News & Blogs

Thinkwise Platform Pentest It is important to us as Thinkwise that our customers have a secure Low Code software platform. That is why we periodically do a pentest to prove that the Thinkwise Low Code platform is sufficiently safe.The pentest was augmented with several audit activities, in which security controls, secure configuration and secure development were discussed in interview form. The following topics were covered in this audit:Secure design and architecture (both network and application-level) Secure software development (SAST, DAST, threat modelling etc.) IT Security Controls: authorization, authentication, password management IT Security Controls: secure communication and encryption; data protection at rest IT Security Controls: access control / default denyDescription of test scopeBecause the attack surface of applications built using the Thinkwise low co

In 2016 we’ve started to improve the layout of the Project Portal (which has since been dubbed ‘Thinkwise Insights’). Some of the changes were already possible with layouts in the G9.8 SF. We’ve made full use of those possibilities and we’ve added a lot more options to the SF. One of the most noticeable changes is that we’ve renamed layouts to themes, so from now on I’ll be talking about themes. If you’re still on a version of the SF that uses layouts, you can substitute layout. Our goal was to make it easier to create a modern, fresh and usable look and feel for your application. In this article I’ll tell you what options you have and how to best utilize them to create a usable, clean, modern and awesome-looking application. Grid Alternating rowsYou’ve never had the option to change the color of the alternating rows in the grid. The GUIs calculated a color for you, and that was it. You could remove the alternating b

The Web GUI has entered the End of Life phase.As per runtime component lifecycle policy, the release of Thinkwise Platform version 2023.3 is the last version to support the Web GUI. In this blog, you can read about the impact of this change in runtime component support. ImpactAny Web GUI that is still in use today will continue to work. However, upgrading to any upcoming Thinkwise Platform version will not be possible. The Web GUI will not support version 2024.1 and up.Thinkwise will only provide critical security updates for about 1.5 years. When Thinkwise Platform version 2023.3 is no longer supported, the Web GUI will enter the End of Service Life phase. Note that the underlying technologies for the Web GUI are aging, security patches may not always be possible.Furthermore, there will be no further updates to support new operating systems, browser versions and such. The Web GUI may cease to function when the operating

Hi everyone,For the 2021.3 release, the complete Creation process has been overhauled to be fully run by Indicium. There was one other feature on the backlog that was very valuable to the Generate definition process, and now was the perfect time to implement it.  When generating, all generated program objects would be dropped and re-created by the control procedures. This process costs performance and IO. It would be smarter if objects were not simply dropped and re-created, but instead created/changed/dropped only when that truly applies. StrategiesTo improve the Generate definition process, several generation strategies have been implemented. A Strategy is a defined way of how the Software Factory should generate the control procedure. For every strategy there can be reasons to choose one over the other, but it is recommended to use the Staged strategy due to all its performance benefits. Read on to see how to implement these new str

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

Free the world of legacy software; that is the promise that we make. This not only means that we empower businesses to modernize their existing legacy software, but also that we guarantee that newly created software never becomes legacy, ever.  We do this by making sure that all applications developed with the Thinkwise Platform continuously stay up to date, both in terms of architecture and technology. When new technologies emerge that qualify for use in the Thinkwise Platform, we completely redevelop the existing runtime components using these technologies, by first rebuilding all available functionality to guarantee backward compatibility and subsequently expanding on it with new features and possibilities that these modern technologies provide. The current cycle of innovation with the Universal GUI has quite some impact, as we are not only addressing the user interfaces this time, but the entire architecture of the Thinkwise Platform with the enhanced Indicium Appl

At the Thinkwise Developer Event 2025 I gave a technical session about how to get creative with cardlists using HTML. This accompanying blog is a short summary with practical pointers and code to get you started on creating your own HTML cardlists. What is a cardlist?The Cardlist is a screen component with the following characteristics:1 Column, no horizontal scrollbar, full width Variable ride height Fields on top of each other Responsive Read Only No Header Only for Universal GUI Cardlists are ideal for:Small device screens, like mobile phones and barcode scanners Navigation Mini dashboards  Sometimes the result of a standard implementation within the Softwa

