A group of people sitting at a table discussing collaborative development for CloudSuite and Infor Mongoose.

Building low-code feature-rich applications for CloudSuite with Infor Mongoose

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Summary: Fully integrated with Infor Ming.le and Infor ION (Intelligent Open Network) and a part of Infor CloudSuite, Infor Mongoose is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that allows business users to build apps quickly with minimal coding and deploy them on-premises or in the cloud.


ERP systems streamline core business processes such as finance, HR, manufacturing, sales, and distribution. Meanwhile, Extended ERP modules facilitate functions that focus on a business’s unique challenges or support external transactions. Extended ERP includes Integration, Output, Report Services, and UI Enhancements. Infor Mongoose is a newly arrived but successful technology in extending Infor M3 functionality in the cloud. This article talks about UI enhancement challenges and the advantages of using Infor Mongoose as the development framework during implementation and post-implementation.

Figure 1: Infor M3 Extending


Build applications faster

The ability to swiftly fine-tune your ERP system to changing business requirements is a game-changer. Delivering the right quality application within a short time is a common challenge in software development projects. Infor Mongoose enables rapid development of any application integrated with M3. It is designed to reduce development effort, and a large portion of the application can easily be developed without writing a single line of code due to its metadata-driven architecture. Infor Mongoose framework is armed with the essential pre-built functionalities like login, user permissions, data maintenance, validation, and other application elements required to build enterprise-level applications cost-effectively. With its no-code/low code approach, building quality applications is simple, fast, and easy.


Pre-built user management module

Managing authentication and authorization logic in each module is another challenge in traditional application development. Mongoose has a pre-built user management module to manage users, groups, and permission, where Mongoose Groups directly sync with Infor Ming.le groups. Another great benefit of the Infor Mongoose technology is its inbuilt database support which eliminates the need for implementing a third-party database.


Seamless integration

Mongoose has its own plugin to connect to M3. You can build an M3 API connection without writing a single line of code through its wizard-driven method. The M3 Mongoose Plug-in allows Mongoose developers to create extensibility forms that integrate with M3 easily. With the provided IDO Custom Assembly, IDO Wizard, and development forms, integration with M3 can be done with minimal coding.

The Mongoose ION API wizard replaces the M3 API connector wizard (M3 Mongoose Plug-in). With the ION API, developers achieve simpler, easy to maintain code. Hence use the ION API Wizard to integrate your ION APIs to your Mongoose application with a few simple clicks.

Mongoose also provides inbuilt support for Infor Data Lake integration. Mongoose uses replication technologies to extract data from the Data Lake and push back. The Data Lake IDO wizard provides a facility to import objects from the Data Lake and create IDO, Properties and, required methods.


Cloud-native development and deployment

Mongoose allows you to deploy your application in the cloud, on-premises, or hybrid environments. Mongoose component’s metadata approach and cloud support enable moving applications and data from one tenant to another extremely simple. Also, moving to the cloud from on-premise and on-premises to cloud is the same.

With traditional development methods, application development and deployment are carried out in different environments, which require maintaining additional servers and installing the required development tools and software. This is a hindrance to rapidly rolling out new applications.

But with Mongoose, you can use Web or Windows client for development. This will help in easy development and deployment while saving a significant amount of cost and time.

Figure 2: The Development Tool


Agile and adaptable

Infor Mongoose’s no-code, low-code rapid application development framework, helps keep up with today’s agile and adaptable business requirements.  It extends your application development experience to a greater extent by using Form scripts, Global scripts and IDO extension classes, enabling you to develop rich applications that include complex logic. Furthermore, in Form scripts, Global scripts and IDO extension classes, you can use C#.net as your development language. This means you can use most of the features available with C#.

Figure 3: Infor Mongoose Edit Form Script Interface

The IDO Extension Class allows developers to extend the capabilities of the Infor Mongoose framework by adding methods and event handlers using C# .net. This will compile your business logic into .net class libraries and store them in the database.

Figure 4: Adding methods and event handlers using the IDO Extension Class

Application Event System is another way of adding features to your application without changing the base program. This works like a workflow engine where it can display a simple notification to business logic change. This can directly integrate with ION workflows.

Additionally, end-users of your application have the capability to extend or change the application for future needs with or without coding.


Flexible Architecture

The platform empowers you to develop simple applications to feature-rich ERP systems. Using the same development framework, you can develop Infor Ming.le homepage widgets, mobile applications, enterprise-level applications and customer portals.

Figure 5: Example application developed using Infor Mongoose (1)
Figure 6: Example application developed using Infor Mongoose (2)

The standard enterprise-level Mongoose theming engine will reduce UI development effort and reduce the cost of QA by allowing you to set up or change UI components without writing any code.  

Furthermore, you can build high-quality apps for a rich user experience with the new features in the solution. At the same time, UI support for responsive UI design is available for desktops, tablets, or Mobile phones. 

Figure 7: Example application developed using Infor Mongoose (3)

In the next article, I will discuss applications that we have developed using Infor Mongoose and their capabilities.

Written by:

Nishantha Ekanayake

Technical Consultant, Fortude