GDG Kolkata DevFest, 2019 App — A well-coordinated plan
Trending #3, 500+ downloads, 50+ 5-star rating, installs across 10+ countries.
The journey to building the first application of DevFest, 2019 season was worth it. Back in June, Anubhav, one of the organizers of DevFest Kolkata and GDG Kolkata, called me up saying that he wants me to lead the app team for the event. The term “lead” was enough to freak me out and simply say no since I had never led a development team before. I retorted for a while but then all of us were beginners at some point in our life so I decided to take this up. Anubhav’s convincing remarks helped to build up my confidence.
Getting started: This was one of the most difficult tasks. We had to select four to five people from the many entries that we had. After screening the profiles and judging the reliability of the people for the next couple of weeks, we decided to have 3 people:
- Aritra Roy Ghoshtipathy: One of the best Flutter developers I have known till now and surely an entertaining friend. His hard work is far beyond an explanation of a few words. He is “aagun” (which means fire in English).
- Piyush Sinha: The AoT guy who was Anubhav’s choice and turned out to be a gem.
- Piyush Maheshwari: Stand-up comedy and app development doesn’t go hand in hand, right? Well, not for this guy who happens to be the host of the event as well. Be it the fluidity of the app or the interest of the attendees, he made sure we don’t lag on either of these.
- Ritwik Raha: The Design Head of GDG Kolkata and the person behind the beauty of the whole event. He is the default value for design. We do not select him, we send him our design requirements and hope that he blesses us with design.
After having the first iteration over the application’s structure and an onboarding meet, we started the work.
Create the app skeleton: Till the time I could have digested the fact that I am actually leading a team, Piyush had already completed most of the UI structure of the application. He updated everyone about his work regularly which helped a lot in maintaining good coordination among members. After some more iterations on the UI and feedback from the team, a primary structure of the application was ready.
Making the app dynamic: We had decided to keep all the data displayed in the app dynamic. This meant API calls for getting the schedule, speakers, sponsors and other assets. I worked on this part initially only to realize that the actual data was making the speaker cards and details screen overflow. Credits go to Anubhav’s never-ending tag line and bio in speakers section.
The UI magic: The error meant more work on the UI folks and hence the tasks again shifted to Aritra and Piyush. Meanwhile, I had an interview so I was inactive for a day. The evening I was back Aritra told me he and Piyush worked all night and have brought the app very close to launch. They worked amazingly on the UI making me wonder if it was the same app that I had seen just yesterday.
Get it on Play Store: After some more modifications and feedback from our volunteer team, we were all set to launch the app on Google Play Store. Piyush built the final release app bundle and I uploaded it on Play Store dashboard. Special thanks to Anjali from the content writing team for coming up with a perfect description of the app to be displayed on the store. After the final upload on the dashboard, we were eagerly waiting for the app to get approved and launched which according to fellow developers took a maximum of 3 to 4 hours.
The rejection: After a wait of 3 days and reaching out to play console assistants multiple times I received a mail saying “Your app has been rejected”. After reading through the mail carefully we realized that it was due to the breach of some YouTube policies. With no further delay, the team got in action again, fixed the code and resubmitted it within 3 hours of the rejection mail. Now we knew we needed to wait longer for the results.
Launch: After waiting for 2 more days I finally got an email with the link to find the app in the Play Store. It was a rejoicing moment for all of us to see all our efforts into action. Social media platforms were flooded with posts promoting the “official app for DevFest Kolkata, 2019”.
We are trending: Within two days of the launch, the app was trending #3 on Play Store under the categories event with 100+ downloads. Special thanks to DevFest on-ground team who made sure that the app goes viral just after it is launched. This was a moment of pride for all of us. Special posters were prepared by the design team to share the good news with the world.
Let’s reach 500: Two days before the event we were almost constant at 460 installs. To cover that gap of 40 and reach 500 we had to come up with a feature that would have made the app much more engaging. We tried to come up with a feature that might help attendees network but had to put it down due to complexities and issues involved with maintaining the privacy of attendees data. At this point, Aritra came in with him own secretive feature already in action — the dark theme. After some more enhancements and another night (one night before the event) of flawless work by Aritra and Piyush, we were able to have one final update for the app. In no time we crossed 500 downloads with 624 current (07.42 PM, 06/08/2019) installs.
