Description
Key Learnings
- Learn about the road map for the Autodesk Platform Services Developer Portal and App Marketplace publisher experience.
- Learn how to provide feedback that informs the road map.
Speakers
- EBErica BeffertErica Beffert is the Senior Group Product Manager for Autodesk Platform Services. Her team works to growth Autodesk's portfolio of valuable APIs to help customers and partners connect data, teams and workflows. Her team also ensures a high quality developer experience through the APS Developer Portal and enables developers to distribute their apps and extensions through the Autodesk App Store. With 10+ years of software product management experience across several industries, Erica enjoys taking an incremental approach to collaboratively solving tough problems. When not at work you may find her learning new construction skills on YouTube to use in her next home renovation project.
ERICA BEFFERT: Hi. Welcome today to today's session on the Autodesk developer experience. My name is Erica Beffert, group product manager for developer experience at Autodesk. And with me is my colleague, Vasini, who will introduce herself later.
Today, we're going to talk a little bit about what we mean by the developer experience here at Autodesk and go over our roadmaps for the developer portal and for the Autodesk App Store as well as talk to you about how you, as a developer or as a customer, can be involved in shaping with us the roadmap for the developer experience.
As always with these presentations, we start off with the safe harbor statement. Please don't make any purchase decisions based on anything you will be seeing here because we're making forward-looking statements about things we might choose to do in the future.
So first of all, I want to talk about two different ways that we're going to be discussing the roadmap for the developer experience. And in the live version of this presentation, we will actually do an audience poll. But think for yourself as you're watching this recording, what is your role? And-- so that you can think about which parts of the developer experience most apply in your use case.
So on the one hand, we have the developers. If you're a developer, you're contributing to the decision to use the Autodesk platform to build-- and to build solutions on it. You're working in the cloud to create services. You're using APIs and web applications or websites. And you write code for applications that run natively on desktop computers or operating systems. So whether you're in the cloud or whether you're on desktop, if you're writing the code, we're putting you in the developer category-- or are you a technology administrator?
And it's OK if you're doing both, if you're wearing both of these hats. The technology administrator is someone that is managing software for end users, managing deployments and user access. They might partner with the dev team to build the tools and integrations, manage application keys, or other type of administrative tasks. They're also responsible for managing costs and monitoring and reporting on token usage. So those are the two personas when we're thinking about the developer experience at Autodesk that we're focusing on.
And we have identified and speak to three different types of organizations that are doing development at-- on top of the Autodesk platform. The first are those of our customers that have in-house development teams. So they might be building-- you might be building custom solutions to extend the Autodesk core products and capabilities to give yourself an advantage against the competition.
The second group of development organizations that we target are systems integrators. So these would be consulting firms or platform partners that build custom solutions that will integrate Autodesk products. So you build something. And then you hand it off to the customer.
And the third are the software vendors, or the independent software vendors, that are developing and selling software products in the marketplace built on top of the Autodesk platform. And you're looking to build a business and reach Autodesk customers to expand the reach of your product.
So when we talk about Autodesk Platform Services and the Autodesk developer experience, what exactly are we talking about? Autodesk Platform Services are made up of capabilities, experience, and community.
The capabilities that we provide as part of Autodesk Platform Services and how we complement the wider Autodesk portfolio is that we provide tools and services, such as APIs, that allow you to connect data, connect teams, and connect workflows. And a key part of enabling you to do that is providing an easy-to-use developer experience. We deliver this experience through the developer portal and through the App Store. And through those two properties, we connect you to learning resources and to tools. And through the App Store, importantly, we connect you to customers so that you can distribute the applications that you build on top of the platform.
And finally, Autodesk Platform Services is community. We provide a way to connect you to your peers, to mentors, and to Autodesk employees so that you can quickly learn how to use and-- use the tools, use the APIs, and provide a collaborative development experience.
So drilling down a little bit from the-- what Autodesk Platform Services is as a whole, I want to talk a little bit about the developer experience. And we frame the developer experience around the developer journey, from the point when they start discovering what the possibilities are-- maybe that's what APIs we provide, or they identify a business problem they're trying to solve or a gap in the market that they'd like to put an app in-- all the way through building that application, managing it, and distributing it through the App Store. So as we're thinking about our roadmap and how we provide the best possible experience, this is the journey that we anchor everything to.
So now I want to drill down a little bit further into the developer portal, one of the two properties through which we provide the developer experience, and talk a little bit about our roadmap. This is a classic now-- next future roadmap. We're presenting right now in September. So some of the things that are currently in progress may actually be released by the time you see this in November. So just keep that in mind.
There are two key themes that we have been addressing throughout the past year and will continue to focus on into the coming year, the first of which is scaling the administrative experience within the APS developer portal and the developer experience. Historically, things have been focused around the individual developer. For example, they're able to create an app. They're able to publish an app. And increasingly, what we're hearing is that our developers are working in teams. They're working within organizations. And they need management capabilities to allow them to collaborate and to jointly manage those applications once they're built and distributed.
