Continuously Evolving Complex Software

Before

Partner data in silos, accreditation on PDF forms.

Partner data was spread across separate systems. It was hard to tell which record was current, and every update had to be kept in sync across all of them, and the same was true of users and their access rights.

Accreditation meant filling in a PDF form and sending it back and forth until the data was correct. The accepted form then went into a document management system where it could be neither searched nor updated.

Today

One central platform for partners, access and processes.

The Digital Process Platform supports gematik in its digital collaboration with partners of the German telematics infrastructure. Identities and permissions for several thousand users are managed centrally: a role model bundles the access rights, so permissions are granted to match each person’s tasks. That considerably reduces the administrative effort in day-to-day operations.

Registration and onboarding are fully digital: an onboarding process that took up to two weeks now takes five minutes.

The platform is the foundation for further processes. Service level reviews already run on it, and so does the first part of accreditation; further steps follow.

The challenge

Business processes have to work reliably — even while the software around them changes.

The underlying software has to evolve continuously: new business requirements arise, existing integrations change, and the technologies in use need regular modernization.

At the same time, business processes already under way have to remain workable. Changes to the software must not interrupt existing cases in an uncontrolled manner.

The approach

Architecture, quality assurance and software delivery treated as one connected task.

Together with gematik, TQG developed significant foundations of the Digital Process Platform.

These include a reusable architecture for executing digital business processes, central components for handling tasks, and automated procedures for building and deploying the software.

Three aspects are central to this.

01 — Verifying business processes automatically

Automated BPMN tests check the actual process models and their different execution paths.

Complementary backend, integration and application tests help to detect faults early when changes are made.

TQG contributed in particular to establishing automated process tests and to test automation for the frontend applications.

02 — Delivering software in a controlled way

Changes pass through structured development and quality assurance environments before they are deployed to production.

Automated build and deployment processes support the repeatable delivery of the various platform components.

TQG developed significant parts of the original CI/CD infrastructure as well as the first central solution for controlling production releases. This was developed further jointly over the course of the project.

03 — Modernizing technologies continuously

Over the course of the collaboration, core platform technologies were updated across several generations.

TQG took on significant work in migrating several backend services to a new Java and Spring Boot generation, and in modernizing the Angular applications.

Further modernization steps were carried out by gematik and the implementation teams involved.

During the major technology migrations, existing production business processes were able to continue running. Planned deployment windows were possible in the process.

The platform in numbers

• Several thousand users whose access rights are bundled in a role model: permissions are granted to match each person’s tasks
• 9 BPMN business processes in production, from partner registration to accreditation: procedures that ran on email, PDF forms and separate systems now run digitally on one platform
• 20+ product categories handled in the accreditation process, each with its own requirements, in one process
• 9 backend services moved to Java 17 and Spring Boot 3 within 9 days, while registrations and accreditations kept running
• 8 major Angular versions, from 11 to 19, in joint work with gematik’s teams, so the user interfaces stay on supported, secure versions
• About 1,700 automated backend tests, with coverage gates of 80% in the core services: every change is checked before it reaches users
• Changes pass through staged development, QA and production environments

These figures describe the jointly developed platform, not TQG’s share alone.

In their words

“The best software architect and development partner I have had the privilege of meeting in more than 20 years in IT.”

— Thomas Donath, Chapter Lead IT Engineering & Operations, gematik

“Together with The Quality Gate, we digitized identity and access management for an application with several thousand users. A role model bundles the access rights and lets us grant permissions that match each person’s tasks. The digital processes considerably reduce the administrative effort in day-to-day operations. At the same time, the central platform supports our collaboration with our partners.

What I particularly value is how thoroughly the team worked its way into our business requirements, and how quickly it turned them into processes that work in practice. Throughout our collaboration, I could always rely on the team. I am very happy to recommend The Quality Gate.”

— Denis Dohne, Product Owner, Digital Processes, gematik

The result

A platform that can keep evolving while it is in production use.

The jointly developed platform combines digital business processes with reusable architecture components, automated quality assurance and structured release procedures.

Continuous modernization across several technology generations shows how even complex software landscapes can be developed further over the long term.

The project illustrates TQG’s approach: not only building software, but systematically assuring change across architecture, testing and delivery.