News & Blogs

Join us on Thursday the 15th of May at 12:30 PM in this 30 minutes webinar in which Arie Versluis, our Strategic Product Manager, will share the high-level Roadmap for the Thinkwise Platform. He'll discuss the most important topics that will be addressed the coming 2-3 years.In this webinar he'll also introduce the Thinkwise Cloud offering and provide an update on our Universal Thinkwise (AI) Assistant (UTA).This webinar will be in English and is targeted towards our business-oriented stakeholders like IT Managers, Product Owners, Business Analysts. Do make sure to subscribe if you are interested, even if you can't make the date and time, so we can share the recording.NOTE: the content will be very similar to what has been discussed in the Roadmap session during the Developer Event on the 9th of April.Date & Time:Date: Thursday the 15th of May 2025Time: 12:30 PM - 1:00 PM 

Join us for a day filled with the latest technology, inspiring developer stories, and plenty of opportunities to connect with the Thinkwise Community. See how new functionality is brought to life, share your ideas, and spark meaningful conversations. Date: 9th of April 2025Time: 09:00 – 17:00Location: Landgoed de Horst, De Horst 1, 3971 KR Driebergen What to expect?Technical deep dives: Learn from the experts as they explore specific features and topics in detail. Community showcases: Be inspired by real-world stories and innovative use cases shared by fellow developers. Open spaces: Join open spaces to share your feedback on all things Thinkwise. We want to hear from you! Roadmap: An update on the roadmap for the Thinkwise Platform. Plea

On Wednesday, April 9, I gave a presentation at the Thinkwise Developer Event about the possibilities of the Action Bar. For those who couldn’t attend, I’ve outlined my presentation in this blog post. My blog ties in nicely with this blog by Bart Metselaar, in which he explains how to design user-friendly screens using UX principles. Changes Over TimeIn Platform Release 2025.1, the Toolbar Screen component has been replaced by the Action bar and the Custom action bar Screen

UX around usAt the Developer Event of 2025, I was invited to tell my story: the importance of UX design and how you can use simple guidelines to optimize your products’ UX.User eXperience Design is an often-overlooked element in our complex world of core systems. We as developers can become accustomed to users working daily with our application, and assume these users (eventually) get used to the processes and tasks we develop for them. However, we can tremendously decrease complexity for our users when we take steps in our development processes to improve usability.EmpathyThe starting point is observing your user when using your product.Functionality is often considered “done” once it technically works. But especially for frequent or complex tasks, usability makes a difference. Ask the user to perform their task in

SQL Server Management Studio has been the backbone for writing queries and managing SQL Server databases for a long time now. I’ve been using SSMS for well over a decade.A new kid on the block - Azure Data Studio - is gaining popularity. This IDE has been around for a couple of years now and is a close relative to Visual Studio Code. And with the possibility of plugging in extensions such as GitHub Copilot, I’ve recently completely switched to Azure Data Studio.In this blog, I’ll highlight some of the features of Azure Data Studio and suggest some key binding changes which I did make the transition from SSMS to Azure Data Studio easier. Familiarize yourself with F1Not unlike Visual Studio Code, virtually all commands, actions and settings can be done in Azure Data Studio via the F1 menu. If you want to do something and you don’t see a button - always press F1.

Hi everyone! This is my first blog, where I’ll explain some aspects of Form configuration in the Universal GUI. Let me introduce myself: I’m Mustafa Kazanc, new UX/UI Designer at Thinkwise and colleague of Bart Metselaar. In recent versions a couple of changes have been made to the behavior of the Form in the Universal GUI. This blog is meant to clarify the expected behavior and ways to override that behavior (based on Platform version 2024.3).   1. Default GUI behaviorThree key principles are applied to optimize the layout of Forms in the GUI, making it easier for users to navigate and input data efficiently.  Principle 1 - Fields are stretched to cover the entire width of the Form  Principle 2 - Fields are distributed following an N-pattern   Principle 3 - Fields are dynamically positioned to minimize whitespace

In today's interconnected world, seamless communication between applications is essential. But how can you efficiently integrate these connections into your Thinkwise application? The answer: web connections.Web connections provide a streamlined way to model APIs and their endpoints consistently, reducing complexity and minimizing code. In this video, I'll walk you through the process of setting up your first Web connection, making integration easier than ever.  

