InterSystems Seamlessly Engages 18,000 Developers Globally with Instruqt’s Hands-on Labs

Customer Overview

InterSystems, a creative data technology provider, delivers a unified foundation for next-generation applications for customers. Their mission is to ensure that people have reliable, real-time access to data for drawing insights and perceiving data in imaginative ways. The company’s approach revolves around a cloud-first data platform that integrates high-performance database management, smart data services, and analytics capabilities to unlock the power of data and drive innovation in enterprise-level data.

Founded in 1978, InterSystems delivers the healthcare data integration engine for the world’s most proven electronic medical record used by health systems and governments. The company serves customers from 37 global office locations, and their software is in use in over 80 countries worldwide.

Challenge

Dean Andrews, Head of Developer Relations at InterSystems, is responsible for a developer community of 18,000 members worldwide, as well as developer events like hackathons, meetups, and the company's startup program and venture fund. His primary goal was to find a streamlined, efficient way to provide developers hands-on access to InterSystems' powerful technology.

Previously, his team attempted to build an in-house solution for interactive tutorials. However, they encountered several issues: the solution was difficult to maintain, costly, and needed more scalability. They needed a more flexible and robust platform to quickly and effectively deliver hands-on experiences to developers, partners, and customers.

Solution

“Instruqt is useful for interactive tutorials where we are sharing specific use cases of our technology with our customers and partners and developers throughout the world. And we also use Instruqt to have that first moment of engagement with developers that are new to our technology as well.”  - Dean Andrews, Head of Developer Relations at InterSystems

InterSystems adopted Instruqt to deliver interactive tutorials highlighting specific use cases of its technology to developers, customers, and partners worldwide—both on-demand on its website and at live events. 

• Self-paced learning - InterSystems’ Developer Hub provides self-guided, on-demand interactive tutorials covering a wide range of technological offerings, from data interoperability to generative AI technology. This flexibility allows developers to access and learn content at their own pace and schedule.

• Live Events - In addition to online course offerings, the team at InterSystems leverages Instruqt’s browser-based platform at in-person events like conferences and hackathons to guide attendees through a particular scenario in a course-like, hands-on setting.

• Flexibility - Instruqt’s fundamental flexibility allows the team to deploy specific container environments, data sets, and preconfigured scenarios to guide developers through their technology.

Results

“The things that stood out about Instruqt that were very attractive to us was its fundamental flexibility.” - Dean Andrews, Head of Developer Relations at InterSystems

The integration of Instruqt into InterSystems' developer relations engagement strategy has produced positive outcomes for both team members and learners:

• Enhanced Engagement - Instruqt is the first moment of engagement with new developers, allowing them to quickly and easily experience the power of InterSystems technology.

• Improved Efficiency - By leveraging Instruqt, InterSystems was able to reduce the time and resources spent on maintaining and updating their homegrown interactive tutorial system.

• Engaging Events - At the InterSystems Global Summit 2024, Instruqt was used to showcase the new generative AI technology, Iris Vector Search, in a workshop setting. This workshop demonstrated the technology and educated developers on fundamental concepts of generative AI.

• Positive Feedback - Instruqt’s metrics and feedback mechanisms enabled continuous improvement of the tutorials, leading to high user satisfaction and valuable learning experiences for developers.

Outlook

InterSystems plans to continue expanding its use of Instruqt in multiple ways:

• On-Demand Tutorials: The company will keep adding interactive tutorials to its developer portal to showcase various aspects of its technology.

• Live Events - Instruqt will remain an integral tool at live events, providing guided, hands-on experiences demonstrating the ease and power of InterSystems technology.

• Pre-Event Engagement - Future plans include sending tutorials to developers before hackathon events, allowing participants to gain hands-on experience before the events.

“It's such a powerful way to show our customers and partners how easy InterSystems technology is to use.” - Dean Andrews, Head of Developer Relations at InterSystems

‍Check out the InterSystems Developer Hub here.