How a union benefit fund modernized three member apps on one Azure pattern

A regional building-trades union benefit fund had field organizers working from paper and member systems running on aging .NET code. ArchitectNow designed and delivered a Xamarin iPad field app with an Angular and .NET back office on Azure, then reused that pattern to rewrite the member-status module of a large legacy application on Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database and Azure AD B2C, and to modernize a member benefits platform.

• Client. A regional building-trades union benefit fund.
• Industry. Labor organizations, member benefits administration.
• Services. Field mobile app design and delivery, legacy .NET modernization, member identity, Azure application platform, CSP.
• Microsoft stack. Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database, Azure AD B2C for member identity, Xamarin (.NET) for the iPad field app, .NET and Angular as the common application stack.
• Results. Organizers submit site visits from the job site, with tasks and follow-ups firing automatically. Better data on where to organize next, and more funding followed. The member-status module of a large legacy .NET application and a member benefits platform both modernized onto the same Azure pattern.

What problem did the benefit fund need to solve?

The fund's field organizers worked from paper. A site visit to a general contractor or a sub meant notes on a clipboard, data that never made it into a system, and follow-ups that got missed. There was no reliable view of which contractors were non-union, which is the one thing an organizer most needs to know.

Behind the field, the member systems ran on aging .NET code. A large member management application and a member benefits platform were both costly to maintain and slow to extend.

How did ArchitectNow approach it?

Three applications, one budget, one small internal team. The sequencing mattered more than any single design choice.

ArchitectNow started with the field app, because it was the smallest surface with the biggest gap between paper and possible. The pattern that came out of it, an Azure back end with a .NET and Angular back office, became the template. Each later application reused it rather than starting fresh, which is how three modernizations stayed affordable.

What did ArchitectNow deliver?

A field organizing app. A Xamarin iPad app for organizers visiting job sites, general contractors and subs, union and non-union. Visits submit automatically. Reminders and follow-ups fire from the submission, and a back-office task list gives the office a queue instead of a stack of paper. The back office runs on Angular and .NET.

The member management module. The part of the fund's large legacy .NET application that tracks a worker's union status and member details was rewritten on Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database and Azure AD B2C for member identity. That was the piece that mattered most and the piece that was most expensive to keep as it was.

The member benefits platform. Modernized onto the same Azure stack, so the fund now runs three applications on one pattern instead of three separate stacks.

What changed for the benefit fund?

Organizers submit from the job site and the follow-ups happen on their own. The fund gained a much better picture of where to organize next, and that data brought more funding with it.

On the back end, the applications that were most expensive to maintain now run on Azure with a shared stack, which is what let the fund take the next step: exiting its data center entirely, the subject of the second story in this series.

Before. Paper site visits with missing data and missed follow-ups, no view of which contractors were non-union, and two member applications that were expensive to maintain and slow to extend.

After. Organizers submitting from the job site with automatic follow-ups, better data on where to organize next, and three applications on one Azure App Service, Azure SQL and .NET/Angular pattern with Azure AD B2C member identity.

Questions buyers ask

How do you modernize a large legacy .NET application without rewriting all of it?

Rewrite the part that carries the business risk and leave the rest alone. At this fund, the module that tracks a worker's union status and member details was rewritten on Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database and Azure AD B2C; the rest of the application stayed in place. Roughly a tenth of the codebase, and the tenth that mattered.

What's a good pattern for a mobile field app with a back office?

A native mobile app for the field (here, Xamarin on iPad), a .NET API and Angular back office on Azure, and automation on submission: reminders, follow-ups and a task queue. The value is in what happens after the organizer hits submit.

Why modernize three applications onto one stack?

Because the second and third get cheaper. Once the field app established an Azure App Service, Azure SQL and .NET/Angular pattern, the member management module and the benefits platform reused it, and the fund's team supports one stack instead of three.

How do you handle member identity for a union application?

Azure AD B2C, which gives members their own identity separate from the organization's staff directory and handles sign-in for the modernized applications.

Next step

If your field team is still on paper and your member systems are on code nobody wants to touch, the two problems are related, and the same pattern fixes both. ArchitectNow designs and delivers AI and cloud solutions on the Microsoft stack. See our custom technology work, or talk to us. Related: How a union benefit fund exited its data center to Azure with an in-house team. ArchitectNow is a Microsoft Solutions Partner with four designations and the AI Apps on Microsoft Azure Specialization.