Realtime Updates by DevCycle

Introducing Realtime Updates

DevCycle's newest release, Realtime Updates, allows any feature modifications or updates to appear instantly across applications and services using DevCycle. This means that features can now be launched, modified, or disabled instantaneously – without requiring users to refresh a page or restart an application. 

Typically, applications require users to either update their application or refresh their page to see any feature modifications made by your team. Unfortunately, this means that your users might be seeing outdated or even broken features on your platforms until a change is made and their application updates. This is particularly troublesome in the event of a major failure, as developers have to deploy entirely new code or ask users to update their apps in order to mitigate issues. 

With Realtime Updates, any changes, modifications, or feature updates can be made in real time – even if an application or website is open at the time of the change. For example, if you wanted to change the colour of a button on your homepage after realizing the text on the button wasn’t visible, you can make the change and any user who currently has your homepage open will see the change happen in real time. 

Instant modifications of this sort allow for a much faster development time, as there is no extra compilation needed to test out various variable values. In the event of a failure, a broken or failing feature can simply be turned off on the spot–as fast as it was turned on – once again mitigating issues without the need for any user updates at all.

Realtime Updates in real life scenarios

Disaster Recovery & Quick Fixes:

When a feature is failing or not performing well, your dev team’s first instinct should be to turn it off and fix it for your users. Without Realtime Updates, your users may have to refresh their page or completely update their application in order to see that you’ve fixed a broken feature. With DevCycle’s feature flags and Realtime Updates, broken features can be turned off instantly for all users without them needing to take any action.

Test and Deploy Faster:

‍Your users aren’t the only ones who benefit from Realtime Updates. Now, your devs don’t have to worry about refreshing their apps or websites when testing out different variable values. Instead, they can modify the variables on the DevCycle dashboard while testing a feature and view updates in real time, improving development time. 

Instant Updates (on even the longest running devices):

It’s hard to know when the next time your users will turn off devices that run for an extended period of time (such as streaming devices, or even kiosks.) Thus, you can never guarantee when they’ll restart their apps to receive a feature update. With Realtime Updates, features can be modified or changed instantly – even on the longest running devices. 

Get started with feature flags today

With the release of Realtime Updates, DevCycle is paving the way for a frictionless experience – both for your dev team and your users. Your devs can release updates and fixes on demand, without worrying about disrupting your users’ experience in process. Visit our docs to get started today.