Porting an AI Damage-Assessment App to Android in Four Months
Challenge
HailMaster's AI engine had to run reliably on every Android device, without a dedicated QA process to catch what broke along the way.
HailMaster lived entirely on iOS, and SOFT EDGE needed it on Android to reach the full range of devices insurers and repair networks use in the field. The hard part was the AI, not the interface.
HailMaster's damage-detection model runs its computer-vision inference on-device, and Android's GPU layer (Vulkan) behaves inconsistently across phone vendors, putting the reliability the iOS version had already earned at risk. At the same time, SOFT EDGE's existing QA process was slower than it needed to be, requiring close manual attention to catch issues on every release, and the team needed engineers who could onboard fast enough to support product development without slowing it down.
Solution
We worked in two steps: an independent technical audit that defined the scope and its cost, delivered in late February 2025, then a fixed-price engagement to carry out the fixes, completed by the end of April. A small senior team delivered it: a WordPress developer with seven years on the platform, a DevOps engineer with twelve years of experience, plus QA and coordination.
- A technical audit that priced the work before it started. We reviewed the site configuration, the custom theme code, search, the glossary integration, translations, caching, security, and page speed, then delivered a defect list with effort estimates and a separate QA report. The client could approve a fixed budget knowing exactly what it covered.
- Glossary updates handed back to editors. We rebuilt the import so glossary entries publish directly from a Google Sheet. Legal and translation staff maintain EU-law terminology themselves, with no engineering in the loop.
- Search fixed. We corrected the broken AJAX request and the layering bug on the search field. Contextual search works across the portal again.
- Bilingual content repaired. We wrapped interface strings in gettext so they can be translated, closed the English-Ukrainian gaps, and fixed the filters on the media page.
- Security hardened. We sanitized POST and GET variables, added parameter placeholders to custom SQL queries, blocked PHP execution in the uploads folder, and enabled two-factor authentication with a login-attempt limit.
- An operational safety net. We updated WordPress core to 6.7.1 with plugins on a supported upgrade path, turned on automatic database backups, added caching, optimized images with explicit dimensions, and minified theme JS and CSS.
- A roadmap for what we did not touch. We recommended a pre-production environment with CI/CD so future WordPress and plugin updates never go straight to production, and a cross-device UI/UX audit. Complimentary functional testing during the project surfaced further defects, which we handed over as a documented list.
The tools and technologies we used were:
Results
For a fixed price and in under three months, the portal went from partly broken to fully working. We went the extra mile, so the client also came away with a documented list of further defects from the complimentary testing and a short improvement roadmap: staging with CI/CD, and a cross-device UX audit.
- Fast for the public sector. From audit to final fix took mid-February to the end of April 2025, procurement and approvals included.
- The portal works again. Editors can update terminology without a developer, search returns results, the English version is reliable for EU and international readers, and the site is better secured with 2FA, input sanitization, and automatic backups.
- A portal the Office can plan around. With a stable codebase, a written defect list, and a roadmap in hand, the Office can budget and schedule the portal's next stage itself instead of reacting to breakages.
Olena Ermolenko
Senior Communication Expert at Association4U
Implex updated our WordPress core and the current portal version successfully. The team was highly professional, responsive, and fully aligned with our needs. They suggested valuable solutions and went the extra mile to deliver the work on time, without asking for extra budget.