So on the developer portal side, what we've invested in over the past year are collaboration features, including the ability to add collaborators to an application with either view or edit permissions and to transfer ownership from one developer to the other. Between these two features, what this means is that you will no longer need to create shared group username and password accounts that you're sharing among multiple developers in order to collaborate. So this will improve the security of your application development environments. And it also provides for business continuity. As developers switch teams or exit the organization, they can transfer ownership. And you can keep that token usage and that management aspect intact.
What we're currently working on, along that same theme, is the ability to manage developers. So now individual developers can collaborate together. The next step up from that is to create teams of developers that can be managed-- so adding in an administrative role and the ability for that administrator to manage apps on the developer's behalf and transfer ownership between them.
And then going forward, what we'll be focusing on is enhanced usage reporting. So how many tokens is a particular app consuming? And also, how is that not just-- beyond the tokens, how is that app using other APIs so that you'll have more performance information?
And we're thinking about providing that information in two ways. One is through the user experience, as we have done historically. And then the second one that we're working on is the ability to access this usage data via APIs so that it can be fed into other business management systems as well.
The second theme is really around making Autodesk Platform Services developer portal the central place to come to to find any development resources you need related to Autodesk products regardless of whether they're cloud-based or whether they are desktop-based. Historically, APS has really focused on cloud-based resources. And we're merging it together with the ADN, or the Autodesk Developer Network, site so that you can come to one place.
And the feedback that we've really received from a lot of customers that were basing this on is that a lot of the apps and the connectors that you are building are really designed to connect some of our desktop products, such as Revit, to the cloud. And so having all of those resources in one place and having more ability to explore those connected solutions will really speed up development.
So what you'll see here on this thread is that what we've already released is these product-based developer centers, some of which are for desktop products, such as Revit and AutoCAD, and some of which are for some of our cloud-based, offerings such as the Data Exchange or the Viewer. And these centralized development centers bring together not only the documentation, but also blogs and tutorials and code samples and everything related to that particular API in one place for easy access.
The thing that we're working on next now, and which will hopefully be released later this year, is completely take all of the content from our Autodesk Developer Network and merge it into APS so that there will be one place to find everything development-related. Where you can expect us to go from there is to build out more use case-based tutorials-- so focusing on particular business problems that customers have brought to us and demonstrating how to execute those use case-based tutorials with code samples and other interactive tutorial elements and-- such as Postman Collections or things like the CodePen viewer examples that we brought out later this year-- or earlier this year.
Moving on, the other area of developer experience that we've invested in this year and that we continue to invest in next year are our software development kits. We see the-- building out these SDKs as a way to further speed up development, make it easier to build applications on top of the platform.
There's really two areas that I want to highlight right now. One are the APIs that we are prioritizing first for SDKs. You can see these here on the left. As we speak in September, these five areas are currently in public beta. And we anticipate that they will be released by AU so that you may expect a general availability announcement any day around AU.
And the second key point to highlight is that now that we are getting the first pass of SDKs in C#, we're going to next focus on bringing our SDKs related to those same APIs in Node.js. These are the two languages that-- the feedback that we've received from customers through our developer advocates team indicates these are the first two that we should work on.
And then coming next, or what are some of the things that we're focusing on for the near-term future after we release those batches of SDKs, is bringing out an SDK for ACC for tracking and managing and communicating of tasks. And this is something that we anticipate first half of 2024.
So that being said-- I'll say it here and I'll say it multiple times throughout the rest of this presentation-- this is where we're looking for your feedback. If there are other languages that you would like to see us prioritize that would be particularly helpful to you as you are building out on the platform, please let us know. And if there are particular APIs that you would like to see us prioritize in terms of our next batch of SDKs that we build out, please let us know that as well.
Right now, I'm going to hand the speaking over to my colleague, Vasini, to talk about the App Store.
VASINI GOVINDARAJAN: Thanks, Erica. I'm Vasini Govindarajan. I'm going to talk to you about the App Store and the roadmap for the App Store that we have. Once again, the safe harbor statements apply to the segment as well. I'm just going to jump in.
So Erica explained the developer experience and the journey. And the last step in there, if you noticed, was the distribute step. So you have built an app that solves a problem for your business. And maybe it can do the same thing for others. So what's next? Distribute your apps via the App Store. And let's talk about the App Store and the "how."
Autodesk App Store is the place to publish your apps to reach Autodesk customers. We provide the platform to connect the app publisher and the app user via a multi-sided marketplace. Autodesk, thereby, helps publishers expand their market reach while helping the app users unlock higher return on investments on Autodesk products.
The exchange between the app publisher and the app user leads to increased productivity and helps both parties achieve their business goals. Publishing apps on the Autodesk App Store is a strategic move that can bring developers' software solutions to the forefront of the design and the engineering world. You will gain access to Autodesk App Store's vast three million annual user base, enhance credibility, and tap into global markets. With the market reach monetization option and the dedicated team to support you, this is a significant opportunity for your app's success.
