Dissatisfied with existing code review tools due to cumbersome procedures for requesting reviews

TRUSTBANK, Inc., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as Trust Bank) is a venture company that works to raise funds for local governments, promote local industries, promote tourism, and solve social problems, under the mission of "energizing communities and seniors through ICT." Enterprise. In June 2012, shortly after its establishment, the company established Japan's first Hometown tax comprehensive site "Furusato Choice" launched.

As of August 2019, more than 1,500 local governments can apply for Furusato Choice by actually visiting local governments, cooperating with local government officials, local businesses and producers, and discovering the local hidden charms. , More than 200,000 thank-you gifts listed, more than 12,000 ways to use donations, etc., and it has grown to become the No. 1 ^* site in Japan.

“Although hometown tax started in 2008, it was not well known, and the application method was not user-friendly, as the Company had to use a paper application form. We opened it and made it easy for anyone to start hometown tax.I think that encouraged the participation of local governments and led to its current popularity,” says Trust Bank Furusato Choice Business Headquarters Development Department Manager. Soichiro Kiyokawa.

While having local governments handle the shipping and development of thank-you gifts, the company has focused on developing services to improve matching with donors, and by speeding up the construction of the system that supports this, it has increased the number of local governments that can apply. could be collected widely. However, the issue was how to improve the work efficiency of the site where the service infrastructure was developed.

Therefore, the company introduced the company-wide software development platform "GitHub Enterprise" for enterprises and embarked on a drastic improvement in development efficiency.

“Previously, we used both an open source centralized version control system and a web-based code review tool in our development environment, but as our business expanded and the number of employees increased, the code review tool became The complaints that it was difficult to use began to increase.When I heard about it, many employees wanted to use GitHub,” says Keiichiro Takahashi, General Manager of the Trust Bank System Department.

The code review tool I was using at the time had a complicated procedure for requesting a source code review. It took time and effort, and it was a factor that hindered development productivity.

The man-hours that took 10 hours a month for review requests are almost zero with GitHub Enterprise Pull Request

Mr. Kiyokawa, who felt that the situation within the company was a challenge, proposed to management that they should adopt GitHub Enterprise, which has robust security, in place of the existing centralized version control system and code review tool.

Mr. Kiyokawa showed two major advantages. One is the reduction of man-hours when requesting reviews. According to a trial calculation, it takes about 5 to 10 minutes for each review request with the conventional code review tool, and if one person requests review three times a day, it takes about 10 hours of man-hours per month. had occurred. With GitHub Enterprise, the work can be completed with a single pull request button, so the time and effort could be almost zero.

The other is the modernization of the development environment. GitHub is already recognized as the de facto standard in the industry as a software development platform, so it is possible to maintain the motivation of new employees, and many engineers have experience using it, so new training costs are not incurred. There were also benefits.

These trial calculation effects were recognized in October 2016, and the official introduction was decided. Taking that opportunity, he used AWS for the first time and placed GitHub Enterprise there. Operation started in February 2017.

“Currently, all of the Company services, including Furusato Choice, are managed by GitHub Enterprise. I was completely devoted to that project, and GitHub Enterprise was fully utilized there as well,” recalls Mr. Kiyokawa.

The following five are the main effects of the introduction of GitHub Enterprise. The first is "cost reduction." As it became clear from the trial calculation before the introduction, in the past, one person used to spend an average of 10 hours a month on review request work, but with GitHub Enterprise, review requests can be made just by operating a pull request. Since it becomes possible, the number of man-hours and time is almost zero, and the cost is reduced accordingly.

The second is the realization of collaborative development. With the introduction of GitHub Enterprise, it has become possible to raise pull requests in small units, so if there is no problem with the request, it can be immediately merged into production, and if there is a problem, it can be passed to the next release. rice field. This improves the quality of communication and collaboration between developers. Rapid development and quality improvement were realized at the same time.

Everyone reviews code mainly on GitHub Enterprise, and communication between developers becomes lively

The third is the introduction of CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery). With the adoption of GitHub Enterprise, Trust Bank also introduced and linked Jenkins, a CI/CD tool, and adopted a method that automatically executes unit tests when code is pushed to GitHub Enterprise. In addition to not being able to merge files that have not been approved or tested, the developers themselves are now able to ascertain whether there are errors and correct them when they push, thus ensuring quality and improving release speed.

The fourth is "prevention of human error." In the past, all work such as review requests and merging was done manually, so there was a possibility of procedural errors. Just confirm and you're done. When pushed, unit tests are automatically run, and if there are no problems, the changed branch can be merged, so mistakes are less likely to occur.

The fifth is "utilization by non-developers". At the company, designers other than developers also use GitHub Enterprise to check differences in images. It is said that it is highly evaluated as being easy to use even for designers who do not write code.

Going forward, Trustbank plans to license more GitHub Enterprise as its workforce grows. Also, pay attention to the new functions introduced at the user conference. For example, they are considering using static code analysis tools that work with GitHub and two-factor authentication.

"I was the one who suggested the introduction of GitHub Enterprise, and I am glad I did so as I have seen various effects. I have no complaints with GitHub Enterprise's functions and have not had any problems, so Macnica 's support Although I don't use the service much, I feel that the regularly held user meetings and study sessions are very meaningful as I discover new things every time.I would like to continue to participate actively in the future.'' speaks.

Mr. Takahashi also said, ``Communication between developers has become more active, with everyone reviewing source code and improving their skills, mainly on GitHub Enterprise. GitHub Enterprise has excellent operability, so even inexperienced users can easily introduce it, and it will continue to be an indispensable development platform for the Company.”