service providers to outsource their warehousing and shipping processes. For him, the new returns processing is one of the top features:
The biggest feature is definitely the revised returns process. The associated data is now synchronized between the retailer and the fulfiller in almost real time.
Challenge accepted! Our biggest challenges during development
It was not without reason that the release of JTL-Wawi 1.6 took several years. Not only did we want to implement as many feature requests from our community as possible, but we also set ourselves high goals for the quality of our development work. There were some big issues to be resolved.
Hurdles "under the hood"
Ironically, areas that are invisible to users have taken a lot of brainpower, as JTL veteran Michael explains:
Adjustments have been made almost everywhere under the hood. For the new features in JTL-eazyAuction, for example, we had to make some adjustments to the item details. Overall, this was definitely the biggest release ever for us and I’ve been with the company for eleven years!
Circumstances beyond our control, such as the coronavirus pandemic, also put a damper on the release, as Sebastian emphasizes:
It was not easy to keep up development performance while at the same time investing a lot of time in supporting new and existing customers due to the pandemic. Due to coronavirus, many retailers had to quickly switch to online business.
JTL-Wawi 1.6 - a release colossus
From JTL newcomers to experienced colleagues, there is a consensus among our developers: Compared to previous updates, JTL-Wawi 1.6 was a release colossus that affected almost all areas of our software portfolio. Logically, the JTL employees in leading functions therefore had a lot of coordination work to do, as Maik Schwefer, Head of ERP Development, reveals:
The biggest challenge was to realize everything at the same time. We had to manage the many different projects in such a way that we could finish the main changes in JTL-Wawi 1.6. At the same time, we also wanted to take big steps forward in other areas.
Pat on the back: We are particularly proud of this
Ultimately, our team members have grown with the challenges surrounding JTL-Wawi 1.6. Hence the question: What are you most proud of? Markus had by far the most vivid answer:
It’s great how we’ve managed to keep all the gears meshing even though the core has been replaced.
JTL-Wawi 1.6 has not only been completely Remanufactured with the update, but also prepared for future projects.
Software development on the pulse of the JTL community
One thing fills us with particular pride: even before a single line of code was written, the JTL user community was driving JTL-Wawi 1.6 forward with its continuous input: “Most of the ideas came directly from the community,” says Manuel Pietzsch. Users were also heavily involved in the further development of JTL-WMS, as Stephan Handke reports: “Numerous users took part in our surveys and thus significantly influenced the implementation.”
In the future, we will continue to ask you for ideas and feature requests via YouTube, the JTL forum and on social media – this is how community-driven development works!
This is still on our to-do list
The exchange with the community is at the top of Manuel’s to-do list for the coming weeks and months: “We will process the feedback on JTL-Wawi 1.6 bit by bit. But we will also continue to develop the JTL-Wawi app, which is currently still in beta status!” When asked what else is on the agenda after the release, Manuel answered as an ‘honest skin’: “Vacation, I really need it now!” He and the entire team have more than earned it!
Stay tuned! If you would like to know what else is on our to-do list, you can gain an insight into current projects in our roadmap.