Hi everyone,In every day life we encounter all kinds of tags, like in the store where we find price tags. These tags are essential for you to know what the price of a particular product is, but it also tells you whether or not the product is actually for sale and not there for decoration. Nowadays more and more price tags are shown on a smart display and can show the percentage of discount or other information. Tags in essence can hold important information.But hey, we’re developing software here. Tags can also be significant for your software. The Software Factory allows you to define your own tags that you can link to many model entities. Here’s what our Documentation page says about tags:A tag is a freely definable property that can be linked to rows of a table and can be provided with a value. T

We often get questions about customizing the Universal GUI, particularly the login page. We plan to offer several model-options to customize it in the future, such as the logo, colors, title text and background image, and to display maintenance messages, for example. But with the latest release of the Universal GUI, it is already possible to make these adjustments manually, using custom CSS! SetupStarting with the latest (beta) release of the Universal GUI it is possible to inject your own custom CSS to change the styling of various parts of the user interface.To get started, simply rename the custom.sample.css file in the public folder of the Universal GUI to custom.css. This file will then automatically be loaded by the Universal GUI. By renaming the file, it will no longer be overwritten wit

As we all know, merge statements are ideal for executing multiple actions in a single statement—an insert, update, and delete with one statement and one source query.This blog is intended to help you make a well-informed decision about when to use a merge statement and when it’s better to avoid it. There is no right or wrong choice, but be aware of the consequences of using a merge statement and the consequences of using separate statements.When using a merge statement, you must take into account that the source and target tables can be locked. These locks are larger than with separate statements due to lock escalation, which increases the likelihood of deadlocks. You can (partially) prevent this by using a CTE (Common Table Expression) to make the target table smaller, thereby reducing the size of the locks, and by placing the source table in a temporary table so that it doesn't cause a lock during the merge.For example:-- Co

As of Windows Server 2019, Microsoft disabled the encryption protocols TLS 1.0 and 1.1 by default, and requires all connections to, for example, SQL Server instances on Windows Server 2019 to use TLS 1.2. This can cause problems with Crystal Reports documents that use the default SQL Server drivers included with Crystal Reports, instead of the Microsoft OLE DB Driver.To resolve this, you need to replace the drivers used by each report with the latest Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server, which you can download here. To update the driver in the report file:Open the Set Datasource Location dialog from the

Join us for the fourth annual Thinkwise Summit on October 2, 2024! This year, we’re embracing the theme 'Innovation Without Compromise' - empowering you to drive IT innovation effortlessly and precisely the way you envision it. The event will be hosted in Dutch. We’ve designed two specialized tracks: a business track featuring inspiring sessions and real-life case studies, and a tech track with deep dives into technical topics. Register now for the Thinkwise Summit 2024 on October 2 at Orpheus Apeldoorn. Button: https://www.thinkwisesoftware.com/nl/thinkwise-summit-2024?utm_source=Thinkwis

Search is one of the most used functions of any software application. But there are many ways to implement it. In this video I want to highlight a new way of implementing search using the large language model embedding integration that the Thinkwise Software Factory provides. This allows users to search by using natural language.  

In my previous blog I made a promise that more possibilities would soon come available to start task actions from the grid component, so here we are with the next one. The grid component of both the Windows and Web GUI now supports translated links to execute a task with.The idea is to create a better user experience by placing important tasks of a subject at a more intuitive location, so the user can find it more easily. Also, this will require less clicks to get the required task executed on a (inactive) record so users can do their work faster. You can choose to execute a process flow after the task execution to guide the user through a series of actions. 

