Customization Levels

Spacewell Asset is designed to combine a standard, continuously evolving product with the flexibility to adapt the solution to specific customer requirements.

The amount of configuration and customization available increases from Asset Entry to Asset Advanced and Asset Ultimate. With that additional freedom also comes an important design consideration: the further a solution moves away from the standard product, the greater the impact on future compatibility, maintenance and support.

Freedom versus future compatibility

Not every configuration is a customization.

Spacewell Asset provides a range of supported configuration options within each license tier. When these options are used within the intended product boundaries, the customer remains aligned with the standard platform and continues to benefit from future product development.

Problems arise when standard components are changed or replaced in a way that effectively detaches them from the standard product.

There are therefore two possible design paths.

1. Stay aligned with the standard product

The preferred approach is to configure the solution within the boundaries of the standard platform.

This means:

• Future roadmap features and product updates can continue to be adopted.
• The environment remains supported by the central Product and Support teams.
• Technical debt and maintenance requirements are minimized.
• The customer environment continues to evolve together with the Spacewell Asset platform.

This should be the default design principle for every implementation.

2. Introduce customer specific logic

Asset Advanced and especially Asset Ultimate make it possible to go considerably further. Pages, scripts, workflows and other components can be adapted to meet customer specific requirements.

When a standard component is modified beyond its intended structure, however, that component may become customer specific. From that point onwards, responsibility for maintaining and evolving that customization lies with Professional Services or the implementing partner rather than with the central Product team.

Possible consequences include:

• The customized component may no longer automatically benefit from future product enhancements.
• New capabilities delivered in the standard product may have to be incorporated manually.
• Maintenance and change costs can increase.
• The customer may become dependent on specific configuration, scripts or implementation knowledge.
• The total cost of ownership may increase over time.

A relatively small change can already have this effect. For example, modifying a standard object page can detach that page from the standard version. New fields, buttons or functionality subsequently added by the Product team may then no longer appear automatically on the customized page.

For this reason, moving beyond the standard product should be a conscious solution design decision. The slides recommend that such decisions are made by a Senior Software Consultant together with the customer, with the long term implications understood before implementation.

Customization levels by Asset license

The three Asset tiers progressively extend what can be configured.

More than 15 custom fields per object can be justified after analysis and approval from the Spacewell Product team to ensure application performance and quality.

Asset Entry

Asset Entry provides controlled configuration while keeping the implementation closely aligned with the standard product.

The intention is to accommodate common customer requirements without introducing significant technical complexity or detaching components from standard product development.

Asset Entry includes the following customization options:

• Up to 5 custom fields per object
  Additional fields can be added using the available data types. They are integrated into the standard pages rather than requiring a new page design.
• Custom categories for master data objects
  Master data can be classified using customer defined categories, supporting search and reporting requirements.
• Custom data import and export
  Standard import and export templates can be adapted, or additional templates can be created for specific data management needs.
• Basic data reports
  Reports can be created through the no code reporting interface without scripting.
• Customize email templates
  Existing workflow emails can be adapted to the terminology and communication style of the customer.
• Standard profiles
  User profiles can be configured using predefined permissions and group settings.

The goal of the Entry customization level is therefore adaptability without significant customization complexity.

Asset Advanced

Asset Advanced includes everything available in Entry and adds significantly more control over the user interface, reporting, security and system behavior.

Additional capabilities include:

• Up to 10 custom fields per object
  More customer specific data can be captured while supporting all available data types.
• Design custom pages
  New pages can be created and existing standard pages can be modified, including changing field labels.
• Create page functions
  Buttons, icons and page actions can be customized.
• Create new custom emails
  New workflow emails and templates can be designed rather than only adapting existing templates.
• Custom translations
  Additional application languages and translations can be introduced.
• Custom authorizations
  More granular user access models can be configured without changing workflow based permissions.
• Custom dashboards
  Startboards can be created or adapted and can incorporate custom reports.
• Custom reports
  Scripting can be used to create more advanced reports for customer specific requirements.
• Scripting
  Scripts can introduce automation, dynamic application behavior and intelligent access rules.

Advanced therefore provides considerably more freedom to shape the experience around the customer's processes.

Important design consideration for Advanced

Advanced is also the first tier where consultants can easily move from configuration of the standard product into customization of the product.

A customer may be licensed to modify a page, for example, but this does not mean that changing the standard page is always the preferred solution design.

When a standard page is modified, it can become detached from the standard page maintained by the Product team. Future functionality added to the standard page may then need to be incorporated separately.

The principle should therefore remain:

Use the additional flexibility where it creates meaningful business value, but remain on standard components wherever possible.

Asset Ultimate

Asset Ultimate includes all Entry and Advanced capabilities and adds the ability to customize the processes and workflows themselves.

Ultimate provides:

• Up to 15 custom fields per object
  All available data types can be used. Requirements exceeding 15 fields require analysis and approval by the Product team to protect application performance and quality.
• Design or change workflows
  Entirely new workflows can be created or existing standard workflows can be modified.
• Custom categories on non master data objects
  Categories can also be used on transactional objects as part of customized workflow behavior.
• Custom workflow authorizations
  Access and authorization logic can be incorporated into customer specific workflows.

Ultimate therefore offers the highest level of configurability and makes it possible to support complex customer specific processes without requiring external software development.

At the same time, Ultimate requires the strongest solution design discipline.

The existence of a customization capability does not imply that every customer requirement should be implemented through customization. Changing a standard workflow can move the customer away from the continuously evolving standard product and create an ongoing maintenance responsibility for Professional Services or the implementation partner.

Solution design principle

When configuring your Asset environment, as a customer, partner or implementation consultant, use the following guiding principles:

1. Use the standard product behavior where it satisfies the requirement.
2. Use the supported configuration capabilities within your license tier where additional adaptation is needed.
3. Only modify or replace standard components when there is a clear business requirement that cannot reasonably be met within the standard solution.
4. Before considering a customization, explicitly evaluate its impact on future product compatibility, supportability, maintenance effort and total cost of ownership.
5. Ensure understanding and accepting the consequences before implementating customizations that might impact continuity and performance.

The central principle is therefore:

Customization capability is an option, not a configuraiton objective. The preferred Asset solution remains as close to the standard product as possible while meeting your business requirements.

This preserves the ability to benefit from future roadmap development while still providing controlled flexibility where it is needed.