Quick start guide

In this guide, we will show you the basics of getting started with Uniscale.

New to Uniscale?

Get a quick introduction and watch our product video here: What is Uniscale?

In this article, we will walk through the phases of the Uniscale Method

Get started

Before kick-starting your Uniscale journey you should:

1. Create an account

2. Create a workspace - Get a free 30-day trial

3. Invite to a workspace

When this is done, you are ready to follow the guide below on how to build better software.

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Phase 1: Specification

The specification, also known as “Functional Requirement Specification”, is a document used to describe a solution's intended capabilities, appearance, and interactions with users.

Learn more: Specification

To describe your specification, start by creating a solution

Within your Uniscale workspace, create a solution to describe your product and outline the functional specifications.

High-level specification

Intro to high-level specification

Here you will describe the overall solution. This part is done from an abstract view, meaning that it is not about solving the actual problem, but rather explaining the problem and desired outcome carefully.

Things you may include:

• Abstract Description

• Purpose and motivation

• High-level requirements

• High-level end-user behavior

This is typically defined by the Founder, Visionary, Product Owner, or someone who understands the solution.

Describe your high-level specification

Begin with an introduction to your solution. We have made a template for you to use here: Describe your high-level specification

Define and describe your modules

1. Define and create your modules: For best practices on what modules to create, visit this article: Module
2. Describe your modules: Write a short description and include the relevant high-level functionalities and actors related to this module. See Create and describe your first modulesfor more details.
3. Describe the high-level end-user behavior: This is done by creating an Functional use case inside your module. See Describe the user behavior with Functional use casesfor more details.
4. Enrich your Functional use case with Acceptance criteria.

For a detailed overview of how to describe your specification: High-level specification

Tutorial: High-level specification

Detailed specification

Introduction to detailed specification

This is where you will start to design how the actual product will look and feel. Where high-level specification is abstract, here you will define concretely how the product will work:

• Should it be an app, website, software, physical paper, or a combination?

• How should the user interface look and feel?

• The overall layout of your solution including visuals (mockups or wireframes),

• How should the product work - eg. what pages will you need, what buttons to include, what should happen when clicking on each button, and what should happen in case of errors?

For this part, you will involve a product designer (eg. UX/UI designer) who will start to break down the high-level specification and design the product.

Learn here how to invite people: Invite to Uniscale

Describe your detailed specification

1. Use Pages and Sections to break down the layout and structure of your solution

2. A best practice is to include mockups or wireframes for each part of your solution

3. Include UX requirements:

   1. Break down your modules and pages into Functional use cases.

   2. Include relevant UX flows

   3. Describe your UX flows and include Functional acceptance criteria

4. Include UI requirements: Use Designer notes to describe the look and feel in addition to other descriptions that are helpful to the front-end developer.

Watch the video below or read more here: Detailed specification

Tutorial: Detailed specification

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Phase 2: Service linking

Service linking is where you bridge your functional specification to your technical documentation.

Introduction to service linking

Typically, a Solution Architect or Technical Lead handles this phase. They translate customer requirements into logical service boundaries by developing the services needed to meet the specified requirements.

Learn how to invite people: Invite to Uniscale

Create your service linking

1. Start by going through your UX flows and create Service flows

2. Go to Service linking and Add service draft +

3. Drag and drop each service link to the service draft.

Watch the video below or read more here: Service linking

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Phase 3: Documentation

The documentation also referred to as Technical documentation, is where you define the requirements and the building blocks to support your functional specification.

High-level documentation

Introduction to high-level documentation

The documentation often referred to as "Technical Documentation," is where the focus shifts to the technical details of your product.

This part is typically created by experts such as Tech Leads or Solution Architects. They ensure the technical and non-technical aspects of your solution are aligned, even if they are not directly involved in coding.

Describing your high-level documentation

As you have now linked your UX flows to Service flows, you will start to document the intention and purpose of each service.

Now you can include a description of each service to document the service functionality requirements.

See a detailed guide to describing your documentation: Service basics

Detailed documentation

Introduction to detailed documentation

This is where you define all concrete actions and data contracts to fulfill all specified technical functionality.

This part includes:

• Endpoint modeling

• Error code and sample data

• Data contracts modeling

• Data validations

Describing your detailed documentation

1. Navigate to the service and begin to document the technical aspect.

2. For each service, you can enrich with:

   1. Child namespace

   2. Endpoint

   3. Aggregate with Native type and Sample value

   4. Value object

   5. Property group

   6. Standalone use case flow

   7. Technical use case

See a detailed guide to describing your documentation: Service basics and Service modeling

Service approval and revisions

Now that you have documented your services, it is time to ready and approve each one before proceeding to generate the SDK.

Learn how to do so here: Service revisions

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Phase 4: SDK library

This is the toolbox that the developers can use to build the product. The toolbox consists of all the information that is created in the specification and documentation. It contains everything that you need to do the communication between your frontend and backend

Generating the SDK

1. Start by navigating to the SDK portal from the navigation bar.

2. You can now select from your approved modules and services. If you do not see anything, please check the steps Module revision and Service revisions

3. Select your preferred development language

4. Select "Save changes". This will start generating the SDK.

Read the detailed steps here: SDK basics

Using the SDK

Once the SDK is generated, the instructions for how to utilize show on the screen.

Depending on how you plan to use the SDK, we have created dedicated articles to guide you:

• Library implementation basics

• Front-end with Uniscale SDK

• Using SDK in backend to handle endpoints

• Using SDK for service to service