The journey of the DevFest Kolkata app thus concluded with tons of stars and learnings. Getting compliments directly from the Google Developer Relations team showed that we had done something remarkable and worth noting. People recognizing me on the event day because of the app was no doubt a moment of pride. At last, it helped me in gaining confidence that I can lead a development team. A big thanks to all my team members for making it a smooth sail.
Team Speaks
Anubhav: “We needed an app, and an app which broke records. There was no doubt that we needed hardcore developers on the team, with the energy to move mountains. This team was probably one of the most curated ones I assisted in forming, with Rimjhim taking on the responsibility and Aritra and Piyush telling me straight that they would kill it. And well, anything that pleases the eye has gone through the hands of a designer — Ritwik, a natural addition :)”
Aritra: “Want to work in the app team for the DevFest app?”, oh I am sorry, this does not remotely resemble what I was told. “You are working in the app team for the DevFest app”, now this sounds more like it. From sketches of the skeleton to the development of the UI and then thinking about the architecture was what we had done. No one is going to hire any of us, I know right! But nonetheless the app did trend and we were appreciated for our efforts by eminent DevFest speakers on D-Day. Seeing attendees using the app was so cool and proud. I will always cherish the sleepless nights and the drowsy morning looking at my laptop screen hitting Hot Reload. We did it, eh? We did it.
Piyush S.: I would like to start by thanking Anubhav Singh for picking me out of nowhere. You have my immense thanks for all of the support you’ve given me. Coming to the process, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. We faced challenges but this team made it look so easy. Every time we got stuck someone rose to the occasion. The strength of the team is each member. The strength of each member is the team. Thanks for being some of the most interesting people I’ve ever worked with. You all are the best.
Piyush M.: From being just an attendee of DevFest’18 to being a part of the app team for DevFest’19, was huge for me. Coming to the project, I have always developed apps using Java or Kotlin, but we all mutually agreed to make it using Flutter, this was my first ever Flutter project and I took it as a challenge. Being new at flutter, it took 3 days for me to just install it on my system! Thanks to Windows, I somehow managed and tried to implement everything that I was assigned to. Thanks to the GEM of a team, we finished the app-building way before time, but then Google decided to play with our patience. Somehow, finally, we did it! And yes! it’s my Dream Team.
Ritwik: First of all kudos to this entire team, and thank you Rimjhim for the kind words. A whole blog could be written about the design of this app and it would still fall short. Long story short, none of us followed the set rules for designing and developing an app. The UI was made first, revised infinitely many times, features were added, removed, and then added again and entire pages were redesigned by collective inputs. It sounds like a real design nightmare, right? Well, it wasn’t, not only is the entire team fantastic developers but alarmingly good design thinkers as well. The finished product is an ode to that. I’ll end my monograph by chiming in something: “Sometimes it is important to trust the interaction of your teammates, rather than focus on the rules of interaction of elements on-screen.”
Anjali: I became a part of this team much later when the app was to be published for writing the app description. One may think after most of the development of the app is done, the rest is just a route to prance about. But, this was not the case for this team as they encountered quite a few “your app has been rejected” due to some policy breaches. Your real dedication is put to the test when it’s not a cakewalk and you face rejections, but then you work for it tirelessly to make it work. I for one saw them working day in and day out to make the app what it is and the success of the app is itself evidence of the efforts and hard work put up by these folks as a team.
Applause
Right from the day the app was launched to the event’s day, we received never-ending series of appreciation from the organizers, the speakers, the attendees, the Google Developer Relations team and the rest of the world.
After the closing note on the event’s day, Dhrumil Shah, Manager/ Co-organizer of GDG-Ahemdabad and one of the most entertaining speakers we had for the day told me, “Rimjhim you know what was the first thing that came to mind when I opened the app, ‘WOW’. It is very beautiful and from start to end”. It was truly a moment of pride for me as a developer and the lead of the team.
Want to have a look at the app? Find it on Play Store.
Curious about the code? Have a look at the code.
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