Same App, Same backend, New Client

Preface:

Did you ever encounter a situation when you wanted to replicate/duplicate the Back-End of your app for a new Client, with a new Database and other Assets for his use, completely seperated from the existing clients?

Here's the background:

I have built an application:

Front end is Flutter, working on:
- Web
- Android
- Iphone
Back-End is Appwrite:
- 1 Databse contains 15 collections, some of which has 15+ attributes
- 3 Storage buckets (repositories)
- 9 server-side functions

It was built per a request of a client, sold as SaaS service.

The application itself contains 2 environments

User environment
Manager environment (web only)

Pages:

Web environment has ~40 pages
Mobile environment has ~25 pages

Architecture: I followed clean architecture and some best practices I built myself and

Stored all the constants of the backend (collections IDs, buckets ID, EndPoints and ApiKeys for all the services related to the backend) in a single file.
Stored all the backend functions in a 4 classes (database, storage, auth, functions)

And now, after it is in production, a new client approched me, interested in working with his own copy of the app.

The new client will obviously need his own:

Clean database, with all the collections.
Clean Buckets for storage
etc.

And this is when I came with the idea of the "Structure builder".

The Idea is very simple:

To make the process of creation of all the collections and other parts of the database for the new client, as easy as possible.
To collect all the ID's of all the assets.
To build a new "Backend Constants" file, to be placed in the new copy of the project, for the client.
It obviously needs to be quick, clean and efficiant.

This is How I have implemented it:

In the web app, I have created an area, accessible only to systems user with the highes level of permissions (I called it "Creator")

The Creator contents oversees all the project, crossing the boundries of different clients, accessing all the databases, storage buckets etc.
The creator content has 2 screens:
1. The database list screen
2. The New Client creation screen (a simple form that does the magic).

Here are the details of the "New Client Creation screen"

A Methods class consists of 3 levels of functions:

Level One: The base functions used to build all types of entities:

Database:

Collection:

Attributes (examples):

Level 2: the creation of the specific collection with it's attributes:

Level 3:

A function, calling all the Collections Creation functions

During the creation of all the collections, I am collecting the names and IDs of all the collections to a list.

In the end of the process, I am creating another "Dummy" collection, contains all the details of the "Production" collections, sonn, the reason.

In the Form, as specified above, I am also creating the Storage repositories the same way.

After the creation of all the assets for the new client have been created, I am Creating the text file, to be used as the BackEnd constants files in the project.

Last step:

I am calling it the right name and downloading it from the browser for the computer.

This is how the dart file looks like: