An email builder, rebuilt while its customers kept using it.
DynamicXX sells email templates, edited in its own drag-and-drop builder. We rebuilt the builder in stages, then rewrote it, from 2018 to 2021.
A builder customers pay for
DynamicXX makes email templates and sells them in bundles on online marketplaces. Its customers edit them in a drag-and-drop builder, then send them or export them to their email platform.
What it needed
The builder was already in use. It had to be rebuilt without stopping it, then given new features, then a new core.
What we did
We worked as the builder's engineering team for nearly three years: rebuilding it in stages, adding features in sprints, rewriting it, and supporting it after launch.
Four stages, one product in use
The dates come from the two projects' task lists; about 200 tasks in all.
Phase two, in weekly steps
The work began in October 2018 with a brief and a seven-week timeline. We rebuilt the sign-in pages, the templates page and the editors for text, backgrounds and buttons, then template editing, copying and preview.
A customer's templates, each one opened in the builder. View image full size 
The text editor and the modules a customer drags in. View image full size Sprints, then live
From February 2019 the work ran in sprints, each with a report. It added what customers paid for: exports to Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor, purchase codes for paid templates, bundles and premade modules. It went live in July 2019.
Template bundles in the admin, 2019. View image full size 
Premade modules, added in July 2019. View image full size 
The live sign-in page, August 2019, from the Web Archive. View image full size A builder that needs no special tags
Templates had to carry special tags before the builder could edit them. In October 2019 we began rewriting the builder so they need none. It went live on 24 January 2020, with everything moved across, server to server, from the old builder.
After launch
We stayed on to support it until July 2021: fixes to the editors, exports and test sends, new modules, and removing the old builder from its server.
A template exported from the builder, October 2020. View image full size