Optimizing a EV Charger Monitoring Platform E.ON Drive

• Severe performance issues in the existing Retool app (1-minute+ load times)
• Inability to manage data from multiple backend systems in real-time
• Lack of granular access controls and poor scalability across multiple countries

Client was unsatisfied with the performance of their Retool app, which freezes for a minute or more with each screen refresh. That was a consequence of getting multiple datasets on the front end to map the data. We designed and developed a Retool app that displays the stats of all the chargers across the network of 11 countries and works faster. The data comes from different systems, so we needed to introduce a cache DB on PostgreSQL that holds normalized data. This decision allowed us to join different tables from different sources on the fly with minimal delay, having complex calculations as well. Also, enhanced security and granular access control is done on the Retool Business plan.

In addition, country admins are ready to co-develop their own apps and add links to them on the user left nav bar. This is done via a special app.

Scope of Work

User Permissions

• Global admins can manage user permissions on per country basis
• These permissions are enforced in each SQL query

Ticket Templating System

• To speed up ops work, we let users define their own country-specific tickets
• These templates are displayed every time a user starts to add a ticket regarding a charger
• Tickets are created in Salesforce

Issue Dashboard

• App displays the number of issues for selected countries
• Each counter also serves as a filter button, so when clicked, it filters the data in the table below accordingly
• We display additional data in the expandable grid rows

Issue Map

• Issues can be displayed as a map in the main app, or users can open a special ‘Full-screen map’ app

Country Menu

• Country admins can create apps by their own, and we let them to control what menu items to be shown for their employees