Planning lies at the heart of every successful organization. Whether you're allocating resources, managing personnel, or scheduling production, having the right tools in place can make all the difference. With the release of Thinkwise Platform 2025.2, we’re excited to introduce a powerful set of enhancements to our Scheduler component—designed to help you plan faster than ever.This update brings hierarchical resource grouping, external drag & drop, and the ability to apply conditional layouts to both resources and time cells. These features give you much more flexibility and control over your Scheduler.In this blog, I’ll guide you through the essentials of setting up a Scheduler in Thinkwise, exploring each new feature along the way. This blog is the first part in a series on using the Scheduler. This first part is focused on setting up the scheduler. The second part focuses on interacting with the

In last week's blog post we described how we moved the roles from IAM to the Software Factory. Eventually the model, including its roles and rights, must end up in IAM. This blog post addresses that, parallel to moving the roles, synchronization to IAM has now also been moved to the Software Factory. Just like database creation, synchronizing is part of the deployment process, which also belongs in the Software Factory. For this purpose, two new screens have been added under the Deployment menu group. Synchronization to IAM

(Personal story)One aspect that I had difficulty with when creating control procedures, was making them work in a variety of scenarios. The way was to copy already created control procedures and templates and alter them slightly to match what needed to be done. Whilst there is nothing wrong with reusing great solutions, it becomes a problem when the model changes in such a way that each one of these control procedures had to be changed. Only at that point, it becomes obvious that this is not be the way to continue development.  Understanding control proceduresAs I became more and more familiar with the Software Factory, I began to understand that the Software Factory offers a solution I was desperately in need of. When switching the type of the Control procedure to SQL, it will allow you to take full control of template assignments and parameters. But to fully understand it, we need to break it down, let's dive into the definitions of St

Hi everyone,We previously explained how the Thinkwise Platform version 2021.3 revised the way creation and automation works.In the Thinkwise Platform version 2022.1, we also revised the way the Synchronization to IAM (Intelligent Application Manager) and Deployment package screens work, allowing for seamless integration in CI/CD tools that many have been waiting for.The Synchronization and Deployment processes are the final two processes that now have been made to fully run via Indicium and therefore can be initialized via Indicium's API. More on that later in this blog.In the previous version, the steps in these screens were bound to a specific client. A developer would start to Synchronize to IAM and the synchronization would be orchestrated start-to-end by the user’s client. This also applies for th

When we started development on our new Universal GUI, one of our main goals was to create a User Interface that worked well on all platforms, be it desktop, tablet or mobile. This feature was so important to us that it even inspired the name. One important distinction between all these platforms is the amount of available screen real estate, or in other words the amount of pixels on a screen that you have to work with. Something that works great on a desktop client might not look so hot when it’s all mashed together on a mobile device. And resizing certain elements on the screen can drastically impact how useful certain screen elements are. Resizing the form on a screen can make it so that the grid that was displaying so much information before now only shows a handful of columns. To make sure everything looks the way you want it to, the Universal GUI makes use of breakpoints. This means that when the screen size or the size of a screen element hits a certain width t

A small, but very useful improvement has been delivered in the latest release of the Windows and Web user interfaces and the Indicium Service tier. It is now possible to use process flow variables in the constant value of input parameters of process flow actions!To create the request URL for an HTTP connector based on user input, for example, instead of having to create the URL in the process action logic like this:set @url = 'https://api.overheid.io/bag?filters[postcode]=' + @postcodeYou can just set the value of the URL parameter like this: The user interfaces and service tier will automatically substitute {postcode} with the current value of the postcode process flow variable when the HTTP action is executed. 

Hi all,Recently, we’ve released Thinkwise Platform version 2023.2. This release includes the ability to apply timeseries forecasting to your data.In our recent release session, we showed a demo application that uses forecasting. This application is now available in the Thinkstore.Simply download the solution, generate, execute and start the application via the Universal GUI.The solution is available under the name ‘Forecasting’The example applicationSince the model in the Thinkstore is shipped with some example data, so you can try it out right away.You will be prompted with a single menu item that shows a small list of articles with article sales for the last year.

