Whether you have concerns about existing software, are about to embark on a new development project, or need guidance to inform the direction of your digital transformation strategy, Box UK’s code review service can give you the confidence you need to move forward.
At Box UK our developers and consultants have performed code reviews for clients including RS Components, Sodexo and Jaguar Land Rover, analysing large, complex systems that are often business-critical. And we can do the same for you too.
"Box UK is a fantastic partner for our business... providing proactive analysis and recommendations to the challenges we face."
As part of our code review service we’ll interrogate every aspect of your code, covering areas including:
Working closely with your team we’ll agree your strategic goals for the project, determine the drivers behind the review, discover what ‘success’ looks like and discuss any known issues, enabling us to put together a plan that focuses on the highest priority areas and activities.
We’ll engage directly with your team members to understand how they currently work, creating a series of surveys that provide both quantitative and qualitative data about the teams’ working practices and development standards being applied.
Static analysis is a programmatic review of your codebase, employing automated tools to rapidly review the code against a series of industry-standard benchmarks and identify areas for improvement.
These automated tools will help us to efficiently identify risks, strengths and opportunities with the current codebase and assess issues including bugs, vulnerabilities, coding standards and site metrics.
Human code analysis entails a senior technical consultant reviewing the code base manually, looking at areas such as consistency of coding practices, design patterns and implementation of libraries or frameworks.
This supplements the static analysis by identifying how development practices are applied and helps to build a deeper understanding of the unique requirements of your business prior recommending any next steps.
Your code review will begin with a collaborative kick-off session, the objectives of which are to introduce all project personnel (on both sides) and confirm project timelines – from the individual activities to be undertaken through to strategic goals, success criteria and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
If we’re undertaking a legacy platform code review we’ll also use this session to confirm the technologies in use along with any dependencies and integrations that fall within the scope of the review, to guide assessment activities and inform a software rescue or replacement plan.
This will inform the review process itself, where our technical consultants will assess your code against important criteria including:
We’ll then highlight the key facts and figures from our code analysis into a report compiled just for you, that can be used as an initial benchmark against which you can measure progress over time. This key deliverable will include:
We’ll also provide clear, practical recommendations for improvement, prioritised so that you can direct your code optimisation efforts towards where they’ll deliver the greatest possible benefit, as quickly as possible.
Box UK has a proven track record in delivering market-leading software solutions and applies this knowledge to each and every code review we take on, working from our headquarters in the capital of Wales, offices in central London, and on-site as part of embedded teams.
Our knowledge of coding standards and best practice is informed by our own code, the quality of which has been recognised by numerous independent reviews and is further demonstrated through our ISO 9001:2015, ISO 27001:2013 and ISEB qualifications.
To ensure that your code review delivers targeted and actionable insight we’ll work closely with you through every stage of the process to identify the most suitable activities and metrics, using market-leading tools including PHPMetrics, Nessus and RIPS to support us in this process.
To support RS Components in the transformation of their 750,000-strong community platform DesignSpark, we first had to gain a clear picture of their what was going on with their current software.
An in-depth code review provided the understanding needed – including the location and nature of existing dependencies, potential security vulnerabilities, and levels of test coverage. This was vital in informing the direction of future development, to ensure effort was targeted where it was needed most.
Box UK’s partnership with quality-of-life service company Sodexo began with an independent review of their Employee Benefits platform. After presenting the review findings, Box UK was then asked to take on management of the platform, to deliver both immediate stabilisation and ongoing optimisation.
The upgraded platform offers an engaging, secure and high-performance experience for thousands of clients and hundreds of thousands of end-users, while maintaining 99.9% uptime throughout.
Before undertaking what could potentially be a major redevelopment of their Symptom Driven Diagnostics tool, JLR needed to understand what was going on with the software in its current state.
By conducting a code review as part of a comprehensive research and evaluation project, we provided JLR with the insight they needed, enabling them to make informed strategic decisions about the software’s future, and helping to ensure they get the greatest possible value out of any investment.
Digital Project of the Year
Digital Change & Transformation
A code review is an in-depth, independent assessment of the code that underpins the key software systems in place within your organisation. The fitness of your codebase is critical to the performance of these systems and of your wider business; it needs to be reliable, maintainable, secure, and adaptable to changing needs.
Over time however issues can start to emerge, as harmful technical debt accumulates leading to problems with performance, productivity and long-term planning. A code review makes this technical debt visible, analysing your code to assess how well-supported and easy to maintain it might be, alongside how suitable it is for your business with regards its robustness, security, scalability and speed.
As a result of this analysis your code review partner will be able to provide actionable recommendations for improvement, leaving you equipped with all that you need to make confident decisions about the future of your software, paving the way for long-term business success.
Legacy code occurs when web and software solutions are not kept up-to-date, and can lead to systems that were once fit-for-purpose no longer being able to support the requirements and goals of the business – or worse, actually hindering organisations from meeting these goals. Legacy code often displays high levels of technical debt, the term used for the consequences of not tidying up software as it’s built, or balancing short-term deadlines with longer-term questions of maintainability and stability.
Common causes for legacy code include failing to implement important fixes and enhancements, or overlooking critical new dependencies. It may also be the result of software systems growing organically overtime, introducing high levels of complexity that make adding new features and integrations difficult, particularly as team members move on and knowledge of the system is lost.
With the clear understanding of current performance and prioritised recommendations to tackle key issues delivered by a code review, you’ll be positioned to realise various benefits including improvements to the maintainability of your systems, reduced risk of security vulnerabilities, and trust in the reliability of your application.
Your team will also benefit from the results of your code review, through increased confidence in software versioning, consistent documentation standards, and clear performance and quality targets. Additionally, with a clear understanding of where you are and where you need to be you’ll be better able to onboard new team members, and create an effective long-term roadmap for the future.
Conducting regular reviews of the source code underpinning your software systems is vital in ensuring you’re able to manage (and reduce) technical debt, and ensure systems are fit to serve the future needs of your business. Whereas good quality code delivers efficiency, cost-effectiveness and high performance, poor quality code can slow down responsiveness and limit functionality – which can have a dangerously negative impact on profitability.
The results of your code review will provide you with the information you need to remedy any issues you’re currently experiencing and put an action plan in place to support goals such as growing your customer base, reducing maintenance costs or opening new revenue streams – giving you a significant advantage over the competition as well as a clear benchmark against which you can measure your progress.
A code review from Box UK is a powerful tool for any organisation looking to improve the performance of their software, regardless of the industry they operate in, the systems they have in place or the outcomes they want to achieve.
Perhaps your software wasn’t built with your current business strategy in mind, or has seen a number of temporary fixes over the years that have become more permanent than intended. Or maybe you’ve inherited an outdated and legacy system developed by a team that has since left
the business.
Whatever the scenario, if you’re worried about how fit-for-purpose your software systems might be, a code review is the perfect first step towards understanding the status quo and identifying a roadmap for improvements.