A platform with no map
Allocate builds booking management software for property managers across the UK. Their platform handles room setup, availability, pricing, payments, and integrations with channels like Pitchup and Siteminder.
The software worked, but the developer who'd built it left abruptly and took all the context with them. No documentation, no handover, and no automated tests across any of the code. Just a sprawl of small services built on libraries a decade out of date, talking to each other in ways nobody understood. When bugs surfaced, fixing one would break another, and the application couldn't be safely deployed. Most development time went towards firefighting.
Reading someone else's mind
Allocate is made up of lots of small services - bookings, payments, availability, pricing, channel integrations - each handling a different piece of the platform.
We started by mapping these. Some were reasonably structured, and others were very out of date. Before we could fix anything, we needed to understand how all these pieces connected and where the real fragility was. This is a core part of any legacy system modernisation, understanding what exists before changing anything.
There was no shortcut for this. We were reading through years of someone else's code with no documentation to lean on. It was slow (and occasionally maddening) work, but without that understanding every fix would have been a gamble.
Once we had the picture, we prioritised ruthlessly. Critical bugs first - the ones actually affecting bookings and payments. Then we made each service safe to change and straightforward to deploy. Untangled dependencies, set up proper deployment workflows, and started delivering the features Allocate had been waiting on: new booking admin tools, supporting a new payment provider, and multiple third-party channel integrations.
Still going strong
We're still working with Allocate. That's probably the best indicator of how this went. What started as an emergency rescue turned into an ongoing partnership.
The difference is tangible. An application that couldn't be deployed now ships multiple times a week, and a core API built on libraries a decade out of date now runs on modern Node.js and TypeScript. There's a full automated test suite where there was none, and revenue that was declining year on year is growing again.
Where the majority of development time used to go towards firefighting bugs, it now goes towards improving the product. Allocate ships new features and integrations their customers want, and has someone they can call when something needs to change.
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