A new lease of life for a system on its original foundations
Ipsos is a long-standing leader in market research and public opinion polling. As part of our technology partnership, the Ipsos team approached us to modernise its platform for CAPI (computer-assisted personal interviewing in the field). What made the project unique was the need to keep the existing backend and administration the company was used to. Our task was to build a new cross-platform interface that connects smoothly to these original systems and turns an unreliable native app into a modern digital tool.
The original app crashed frequently. In the field, this meant stress for interviewers and, above all, a risk of losing data. That could invalidate entire surveys and drive up the cost of repeating them.
Ipsos needed to keep its internal systems and administration. The challenge was to build a modern frontend that would fully communicate with these older foundations, without Ipsos having to invest heavily in replacing the whole existing solution.
Interviewers work in the field on mobile phones, but some surveys also run on office computers. The goal was one universal solution for every type of device, so the client wouldn’t have to pay for developing and maintaining three separate versions of the app (Android, iOS, desktop).
To ensure interview quality, the app has to use GPS, the camera and the microphone for audio recording. The technical challenge was to make these features run with complete reliability on hundreds of different device models across platforms.
We chose PWA (Progressive Web App) technology – a web application that behaves like a native app on a phone. As a result, the system runs exactly the same on iPhones, Android and computers, which radically simplified management for the client and cut costs.
To prevent data loss during outages, we built a server-side intermediate layer. If the client’s main system stops responding, no data is lost – it is stored temporarily. Once the connection is stable again, the system automatically syncs all the data.
We connected the new app to Nfield, the platform Ipsos uses for digital data collection. Our app acts as a reliable intermediary, making sure that everything interviewers collect is passed to Nfield instantly and securely for further processing.
The app has become a key tool for Ipsos offices in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Its robust design makes it easy to localise and roll out in different markets.
The new technology has practically eliminated technical errors and made hundreds of field staff more efficient – they no longer have to deal with crashes or lost work.
The chosen architecture is exceptionally stable and needs only minimal maintenance even after years in operation, including through mobile operating system updates.
One universal app replaced separate systems for iOS, Android and desktop, cutting Ipsos’s maintenance costs by tens of percent.
With Commity, we managed to build a modern app on foundations that were never designed for it. They replaced only the app our interviewers use, which gave us technological freedom without having to invest in a costly rewrite of the entire backend.