Data modeling was originally intended as a tool for database design, but has become a fundamental requirements technique for business analists, as it is relevant for anyone working with data structures, application logic, user interfaces and business processes. The guidelines in this document aim to ensure that Software Factory developers set up high quality data models. High quality means: Consistent Logical Well structured Unambiguous This document has guidelines for the following subjects: Data modeling Diagrams in the Software Factory Data modeling To create well structured data models, a distinction is made between: Strong entities Weak entities An entity is strong when it’s existence does not depend on the existence of any other entity in a database. A weak entity depends on a strong(er) entity for its e

The Thinkwise Platform is the core of professional DevOps ecosystems in many organizations. But in modern fast-paced development landscapes, it never stands on its own. Integration with specialized third-party DevOps tools is essential for automating DevOps workflows, gaining deeper insights, and expediting deployments.In this article, we highlight some of the proven DevOps-related tools and integrations that will help you streamline and manage the entire software development and operations process with the Thinkwise Platform. Many of those tools are also used by ourselves, for example for the development of the platform - which is itself a Thinkwise application - and the automated deployment of the ThinkLab environment.For an overview of integrations to improve and enrich your Thinkwise applications, check out this post

Ensuring the security of all our customers' applications is a foundational element of the Thinkwise Platform. To maintain the integrity and security of our platform components, we have regular penetration tests conducted by a third party, designed to identify potential vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. We are proud that no exploitable vulnerabilities have ever been found during these tests, reflecting our commitment to security. However, ensuring security does not end with the platform components. The infrastructure on which these components are deployed plays a crucial role in maintaining a secure environment. One key aspect of this infrastructure is the web server configuration. Even the most secure platform can be compromised if the underlying web server is not configured correctly.  The Importance of Web Server Security HeadersAmong the critical elements of web server configuration are security headers. These headers provide an additiona

In order to easily package, ship, and run applications as lightweight, portable, and self-sufficient as possible, there is Docker. Docker allows us to run applications virtually everywhere. Therefore this blog post gives some guidance on how Thinkwise applications can be containerized.There are numerous approaches in how you might want to set up your Docker environment, so we will mainly focus on:Running Universal independently; Running Indicium independently; Running Indicium and Universal together.At the end of this post, we will uncover our future plans and what we're currently researching/developing. PrerequisitesTo follow along, you'll need to have:Docker installed on your desktop or server (for Linux containers); Universal downloaded from TCP; Indicium downloaded from TCP.

Hi everyone,The latest Windows security update (KB5035853) has been linked to instances of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors for Windows 11 users. These errors can also occur when using the Thinkwise Windows GUI.More information here: Windows 11 Update Causing Serious Problems For Millions Of PC Users (forbes.com)For users who have not yet installed the update (KB5035853), it is recommended to postpone the installation until Microsoft releases a possible fix. For users currently experiencing BSOD errors or Thinkwise application issues after installing the update, we recommend uninstalling the update using standard Windows update uninstall procedures.Microsoft has acknowledged that it is investigating these issues and is expected to provide a fix in the near future. 

The Thinkwise Platform offers a wide range of integration options, allowing you to connect your application to virtually any third-party application, tool or service.In many cases this can be done using out-of-the-box integrations: ready-made components, controls, and connectors to integrating with, for example, Microsoft Exchange, Maps, OpenID, AI and barcode scanning. For all other integration needs, the platform provides generic connectors that allow you to connect to web services or APIs, databases, cloud services, and more.We are often asked which integrations have already been realized by us or our customers, and whether there are any solutions that we recommend for specific use-cases. In this blog post we list a number of implemented integrations that are known to work well in combination with the platform.This article focuses on functional integrations with Thinkwise applications. In addition, the platform also offers many DevOps-related integra

Dear Community,We had a blast at the Thinkwise Developers Event 2024! Great to see all your faces again.There were a lot of ideas presented to us, like the advantages of AI. We’ve also invited you to register for our UX panel:‘The Thinkwise UX Hall of Fame’.Many of you did! For those who could not attend or still want to register, click here to go to the registration form.By participating in our UX panel, we can contact you to cooperatively share ideas and opinions about the development of our products.This will be done by informing you, through this panel, about the newest features and designs of our products. This gives us the opportunity to invite you to, for example, interviews or brainstorm sessions about these features and designs, which al