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One of the unique and distinguishing features of the Thinkwise Platform is that applications developed with the platform can survive technologies. Thinkwise applications can seamlessly switch over to new technologies, platforms, and even completely new software architectures, without any rework.Customers who developed their core system with the Thinkwise platform 16 years ago, at the time with a Visual Basic user interface in a two-tier architecture, have over time been able to effortlessly upgrade their existing enterprise systems to new technologies such as Web and Mobile, migrate to the cloud if desired, and take advantage of advanced new features like Machine Learning.And soon, all Thinkwise application will be able to switch to the latest Thinkwise Universal User Interface, a Progressive Web App developed with React that will replace all the other Thinkwise user interfaces.

For a long time we have offered features outside of our standard range as extenders; small files containing custom code that configure a range of properties which allow the use of an otherwise unavailable feature, such as the maps component or the resource scheduler. This was a great way to integrate new (and sometimes experimental) components, but it also introduced a lot of overhead and decreased maintainability of the GUI. Every little change to the extender meant changing the code, compiling it into a dll, and deploying it. Furthermore, changes to our codebase that impacted a certain extender meant going through the extenders for every customer and checking for errors. To address these issues we decided to create a way to model the extenders in the Software Factory. While it's still not a full integration of these features into the Software Factory it creates an easily accessible and maintainable way to implement the current set of extenders into your products. It al

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.  

We're excited to invite you to the Thinkwise Developer Event 2024 on April 18th at Van der Valk Amersfoort-A1 in Amersfoort. Expect a day filled with the newest features, opportunities to connect with fellow users, and practical sessions aimed at boosting your skills.Please click here for more details and to confirm your attendance.Schedule: 09:30 - 10:00 Walk-in 10:00 - 10:15 Welcome 10:15 - 11:00 Navigating the Next Wave of AI Innovation with Vincent Everts

With the upcoming release of the Thinkwise Suite G9.8, we have introduced the ability to perform two-factor authentication on users. Two-factor authentication provides an extra layer of authentication, on top of the conventional username and password, which serves to establish the identity of a user with a higher degree of certainty. Typically, two-factor authentication requires the user to prove that they are also in possession of something that only the real user should be in possession of, for instance a mobile phone. Our implementation of two-factor authentication supports the validation of phone numbers (by means of SMS) and the validation of email addresses. Support Two-factor authentication can only be used in applications which are managed by IAM, as IAM is the place where a user’s settings with regard to two-factor authentication can be configured. In addition, support for two-factor authentication is provided by the Web GUI and the Mobile GUI, but

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

SQL server management studio is the tool to use for creating SQL scripts and for database management. However to make optimal use of SSMS you might want to adjust the default settings. Below are several tips to increase the user experience of SSMS. Please note the following tips are based on SSMS 2017, other versions might not have some of these options or the settings can be found in a different menu. Custom connection colors With the basic settings each connection has the exact same look and feel. On the bottom there is a yellow bar with connection details. When working on several SQL servers or instances at the same time this can get very confusing if all the screens look the same. To improve distinctiveness between connections there is the option to give each server connection its own distinct color for the connection bar. Below you can see an example where the local server has the color green assigned to it. The color setti

With the upcoming release of 2019.1, we are discontinuing support for generating Java and C# service tiers. The Windows GUI will no longer be able to use these service tiers as a back-end. This blog describes the reasoning behind this and the (better) alternatives that are available. It is important to note that the generated SOAP service tiers have done a great job in advancing the Thinkwise Platform. At the time when these service tiers were released, they were state-of-the-art and solved some important challenges. Many applications have used these service tiers in production environments. But like any technology, it must eventually yield to a successor. The true power of the Thinkwise Platform lies in the fact that a technology switch like this can actually be made. Why get rid of them?The main reason to use the generated Java and C# service tiers was to support Mobile. Mobile GUI’s cannot directly connect to the database and needed the service

In an average Thinkwise application most data is displayed using a grid / form combination. For most data this makes sense, as you can search data in the grid and manage it in the form.Some data becomes clearer and easier to work with when visualized as a matrix, arranged in a grid of rows and columns similar to a table or spreadsheet. Unlike the standard Grid screen component, however, the rows and columns in an Editable pivot grid can be defined dynamically through data, offering much greater flexibility. The (previously well hidden) way to present matrix data in a Thinkwise application is using an Editable pivot grid.The Editable pivot grid has the following key characteristics:Quickly manage large amounts of data Recognizable to users because of similarity to tools like Excel Row and column values are defined in data. This allows for much greater flexibility than regular forms where columns are predefined.An example