We at Autodesk are making continuous improvements to the App Store customer experience. Some examples of feature additions that we are aiming to make are the multi-user license management, which applies to enterprise customers, as well as large educational institutions that require license distribution, subscription management to help in-UI subscription renewals and cancellations for app consumers and app users, and in-product app discovery so you don't have to leave where you are working within the Autodesk product and be able to discover the world of apps and solutions that are available to you.
Some examples of developments that we want to make to the improve the app publisher experience are, within the web app publishing workflows, how you would create a web app and submit it to the App Store and how our customers can acquire these web apps, pricing options, something that publishers have talked to us a lot about, which is applying discounts and volume discounts and preferred user discounts that you can offer to your customers as developers, and, finally, app and usage insights dashboard, which is just knowing who are your users, how your apps are performing, and enhancements to that dashboard.
In the next slide, I will talk to you about the roadmap, just following the same structure here-- now, next, later. What we have already worked on and released and what's available to you so far is your ability to manage and monitor apps' performance. This new version of the app usage and insights dashboard is built to be stable and provide accuracy in data.
The same time last year at AU, I had the opportunity to meet with and talk to a number of publishers on the App Store, and even developers who are potential publishers on the App Store. And the one main thing-- theme that kept repeating was the need for data that is accurate and data about your app users that will help you build strategy around your product releases and planning for what apps you can build next. And that is definitely what has led me to prioritize this and the team to work on this and release this.
With this new dashboard, you can identify who's using your apps, monitor how your apps are performing. Just within the list of apps that you have published into the App Store, you can see a relative view of how each of your apps are performing against the others that you have produced.
And finally, we also released the ability for a user or developer that's on the developer portal to connect into the App Store. So if you navigate to aps.autodesk.com, from there you will see a menu for the App Store. And the dropdown from that menu will give you a-- one of the links is an overview of the App Store. So it tells you the breadth of users on the App Store, the number of apps that we have. And it also gives you some important resources that helps you connect to the App Store. And there are a number of links there that also help you directly link to the App Store's publishing process.
In progress, what we have right now is the improved web app publishing. The focus here-- and I also want to take a minute to talk about the why. The dominant apps on the App Store have been desktop apps. So we had a really robust system and workflows built for submission of desktop apps, review of desktop apps. With the increased interest from our customers for web apps and cloud-based apps, we are investing in improving the web app publishing process. And within this area is how apps get created.
So streamlined app listing creation-- and once it is created, this is something that we always have heard from our publishers. I have created my apps. I think I have hit Submit. But I don't see it in the review process. So we developed a dashboard that will help you review the status of all the apps that you have created. It shows you at a glance where your apps are-- if you have submitted it, if it is under review, if it has been published. And those are just some of the features that are-- that will be available soon.
From there, you can also create a clone for your apps and just edit some of the details to create a whole new app. And so that whole thing simplifies how a publisher can, within just a few clicks, create a whole new app listing.
And finally, the App Details page-- the App Details page is the window into your app for the app consumer. And we know that from our data that every-- on an average, a customer spends three minutes on the App Details page before they can move to the next step. So you have about three minutes from the time they enter into the App Store to convert them into somebody who is considering your app into somebody who wants to purchase or access the app. So this App Details page that we have developed does exactly that. It delivers on just highlighting the most important things to your customers and helping them make that decision to purchase.
Under consideration, coming up are some of more important and strategic things, like improving how search works within the App Store, multi-user license management, which I mentioned before, which is really helpful for large enterprises and educational institutions, app pricing and discounts, and, finally, extending distribution of apps beyond the App Store to in-product distribution and maybe other Autodesk properties as well.
So we are not going to be able to build it without you. Whoever is listening to it, we want your opinions and your involvement in building the App Store. So these are the four structured ways in which you can engage. The first one is the customer council. This can be a whole range of conversations we can have. And these will directly impact the high-level roadmap.
The Vanguard program-- these are-- again, it spans across the industry-related topics. It could be related to the product. And this is, again-- most all of these are by invitation only except for the beta program, which can be public in some cases.
The feature sponsorship is definitely one, as product manager, that I really like-- love engaging with our customers. Currently, as we work on building the next gen-- the web app workflows, we are working with a few of our feature sponsors, who work alongside with us right from requirements building until it goes into beta. And this has been a really exciting process for me.
And finally, the beta program, as I mentioned-- once something is built in increments, we will release it to beta. And we invite you to test and become a beta tester and contribute to the future of the App Store.
I want to say thanks to everybody that's attending this and choosing to spend your time with us. But if you would like to talk about a specific problem or an idea or just want to engage with us and say hello, here is more information on how you can connect with us.
I'm Vasini Govindarajan. I'm the product manager for the App Store. In this presentation earlier, you heard from Erica Beffert, who is the product manager for developer portal and the whole of the developer ecosystem. And Rahul is the product manager for the SDK. And if you want to connect specifically around SDKs, you would scan that QR code. And it directly leads you to the scheduler. And you can book some time with us. And we would love to chat more with you.
With that, I would like to say thanks, again, for spending this time with us. I know you could be anywhere. And I hope to hear from you. Thank you.