Ask My Backend: try your application in plain words
In Stage, add sample records, try what should work and what should be refused, and read what happened, all in plain words.
In Stage, you try your application in plain words: you add sample records, try what should work and what should be refused, and read what happened. This is called Ask My Backend, and it needs no screens.
What it is for
Seeing for yourself that the application does what you agreed, before you sign it off. It works beside your own frontend, not instead of it: see Build and connect your frontend.
What you can do
- Add sample records. “Add a customer called Rosa Marín, and a booking for the long ladder next Tuesday.” Or several at once: “Add ten customers with made-up details.”
- Ask with a condition. “List the items where the quantity is less than 10.” “Which bookings are waiting to be collected?”
- Sort and count. “Show the five most recent bookings.” “How many bookings were made this week?”
- Try what should work. “Confirm that booking.”
- Try what should be refused. “Book the long ladder again for the same day.” You should be told no, and which rule said no.
- Try it as someone else. “As counter staff, approve a discount of twenty percent.” If only a manager may do that, it is refused.
- Do several things in a row. “Add a booking, then show it.”
LobLogix turns each sentence into a request, sends it to your application running in Stage, and tells you what came back in plain words.
Why it can do this
Your application publishes a description of its own records and of what can be done with them. LobLogix reads that description, so “quantity less than 10” becomes an exact request. If you use a name the application does not know, the answer lists the names it does know.
Use sample records only
Stage is for trying. Use made-up names and amounts, never real personal or financial records. What you type to the assistant is kept with your conversation.
Where it works
In Stage, with Stage’s own records. It is not offered for production, where by default LobLogix cannot access your database.
What it does not do
It does not change your specification or the application itself. To change what the application does, ask in the conversation. See Change something later.
Tips
- Use the names from your Living Spec. They are the names the application knows.
- Try one thing at a time.
- If a result surprises you, that is worth knowing before sign-off. Check the rule in your specification.